I was born in the mid '80s (in Canada) and have often wondered what every day life was like in the Soviet Union during the mid/late '80s up until the collapse. Was the general populace unhappy with their way of life? Was the general populace really 'poor' by today's developed world standards, or is this just the propaganda that we in the west have been taught since the 'Communist scare' and has just carried over to modern times? I know a person who grew up in East Germany and he told me that East Berlin was the best place to live because it was the showcase of the best that Socialism had to offer. Is this also correct? The older I get and the more I study it becomes more obvious that history is written by the victors; I can't help but wonder how 'bad' the Soviet Union and its satellite states really were.
Not to discourage further discussion, but you might be interested in a few answers I've written on the subject:
This answer about living standards in general in the USSR and Eastern Bloc. One thing I will raise up from that answer is that in general Eastern European countries did have higher standards of living than the USSR itself (which is fairly unique as far as imperial systems go), but much of this was because of longer-term historic trends than just, say, East Berlin being an international showcase.
This answer that talks a bit to how the economy in the USSR unraveled during the Gorbachev era - it's worth noting that from about 1987 onwards, the verities of Soviet society and its economy (and ultimately its politics) began to unravel at an increasing pace. The late 1980s to 1991 was a very different period from what came even just a few years before.
As I discuss in this answer a major difference between the USSR and Eastern Bloc countries in the 1980s is that until 1986 the USSR was able to maintain its economy through favorable oil prices. In contrast, the Eastern European countries had propped up their standards of living by borrowing heavily from Western sources in the 1970s, and by the 1980s they were facing a credit crisis and strong austerity measures, in many ways similar to the types of economic woes facing Latin American countries at the time. Romania in particular was able to pay off its debts, but through the Ceausecu regime enforcing drastic austerity and massive fall in living standards.
Regarding nostalgia for the Soviet/communist era (which in East Germany is known as Ostalgie) - I'll note that it really varies a lot depending on the country, the age of the people surveyed, and even the time that they were asked. As a Pew survey notes, a majority of people in, say Ukraine, were optimistic about multiparty democracy and market capitalism in 1991, and the 1990s pretty much wiped this out. Large numbers of Russians over that same time went from disavowing the country's imperial/Soviet legacy to embracing it. Other countries have very different reactions based on their history. I mention this because often what this nostalgia is looking at is the late 1960s through 1980s, a period of relative stability (that during the Gorbachev era was known as the "Era of Stagnation") compared to what followed in the 1990s.
" it becomes more obvious that history is written by the victors"
In general, don't believe this truism. There are lots of examples where this isn't true, and in the case of Soviet history I don't really think it applies. I talk a bit more about this in an answer I wrote on Soviet historiography.