The Iron Curtain was a real thing, as was the Berlin Wall. Successful social and economic systems do not need to execute their own citizens for attempting to escape.
By what metrics? Life expectancy rose during communism and fell afterwords. Are you seriously going to try and argue it was better during the Czarist times?
Russia lost nearly 2 decades of development post-WWI. And had a widespread hunger in 1930-s with 4-8 million people dead (we _still_ don't know the accurate number).
Even just looking at the industrial growth rates, the socialistic economy of the USSR was inferior to many capitalistic economies starting from the same base. E.g. South Korea or Japan.
You are willfully missing the point. You can’t compare Russia to South Korea to claim communism bad. Russia has and will screw up every system it tries. You need to compare communist Russia to capitalist Russia. There the comparison looks much less favorable.
Also your graph proves my point. The giant drop in life expectancy is when it transitioned from communism to capitalism.
> You are willfully missing the point. You can’t compare Russia to South Korea to claim communism bad.
Why? I absolutely can. DPRK vs South Korea is an even better example.
> Also your graph proves my point. The giant drop in life expectancy is when it transitioned from communism to capitalism.
Well, duh. And capitalism _swiftly_ outpaced the previous rate. As somebody who experienced Soviet dentistry and medicine first-hand, I'm not at all surprised.
Sure then I can compare China to Somalia to claim capitalism bad.
DPRK is a chinese buffer state run by a cult of personality where South Korea is a strategic allied US country. Like yes I too would take South Korea’s position? It has nothing to do with capitalism.
Did it? Doesn’t look too swift to me. Also why not compare Chinese life expectancy now to before communism? Looks pretty good.