> See, that's what I don't buy. The communist system had a big economic
> crisis that had to get solved in both China and Russia. One way or
> another it would have. Or the system would have collapsed.
I think that's exactly what's *not* true. There was no collapse on the horizon in the USSR. It was a case of stagnation and slow decline. If deep economic problems automatically produce radical reform to revitalize the system, where's North Korea's Gorbachev? Their problems are a hundred times worse than the USSR's.
SA