Sparta had 9 slaves for every citizen -- the U.S.S.R. too had very few elites who lived in luxury while everyone else toiled. For the Helots, Spartan society w

Sparta had 9 slaves for every citizen -- the U.S.S.R. too had very few elites who lived in luxury while everyone else toiled. For the Helots, Spartan society was quite egalitarian... Athens had slaves, but not remotely the same magnitude -- the U.S. had slaves for a few decades. Sparta utterly depended on slaves, but Athens depended on trade. The Peloponnesian war had cold periods, and the U.S. might still turn red -- we've not necessarily seen the end of that struggle. No, the parallels between Sparta/Athens and U.S.S.R./U.S. are a bit uncanny. Yes, there's a limit to how good a comparison can be across 2,300+ years, but it's not useless.