>All they did was start using technology and techniques already developed by the capitalist countries. All they did was make a century worth of capitalist prog

>All they did was start using technology and techniques already developed by the capitalist countries. All they did was make a century worth of capitalist progress in a couple of decades. As the many studies I linked above clearly show, the rate of development in USSR eclipses anything ever seen under capitalism. >The Soviet Bloc didn't spend a significant percentage of their GDP on the Iron Curtain for no reason. There wouldn't have been anyone left in East Berlin if the wall wasn't built. That's frankly nonsensical. The Soviet bloc was under an attack from the most powerful empire in the history of the world during its whole existence. That's what the Iron Curtain was built against. >The state of peoples' happiness tends to be a constant regardless of their economic status. You should go tell that to 30 million Americans who are food insecure today. >In any case, why do you think the Soviets jammed western TV signals? Soviet Russia could access BBC, Voice of America, German TV. Today Americans are not permitted to hear what Russians are saying. The US today has imposed constraints on access to info beyond Soviets. https://twitter.com/SizweLo/status/1550548521882947586 https://twitter.com/SizweLo/status/1550548521882947586 >People in the US don't worry about being sent to the gulag slave labor camps. US today has highest rate of incarceration in the world and holds 20% of world's prison population despite accounting for only 4% of overall population. This is higher rate of incarceration than USSR had even under Stalin! Modern US gulag system is far more horrific than anything USSR has ever done. Furthermore, US uses prisons as literal slave labour which is a large part of US economy. There are also volumes of books written on how US systemically imprisons minorities.