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 Originally Posted by boost
This is all patently wrong. Millions of Russians died due to an avoidable famine caused by Stalin's enthusiasm for a misguided botanist who couldn't have reversed his position if he realized his error, because it wouldn't only mean his fall from the grace of the inner party, but likely his death. This was repeated over and over. Innovation was not stymied because of communism, it was squashed because there were megalomaniacs running the show, there was a culture of suspicion, and disagreeing with the states opinion on nearly anything meant a vacation in the gulag, if not death.
It was indeed doomed to failure at the time, you're 100% right. But that's because there was no possible way to transition from a system which dependent on vast bureaucracies and a powerful inner party.
For a further rebuttal, see #72
The famines were certainly tragic, but I'm not sure what the relevance is. Sovkhoz made up to 45% of USSR farming, and they did not do well. Stalin was a terrible guy, but he implemented some srsbsns communist reforms. But none of them worked well
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