So what if it was below world average? Would an American or European be pleased if someone said to them that their standard of living was above the world average? This seems to me to be a straw man argument.
I'm sorry if it appears so, but it's just that at different times, different aspects of your argument have been emphasized, which then appear confusing.
So to get back on track, initially GI Jim noted that there the Soviet economic model was not doomed to fail as has been popular contended. RousseauX noted that this popular contention is often based on Western standards, but that the Soviet standard of living was not going to reach US levels but was well above the global average. You then suggested that per capita income may not be that useful when dealing with a state dominated economy with not much left for consumers and that in any case the Russian people were comparing themselves against Eastern European and Western European standard and did not see themselves as economically successful.
Up to that point it was fairly cogent and could easily be followed.
However after that RousseauX noted in response to you that firstly, in a state dominated economy the money doesn't disappear but goes into things that maintain living standards (healthcare and housing for instance) and that in contrast consumerism isn't necessarily a good indicator of living standards. Secondly he noted that (in response to what you noted about the Russian people comparing themselves to other Europeans and their standard of living) and that as a result they didn't consider themselves economically successful that "The American people today don't see themselves as economically successful either, that's not necessarily indicative of anything".
Now relate that to what you just said above:
"So what if it was below world average? Would an American or European be pleased if someone said to them that their standard of living was above the world average? This seems to me to be a straw man argument."
You've essentially repeated RousseauX's point.
Certainly Americans and Europeans would not be pleased if someone said to them that their standard of living is above the world average. However as RousseauX noted, some Americans even
today don't see themselves as economically successful. And this despite the fact that overall a lot of Americans are well above the world average in terms of standards of living. However as he noted, that sentiment isn't indicative of anything in particular (though it may be indicative of a general human tendency to skew towards negative views about personal circumstances).
As RousseauX later noted, economic conditions in post-Soviet Russia slumped to terrible conditions (which is corroborated by the increase in infant mortality, declining birth rate, increasing death rate and lowering of life expectancy) during the Yeltsin era (such that things were even worse according to those measures than under Brezhnev, though thankfully there was more freedom of expression). Yet, this did not lead to Yeltsin being overthrown in a popular revolution, despite how weak the state had become. Thus reinforcing the point that whether people see themselves as economically successful or not isn't a particularly strong predictor for the survival of a government.
And indeed, the USSR collapsed following a failed coup against Gorbachev, which brought further instability to his government. It is highly debatable if the Ukrainian independence referendum would have even proceeded in December 1991 had the August 1991 coup not occurred (Ukraine's government might well have ratified the new union treaty if they figured it allowed sufficient local political control). Prior to the August 1991 coup the only SSRs to hold independence referenda were Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Georgia (all held in February/March 1991). After the August coup, Armenia held a referendum on independence in September, followed by Turkmenistan and then Ukraine in December. After
that the leaders of Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia met in secret and signed an agreement which declared the end of the USSR and invited the other republics to join in a loose Commonwealth. The USSR then officially ceased to exist by December 25, 1991. Only
after the USSR was already dead and buried for a few days did Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan hold their independence referenda (December 29th). To the best of my knowledge, no independence referenda were held in the other republics. Save for the Baltics and Caucasus, the dissolution of the USSR as a federation (as opposed to end of communist party power) was directed by the local elite in the republics and not by popular revolt (where popular protests varied widely from wanting democratization to wanting independence; only in the Baltics and some of the Caucasus were those two goals completely intertwined). The local elite used popular protests for democracy as a tool to gain the independence they desired but which was not necessarily the goal of the population. Something similar happened in Czechoslovakia, except there the politicians didn't even use (or have) popular protests as a tool (by the Czechoslovakia was already a democracy), but effected separation despite separation having only the support of just around a third of the population in both Czechia and Slovakia (according to a poll at the time).
So as both RousseauX and yourself have noted, what the people thought in terms of how economically successful or not they were wasn't particularly indicative of anything. That said, the living standards of the USSR had increased substantially through the 1945-1965 period.
But in response to RousseauX noting that in a state dominated economy like the USSR publicly provided healthcare and housing were used to maintain living standards and that even Americans do not necessarily view themselves as economically successful you refer to that article you referenced earlier in your post, wherein you said:
"If the economy or more importantly the living standards are going great then often there is little problem for the rulers staying in power, this is true in both democratic and non-democratic societies. This was clearly not the case in the USSR, the economy was going down and people standard of living was dropping. In such environments, downward mobility pushes people to the extremes. Demagogues who offer up outsider scapegoats rise because they have someone to blame for the problems. In the USSR because so much was the state, the state rules unlike in the West could not convincingly blame others eg the big multinationals. As the decline was long, starting from the 1970s
(a)
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5ba6/0d461c6035b54200524bca65b4a8a413ede0.pdf
and the state was seen as being the cause of the decline the complaints were turbocharged."
However the paper:
1. supports RousseauX's argument about healthcare as a measure of standard of living
2. suggests that overall people's standard of living was stagnating rather than declining, except in some regions (and decline in male life expectancy which was due to widespread alcoholism leading to earlier deaths and poorer health among males).
So this is where it gets confusing for me. Because living standards declined (very noticeably!) under Yeltsin, yet he had less trouble staying in power than Gorbachev.
In Yeltsin's Russia the privatization was incomplete (so there were still a lot of state domination of the economy) and when privatization was done, a lot of it ended up in the hands of robber-baronesque oligarchs who were very cozy with the state (and some were seen as essentially extensions of Yeltsin's circle).
Why then was Yeltsin not overthrown in a popular revolt that either aimed to restore communism (Zyuganov) or institute true democracy and market-liberalism (aimed at the oligarchs and forceful re-privatization that would have ended the power of the oligarchs)?