It depends on your point of reference. If that reference is a pie-in-the sky utopia, then yes, the USSR was a monstrously deformed entity, but by that standard anything that exists on Earth would be deformed to a significant extent, as Plato aptly observed over 2000 years ago.
But if your reference is realpolitik - then the USSR put some serious break on the imperial ambitions of the US ruling class, which was not a bad thing. However, it did so not out of the goodness of its heart or to pursue a higher goal, but out of their own selfish interests.
This gets us the crux of the matter. Good things happen not because of the good intentions of people who implement them, but when interaction among these people makes bad things less desirable or more difficult to attain than good things. Thus, individual actors pursuing their own self-interest may nonetheless contribute to the creation of a greater good. Adam Smith and his free market followers grasp that principle or are least pretend so if it suits their interests, but lefties still have problems with comprehending it and keep looking for a few good true believers that will build their utopia here on Earth.
This, btw, may help explaining why free marketers captured the popular imagination while the left remains intellectually and politically irrelevant.
Wojtek