Okay I have some things that you have wrong:

The Soviets couldn’t just liberate and leave because they would be leaving behind a fascist power structure that would never stop trying to find ways of destroying them.

Not true, the election was won by a socialist party, but didn’t want to be under the control of USSR, USSR didn’t like this, they wanted complete control of the government so they coup d’etat it.

But were they just an evil imperialist regime that made up lies and punished people for sheer control? No…

Maybe not imperialist by definition, I’m not a historian, but they did punish people and made up lies for sheer control. Example In Czechoslovakia thousands of people were executed or sent to prison for life for made up things. This same happened in Hungary, Poland and surely the whole USSR. This trials were publicized by the government to make them examples of what happens when you try to criticize the regime. And this is important and why I believe the Soviet era was as a whole not good. It was a very authoritarian centralized regime, where most criticism was banned. As I mentioned in my previous post, the 1968 invasion of CSK happened because we enabled independent journalism, free speech and free travel. There were peaceful protest brutally ended, because students wanted electricity and hot water in dormitories. Nothing fascist, just basic needs and the government responded by beating them up and arresting.

Religion was not banned in Czechoslovakia

It wasn’t but all churches were owned by the state, not being used for anything religious and if you were publicly religious, you wouldn’t get any job and then would be arrested for being unemployed.

I am curious as what you think about the travel ban. I mean if your borders have to look like this with guards and dogs that chased and often killed anyone trying to exit, I think there’s something wrong.

This will be a quick reply, since I don’t have much time now. Your views are very interesting and new to me, could you provide some sources pls. Just ancorrection about CSK during the war. It broke apart, Czechia being under a brutal occupation and Slovakia having its own fascist government. In Slovakia it was really bad. First transports to Auschwitz were from Slovakia, we were proud about our race laws being stricter than Germany. But in 44 there was a uprising (note: the second largest uprising after the Warsaw). It was suppressed, but it’s important.

Note: whats sad is that the history they teach now pretends that Slovakian government did what they did to save us from occupation, but if you look at it a bit more, it’s obvious that it wasn’t forced, but voluntary. Also fascist artist from that era are still taught about without mentioning their ideology. (Yey capitalism /s)

Ok, so as I said a longer reply later today. I haven’t read your reply throughoutly sorry bout that.

I come from Slovakia and I have to disagree with your view that the USSR is awesome and hasn’t done almost nothing bad. After the war USSR in Czechoslovakia performed similarly imperialist things as USA did during it’s history. This includes falsifying election results, banning every party except the communist. It essentially took a before free country as it’s satellite. Source

Also in 1968 In CSK began an era of liberalization, that is lifting on travel ban, enabling free speech,… The USSR saw this as us distancing from them and invaded us with army. After this they changed our government and begun the strictest era of the regime. For example: You couldn’t consume ANY western culture, religion was banned. I have a friend, who illegally imported CS Lewis books, and spent time in prison for that. Source There’s an excellent movie on this called Waves (2024). I highly recommend it, cause it showcases more views on the invasion, like the soldiers, who thought that here was a fascist dictatorship.

There’s many details I haven’t mentioned but if you disagree I hope for meaningful conversation.

For the record, I am very much on the left and I think that both socialism and communism can work in the real world, but not like the USSR