If you talk to certain people in my country, they'll tell that neoliberalism has been a success because it lifted their standard of living. It doesn't make what they say generally true.
Lucky for you, your loved ones survived the shock therapy implemented from the 90s onwards. Then do a survey of the people who didn't survive. Or who had to leave. Or who were trafficked. Or who were bombed by NATO. Or whose shipyards and factories were asset stripped. Then speak to the people who lived under the Tsar or the Nazis or whoever else preceded the Soviets. Then find some people in Ukraine and Russia, who were comrades until the 90s, and ask them what it's been like in the slow, violent aftermath of letting the capitalists back in.
because none of them were capitalists, otherwise I’d not be talking to you as my grandparents or parents would be in Siberia, probably dead
Except if that followed logically, then who was it who took the post-Soviet states into capitalism? Not to mention that the fact that they survived leaves open the possibility that if they were 'capitalists' through that time, that 'capitalists' might not have probably died in Siberia.
Look, I'm not saying the USSR was perfect. I'm not saying I have a perfect understanding of the USSR. I'm saying you need to understand that whether it's explicit or subconscious, you are doing a class analysis by virtue of living in a class society. Most of your information is shaped by the ruling class, which controls the production and distribution of knowledge. It's the same for the people you're going to talk to. You can't escape it. The ruling ideas of the epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Individual anecdotes based on an insignificant sample size of respondents doesn't change anything.