The Soviet Union was one of the darkest episodes in human history. It lasted for 70 years and was one of the most oppressive, authoritarian, totalitarian and murderous ideologies that have ever existed (the number of murders committed by the Soviet regime in peace time is estimated to be somewhere between 50 and 100 million people, mostly political prisoners, a number that absolutely dwarfs the Nazi Holocaust. Perhaps the only difference between the two is that the Soviets committed those murders in the span of 70 years, while the Nazis committed their murders in less than 5, which made the latter much more and horrendously "industrialized".)
Yet, even people who fully know, understand and acknowledge this fact, and genuinely consider the Soviet Union to be one of the most horrendous things that ever happened to humanity, never ever to be repeated again, usually don't have much problem in at least having a rational and reasonable discussion and relatively neutral attitude towards the idea that, putting aside those horrible massacres and all the abuse, there are arguably things about the Soviet Union that one can admire and, in a way, perhaps even be a bit nostalgic about. (The concept of "Soviet nostalgia" is actually a thing.)
Overlooking the oppression, abuse and poverty that its people had to suffer, there was (and still is) a certain aesthetic to the Soviet Union that one can admire: The architecture, the murals, the propaganda posters, the huge inspirational statues, the music (very much including the Soviet National Anthem). Even the language in this context. There's just something visually and aesthetically that says "Soviet". In fact, this kind of "Soviet style", the aesthetics, the visuals, are actively being used in many works of fiction, like in several video games (like for example Red Matter 2). There's just something so distinctive, unique and brutalist about it that it gives a certain ambience and mood to eg. a video game.
As much as one abhors the Soviet Union and its crimes against humanity, it's still possible to separate that from the aesthetics and the less objectionable parts of the Soviet culture. It's possible to isolate the good parts, or at least those distinctive parts, from the bad, and use and admire them in isolation. And the uses of that aesthetic don't need to be in a negative setting or negative connotations.
Yet, for some reason, the same just cannot be done with the aesthetics of the Nazi regime.
You are allowed to say that you admire the Soviet aesthetics, architecture and art, separating it from the crimes against humanity, and you can even say that you like and admire that aesthetic, and nobody bats and eye. But say that same thing about Nazi aesthetics and suddenly you have broken a taboo. You are not allowed to say such a thing!
After the Nazi regime was defeated, not only was there a complete and total physical purge of everything Nazi (even every single street that was named by the Nazis was renamed, no matter how innocent and innocuous the original name might have been, just as a matter of principle), but it was strongly and deeply inculcated into the public consciousness that you are not even allowed to speak of and much less admire anything Nazi-related. (Indeed, this, too, was an actual active social engineering campaign that went for decades, not just in Germany but in many other places as well.)
To be fair, the "Nazi aesthetics" are not absolutely banned, but they are pretty much exclusively allowed to exist only to depict evil totalitarian regimes (perhaps the most famous example of this is the Galactic Empire in the Star Wars universe.) You are absolutely not allowed to depict any of this aesthetic in a positive way, nor to admire it.
That's in quite a contrast with Soviet aesthetics.
Why is there such a difference? The Soviet Union was as bad as, if not even worse, than the Nazi regime. Both should be regarded in equal amounts of contempt, and if something is allowed for one thing it should be equally allowed for the other.
Of course the answer is that there was never any sort of "purge" of everything Soviet. There was no destruction of all Soviet architecture, all Soviet buildings, all Soviet statues, all Soviet names, all Soviet achievements and memorabilia. And there was no large-scale decades-long social engineering campaign to make the Soviet Union a taboo.
That's the difference.
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