These are also pictures of Soviet citizens, and they don't portray constant doom and gloom like yours:
You must be registered to see the links
Pictures can show whatever you
want them to show. Just like not everything in the Soviet era was peaches and cream, so also was it not all vinegar and gall. There would have been happier times and there would have been sadder times. It was almost certainly a mixture of things, varied depending on the person, the location within the U.S.S.R., current events directly affecting those people, and many other factors. It's the same in Europe and the same in Canada and the United States. It's called being human.