They were absolutely free, compared to the horrible brutality of prior systems and the vast expansions in democratization and social welfare.
As for the USSR, the 1930s famine was tragic, but was the last major famine outside of war time. After collectivization of agriculture, yields were greater and more stable, and the bourgeois kulak system was practically abolished. Adverse weather conditions, crop disease, and kulaks violently resisting collectivization were the causes of the famine, and replacing that system with a more effective one ended famine.
They were absolutely free, compared to the horrible brutality of prior systems and the vast expansions in democratization and social welfare.
As for the USSR, the 1930s famine was tragic, but was the last major famine outside of war time. After collectivization of agriculture, yields were greater and more stable, and the bourgeois kulak system was practically abolished. Adverse weather conditions, crop disease, and kulaks violently resisting collectivization were the causes of the famine, and replacing that system with a more effective one ended famine.