Equality was substantial. Sputnik, Dominating the Olympics, enormous gains in theoretical physics and mathematics, These folks were not just a bunch of fuckups. The damn space station is still up there. US doesn't have one, had to take the SU's. Dissidents is not the first principle of democracy.
Majority rule is the first principle of democracy, vulgarly put.
A majority of the totality , the whole group. The rights of individuals is the second tier of issues in evaluating democracy. Life was not so bad, even if it could have been better in many ways. The colllapse of that system is a very complicated matter. I shall not discuss that here and now.