Lazs, I 've never told that socialism is good. If you take a look into my first postings in this thread you will see that I support Gorbachev's actions, and I am among Russians who don't want back to socialism. And in this I desagree with Boroda.
But reasons why I think so are absolutely different from what are you writing here. Believe me, not because of KGB or "freedom of speech" or any BS like that.
Your arguments and comments about the USSR look really stupid, sorry. Clever man woudn't discuss or insist on subject which he has no idea about.
KGB was nothing more than CIA and FBI in one. Any state on this planet has its own intellegence service, and you hate KGB becase it was very effective, like Mossad. Actually, any citizen in the USSR would be more than happy to help KGB if he would ask, because we are all patriots of our country. Yes, there was one department which worked with "dissidents", and this department wasn't much popular among common people. But, for the first time, it worked not very effective otherwise you would never know about even existing of dissidents in the USSR. Second, there were hundred dissidents in the country with 250 millions population, so it wasn't very busy. And last - MI5, for example, is working against terrorists, and some of them as we know now are British citizens. Dissidents were the threat to the state, exactly like terrorists. Do you understand what I want to say?
China is communist country, but its economy is growing up very rapidly. Yes, it is still poor country , but it won't be so in 5-10 years. It means that there is a way to build effective economics under the Communist rule. And BTW, nobody told that co-existing of market economy and socialism is impossible. Actually, it is what China is trying to do right now.
You are talking about normal income of the people... But Mexico, Caribbean (excl. Cuba), South America, Malasia, India, etc... are all capitalist countries. But standards of living in that countries much low than it was in the USSR. Hope, you have been on Caribbean on your vacations and know what I am talking about.
So, may be the problem is not in the type of society but the level of country development? And we should compare not the existing level because everybody had different start point but the speed of grouth? Socialism showed unbelievable results there when in few years restored devastated country and got military parity with the most powerful country in the world.
So, once again. I don't want back to the socialism. But the reasons why I don't want are absolutelly different from what are you talking about. And I can't explain my reasons to you because you won't understand. Actually, you don't want to understand. You want to prove something to me. And this is funny.