Some did. Some didn’t. Many of the elderly in Russia pine for the days of the old Soviet Union.

We the People ??

I do agree, a corrupt government is not going to fix itself. The people do have to demand it. However, with respect to the comparison to the Soviet Union, we have to keep in mind:

In the Soviet Union, they had a strangle hold on information (a much better one than the MSM has today). All of the stuff we now know about what occurred there, was not common knowledge when it was happening. In fact, when you read some of their history, you'd be surprised that they actually tried to hide a lot of their atrocities. From how many atrocities they perpetrated, you'd think they had enough of a strangle hold on power that they could just do them out in the open, but that was not in fact the case most of the time.

Also, with respect to hating their corrupt and evil government, it's not clear that they even knew what exactly their government was responsible for, at least not at the begging. Eventually, things did start coming out and this was actually what some historians think was eventually responsible for the fall of the Soviet union (information contained in books such as 'The Gulag Archipelago' which were illegal in the Soviet Union at the time).

In most ways, we are in a better situation than the people of the Soviet union were. They could not necessarily count on the army. The army answered directly to the Communist party and that is where their allegiances were (even if it's not clear that they could count on individual soldiers to fire on their own people) (For reference: US army swears allegiance to America and the Constitution - not to any party). However, we are at 1 key disadvantage: Towards the end of the Soviet Union's time, most people knew that everything coming out of the state presses was propaganda. A lot of people in the US still trust the mainstream media without question, which is a problem.

Also, you have to keep in mind, when the Soviet Union fell, the army was not required (not to say that the US army can't be helpful in our current situation). All that was required was everyone to unify and start realizing that the system is rotten to the core and that they were not going to take it anymore. And keep in mind, this was repeated in all the Soviet Bloc countries as well, one by one.

Here we are also at a disadvantage when compared to that situation because:

1. American is not unified. Although it seems that Joe Biden is helping us to get there (because everyone seems to hate him more and more).
2. A lot of people still believe that the system works, even some real conservatives (not talking about the RINOs here). Progress is being made in that regards as well.

To conclude, the more people wake up, the closer we get to were we need to be to fix the system. Also, things are going our way. Regardless of how slowly, people are waking up, once awake, no one is falling back asleep, it is a one way street.