>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
>> We'll have to disagree on this one. There was a lot wrong with the
>> USSR, but it was a good try, especially at the beginning, and it kept
>> the U.S. in check. The world is, on balance, worse in its absence.
>>
>> Doug
>
>So you're a fan of tyranny with a socialist face?
I was afraid of starting something like this. People who take this position always forget several things, starting with Russian history, and then moving on to the unbroken hostility of the capitalist west. The alleged friends of liberal democracy helped create the repressive aspects of the USSR. One more thing you liberal democrats forget is that Stalin was quite popular. And yet another thing that slips your mind is how fucking hard it is to try to do economic development against the capitalist current - cut off from trade and technology. And they did a pretty good job of it for about 40-50 years, presiding over the only period in recorded history when the income gap between Russia & the west narrowed. They turned a society of mostly illiterate peasants into a sophisticated industrial one - who else has done that? I don't like gulags or secret police. But that's not the whole story.
Doug