The Soviets couldn't just liberate and leave because they would be leaving behind a fascist power structure that would never stop trying to find ways of destroying them.

Not true, the election was won by a socialist party, but didn't want to be under the control of USSR, USSR didn't like this, they wanted complete control of the government so they coup d'etat it.

But were they just an evil imperialist regime that made up lies and punished people for sheer control? No...

Maybe not imperialist by definition, I'm not a historian, but they did punish people and made up lies for sheer control. Example In Czechoslovakia thousands of people were executed or sent to prison for life for made up things. This same happened in Hungary, Poland and surely the whole USSR. This trials were publicized by the government to make them examples of what happens when you try to criticize the regime. And this is important and why I believe the Soviet era was as a whole not good. It was a very authoritarian centralized regime, where most criticism was banned. As I mentioned in my previous post, the 1968 invasion of CSK happened because we enabled independent journalism, free speech and free travel. There were peaceful protest brutally ended, because students wanted electricity and hot water in dormitories. Nothing fascist, just basic needs and the government responded by beating them up and arresting.

Religion was not banned in Czechoslovakia

It wasn't but all churches were owned by the state, not being used for anything religious and if you were publicly religious, you wouldn't get any job and then would be arrested for being unemployed.

I am curious as what you think about the travel ban. I mean if your borders have to look like this with guards and dogs that chased and often killed anyone trying to exit, I think there's something wrong.