Yes the middle class liberals and some workers viewed republicanism aspirationally but most of the peasents and serfs didn’t. During the French revolution a lot of the peasents resented the republicans in Paris, mostly for religious reasons, shown most clearly in the war in the Vendée. Even after the revolution they were against republicanism. They did like the nationalism of the revolution though. This can be seen in first mass election for president in 1848, Louis Napoleon won by a landslide in the countryside off nationalist fervor with little respect for the republic he would soon overthrow. Even after he failed spectacularly and lost the country the first election after he was ousted saw a majority of conservatives and cryptomonarchists elected. Republicanism didn’t lose its reign of terror association in the countryside until the late 1800s.
With regards to those who suffered it was, like in the reign of terror, mostly political dissidents. Don’t get me wrong they did suffer by the guillotine and the gulag, but your average worker by the 1960s had a middling quality of life. The poor especially had better economic security then they do now. Most of the resentment for the Soviet Union was built up on nationalist and anti-imperial lines. Communism came to represent the Russian imperial apparatus that stood over them. Much like republicanism came to be associated with the French empire during it’s domination over Europe. This is why you see a majority of Russians having favorable views of communism, because taking away the nationalist aspiration the only other upside to the post soviet system was the lack of political repression and quality of life improvements, both of which were promised by capitalism but were never fully realized for the average person.
It’s hard to remove the idea from the foreign power trying to force it on you, but not impossible. It’s just a matter normalizing the term and asserting it’s true meaning, separate from the foreign power that tried to use it as a means for imperialism.