Quote Originally Posted by Rahul
Quote Originally Posted by z80
What would a system that has the economic purity of a socialist state, and the individual freedoms that democracy claims to have? hmmm.
Ahh yes, the same freedom that gets you killed for speaking against your leader.
Like Martin Luther King, for example?

The same freedom that forbids you from selling your own products.
What kind of "products" do you mean? Agricultural and minor industrial cooperatives perfectly existed in USSR, and were able to sell own production.

The same economic purity that led Russians to buy illegally imported bubble gum and jeans for hundreds of dollars.

This is the most funny thing I read in this forum for all time. Really.
If these poor russian were able to spend *hundreds of dollars* (for jeans and bubble gum), they were millionaires, aren't they?!

What benefits were there to the average man in the USSR? Sure they had jobs but those jobs payed them chicken feed.
But, strangely, in USSR, as opposite to modern "independent" states, nobody was hugry, thirsty or homeless.

Why did Lenin have to revert back to capitalism to let the economy recover?
If you're about NEP (New Economic Policy), it was a reasonable hybrid between capitalism and socialism, which really worked.

Why did people have to be forced in to prevent mass emigration?
How they were "forced"?
Beginning from 70's, emigration from USSR wasn't big problem for almost anyone. Millions emigrated.
BTW, after seeing a *real* western life for a couple of months, many came to soviet embassies around the world, pleading they want to return. But very few were allowed back (and this is right, IMHO).

I don't recall protesters getting shot in the streets and their families mysteriously disappearing here in the West.
Can't recall Los Angeles massacre in April 1992?

Its because the economic infrastructure left by Communism was so inefficient and crippled and useless that sooner or later, it had to bite back.
Almost all people, who are rich in modern Russia, must thank "inefficient, crippled and useless economic infrastructure left by communism" for that. Oh, and thay also must not forget to thank handful of venal "reformers", which helped them to seize and steal the people's property.