Michael Parenti: Socialism DID Work!

If what right-wingers are saying about Socialism and Communism being 'failures' is even remotely true, then I seriously do not think for even a second that the Cold War would have played out the way that it did. Even though the Socialist experiments of the 20th century had very little at their disposal, due to a combination of inheriting dire material conditions from the previous societies and also facing hostile attacks from the Capitalist countries that were literally trying to crush them, they still managed to achieve so much for the working people of the world. For example, let's look at a Socialist country like the USSR, which had gone from being an agrarian semi-feudal backwater to an industrial and a nuclear superpower that rivalled the United States in a matter of decades. They prevailed over every last one of the imperialist powers that invaded them literally straight after the Bolsheviks led their revolution to overthrow Tsarism, they kicked the shit into the Nazis, they became pioneers in space exploration and a huge example for working people and the oppressed of the world of what wonders they can be achieve if they do one key thing: get rid of the parasites who rule over them and take control of their own destinies. So to put it into perspective for you, if Socialism and Communism are failures, then why are such powerful imperialist countries like the United States so afraid of it, to the point where they went as far as to drop napalm firestorms and agent orange toxins onto kids in Vietnam, or to throw sanctions at Cuba to try and destroy their economy, or to push the world into the horrors of nuclear warfare by implementing warmongering political and economic policies against the Soviet Union? I'll tell you why. It's because Socialism and the workers' control over the means of production represents such a threat to the Capitalist world that we have been taught from birth to fear the name Joseph Stalin who represented the death of the bourgeoisie's power over the workers. It's was because of the Soviet Union becoming powerful, and the rise of the Socialist camp of nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America during the 20th century that the Western countries began to shit themselves to the point where they handed workers concessions like the NHS in Britain and the social programs of Scandinavia in exchange for the preservation of the Capitalist framework, just so that the working class who are beaten down and are exploited by this very Capitalist framework don't start to look towards Socialism and Communism as the alternative.