Soviet sailors would anchor in European ports in the years after the revolution, and people would ask if they wanted to defect to the West. Why would we want to live outside the USSR they replied.
Actually, French and German authorities feared the ideas these sailors might put into the heads of their working class and tried to stifle them. Pictures like Battleship Potemkin were banned for similar reasons.
This started changing in the 1950s. China declared during the Sino-soviet split that the USSR had played itself out and the Chinese communist party was now at the vanguard of fast-moving change, and that seems to have been correct.
It was always possible that someone in the group of those sailors was affiliated with KGB, so nobody would ever say to the foreigners what they actually think. There would be also consequences for your family if one defects. In the end why would anyone leave your own country without having any prospects and social ties elsewhere. There were of course few naive people who managed to flee, but those were certainly not the stories with the happy end, once they realized that all these shiny bright colors were just empty shell that hides the ugliness of capitalism.
Actually, French and German authorities feared the ideas these sailors might put into the heads of their working class and tried to stifle them. Pictures like Battleship Potemkin were banned for similar reasons.
This started changing in the 1950s. China declared during the Sino-soviet split that the USSR had played itself out and the Chinese communist party was now at the vanguard of fast-moving change, and that seems to have been correct.