People are probably not feeling better under communism. But yes, the state of the world is just super depressing. We have zero good world leaders, and no future to look forward to.
Nah, I'm pretty sure people in China are feeling pretty good about their country's development:
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
I know two people who grew up in a kibbutz. One says it was the best time, one says it was the worst time. You can likely do the same for any form of government or economy.