True, but this hatred has to be used effectively or it will amount to nothing. That's what happened with the SU, many, many people hated it, but they lacked the will of another bloody revolution, and there was no great opportunity to even overthrow Stalin.
When significant of population hate the system revolutions happens. This is not about using hatred effectively - the states just collapse because people will not do the biddings of the government. USSR indeed collapsed but 50 years later and not through hatred but through apathy of people.
The worst dictators always end up being the best to solidify their power.
No, they didn't. The problem with the worst dictators is that they are usually very popular amongst their subjects. It was the case with Hitler. It was the case with Napoleon. It was the case with Stalin. I think that this idea about "people hate dictators" comes from german post-war self-justification as "we did not do this willingly, Hitler forced us to do this". And this idea projected on other countries and people.
Thus, when the Germans launched Barbarossa, many people greeted them with open arms and even volunteered (many Russian units that volunteered only surrendered the day that Germany surrendered) because they thought the Germans would help them overthrow the Stalinist system.
If you look at what lands germans invaded first you will understand why people here greeted the germans as liberators. These lands wer Baltic states and western regions of Belorussia and Ukraine, which were only recently incorporated into the Soviet Union with significant amount of repression towards locals. So these people really did not like soviets very much. Western ukrainians for example used this opprotunity to almost completly cleanse their lands from jews and poles, so they hated not only soviets but just foreigners, aliens.
And no, very little of russian volounteer units fought to the end. Most of them (like infamous Russian Liberation Army (ROA) of general Vlasov) just run from the advancing soviets as fast as possible, looting and pillaging on the way. They attacked even their former masters in their attempt to surrender to americans. For example chief of staff of ROA was executed by czech partisans because of what his troops did outside of Prague. Volunteer cossack units were stationed in the Yugoslavia through all the war and were so reviled by the local populace so majority of them preferred the soviet court to yugoslavian one. Other similar units (like georgian volunteer troops) were used in the defense of Atlantic wall where they surrendered to the americans outright.
So if you look at the matter closely you will see that
practically no units formed from soviet citizens (excluding the various baltic SS formations) were used in the Eastern front in combat roles. Most of these volunteer formations were used in counter-partisan duties. Another fine example was a Kaminskiy's brigade. Its commander (Kaminskiy, soviet citizen but half-german half-pole by birth) alongside with majority of his staff was shot by
SS because of his
brutality during supression of Warsaw rebellion. It is a real accomplishment to be too brutal for the SS.
So these glorious fighters against bolshevik's yoke in fact were bunch of psychos, murderers and traitors which were
never considered by germans for possible combat roles.
This enthusiasm ended after only a few short days when the Wehrmacht and SS showed their true colors, which ultimately drove the people to the Soviets.
It is a myth. Soviets fought with determination right from the start. In fact combat reports of gemran units from the beginning of the war stated that there was a
very few prisoners taken at the start because soviet troops fought fiercly. Soviet units surrendered only after being encircled and cut off from others. And this is a not a small feat for an army of barely trained conscripts with serious shortage of officers.
