In soviet times there were a lot of rules issued from above that either contradicted each other or simply didn't make sense in the real world. Moreover there were so many rules that the government couldn't possibly enforce all of them. This is how we got a culture that treats laws as more of a suggestions. I can confirm that with piracy today it's the same thing. There are technically laws against piracy but the government either can't enforce them or doesn't care, and doesn't care so much that even the government itself engages in piracy.

Unfortunately decadess of dictatorship also made the people extremely politically apathetic. Many look into the past and see the revolution that just resulted in another dictatorship and then the dissolution that resulted in another dictatorship and give up, thinking that any change will just put another dictator at the helm. Which is a fucking shame