Yeah, I think you should try this argument on a Ukranian sometime.[1] In this and other comments, you seem to be attributing all the achievements of the Soviet

Yeah, I think you should try this argument on a Ukranian sometime.[1] In this and other comments, you seem to be attributing all the achievements of the Soviet Union to their ideology. That's certainly a factor, but it's about as dumb as Americans claiming their nation is blessed by God with a special destiny. The Russians had just kicked out a severely anachronistic monarchy, so achieving progress was almost inevitable. And the Soviet Union had an empire of its own after World War II as well, and their centralized system was very good at capturing resources for a Moscow-centric elite. But I agree it's not black and white, either. Just as the USA sometimes lives up to its own ideals in an inspiring way, you could find examples of that in the history of the Soviet Union too. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor