Anti-imperialist explanations fail since Russia escaped heavier Muslim criticism

Evidence

If the hostility is directed against imperialism in that sense, why has it been so much stronger against Western Europe, which has relinquished all its Muslim possessions and dependencies, than against Russia, which still rules, with no light hand, over many millions of reluctant Muslim subjects and over ancient Muslim cities and countries? And why should it include the United States, which, apart from a brief interlude in the Muslim-minority area of the Philip­ pines, has never ruled any Muslim population? The last surviving European empire with Muslim subjects, that of the Soviet Union, far from being the target of criticism and attack, has been almost exempt. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1572

Categorization

• XREF: Directly qualifies Said-adjacent Orientalist claims: the target of hostility is not simply the colonizing West per se.
• QUESTION: Why did Soviet rule over Muslim populations draw so little fundamentalist denunciation while departed Western empires drew so much? Worth pressing.