To all replied here with "politics" as a reason. How do you explain the fact there are harsh policies in the ex-USSR countries, where no racism existed, no hippies, no minorities to put in jail, etc?
The communist regimes just banned anything which didn't adhere to the new man utopian concept. Blue jeans, males with long hair, narcotics, being gay, being unemployed etc. Alcohol wasn't banned for some reason, although Gorbatchev tried to limit alcohol use and failed.
No racism? In the early USSR, racism was state policy, with people being deported to Siberia or scattered around the USSR in order to dillute their culture. Ukraine was also subjected to genocide through famine, which killed 7-10M people.
