How many Soviet republics were there?

Personally, what surprises me in this entire discussion is the fact that it mostly examines how poets, writers, officials, and the like lived. For some reason, few people speak (especially those criticizing the USSR) about how ordinary workers lived, how things stood in heavy industry and the defense sector, or ultimately, how people lived in villages and rural settlements. Everywhere I travel now, there is collapse, ruin, shells of factories, pig farms, cowsheds, and abandoned fields. People in the villages aren't living; they are surviving with practically no money on hand. Who is the primary breadwinner in a village family now? The pensioners, because the kolkhozes pay nothing, and not everyone can find work in the cities. You might say—let them engage in farming. But that requires starting capital, and with 2-3 thousand rubles in your pocket, what kind of farming can we be talking about?
Another thing often mentioned: they say that in the USSR, everything was for show, but isn't that exactly what happens now? A minister (I don't remember which one) visited the region; they took him to the only successful farm in the area, which is funded almost by Gazprom. And they bragged: look how well everything is here, rather than taking him to the neighboring kolkhoz, where two and a half tractors were left. Another example: not far from my city is the town of Zhukov—the birthplace of Marshal Zhukov. The road to this town was in a depressing state. As soon as it became known that some government delegation was visiting, the road was instantly paved with asphalt, but only up to the point where the delegation's final stop was. The road continues further to another city, but sometimes you lack enough swear words to drive twenty kilometers along it.
Regarding Moscow: Moscow is a city that contrasts very sharply with the provinces. And one cannot judge the state of Russia by looking at the state of Moscow.

Added after 15 minutes

Where did you get such figures? This is clearly a bad source :)
With the same confidence, I can say that 80% of people (and a historian told me this!) were innocent! You see, dear Alexei, data is a slippery thing, but several of my relatives became victims of repression—and that is a fact :(

Simply put, those who suffered under the USSR regime criticize it at every turn, while those who lived normally in the USSR note many good things about it. There is no escaping this subjectivism.