[PaulHoule]

The Bolshevik revolution is a bad model and he has the facts wrong about it.

Specifically, the article is wrong that "The first thing the Red Army did was kill the czar and his family, to make it clear they weren’t kidding around."; the revolution was in October and the czar was killed on 16 July 2018. The fate of the czar was one of many decisions that weighed on Lenin at that time.

Also: "nothing got better in Russia for five decades" is not an accurate analysis. Lenin was a butcher; Stalin was worse. Lenin's wife started a school for librarians and the country went from backwater to a nuclear power in 1948, launched a satellite 10 years after that.

Given that Russia might not have survived the wars of the period and put up strong economic growth up until 1970 or so you have to give Stalin at least a "C" in retrospect. In the 1970s both the West and the Communist Bloc faced an economic crisis which the West weathered better.

[donavanm]

Re: getting better there were absolutely industrial and scientific advancements. But for the common man it was pretty grim for an entire generation. My recollection is the production & availability of food and basic goods (eg clothing, shoes) per person remained at or below 1910 levels through the 50s.

Personally saw a lot of parallels to the bolshevik/menshevik/socialist divide in recent US history.

PS: you have a typo of 2018 instead of 1918

[PaulHoule]

Yep. The history.com article said 1917 instead of 1918.