Authoritarian welfare states at best, with none of the political structures that would have represented democratic control over the means of distribution, distribution and exchange by the working class. Instead, nationalization of the MOP, by a State-Party Apparatus that had congealed into a new Ruling Class, with all the economic and social privileges that our Rulers grab for themselves and their families. ^^^^^ CB: What about no unemployment, jobs for women, peoples courts, free healthcare and college education for all, free childcare for all at work, legalized abortion, anti-racist laws, most rapid industrialization in the history of modern industrial civilization, coal miners paid the highest of all categories of occupation , support for national liberation movements around the world, Sputnik, et al. in the SU ? Rapid modernization et al in China ? Cuba's healthcare, education, committees for the defense of the rev., etc. ? Etc. ? ^^^^^^^ ---
Everybody I know over 35 in Russia says that life in the Soviet Union kicked ass. You didn't really have to work, everything was taken care of for you, your children were guaranteed a good future. People believed in the future then; nobody believes in the future now.
Hoidy-toidy anti-Soviet Western leftists really tick me off.