Russia and Ukraine

[Anomalocaris]

Seriously, you think the upper leadership of the USSR gave two shits rubbed together about workers?

whether the upper leadership of the USSR ever gave two shits about workers had nothing to to do what so ever with the effects that the social threat posed by the notional promises of Marxist communism had on the behavior of capitalist through the 20th century. 

The false promises of a Soviet state nonetheless mitigated the worst abuses of much of the capitalist system during that period and beyond. It did so by making it credible that excessive capitalist abuse can lead to a social revolution that would be inspired by Marxist promises and be made practical by Soviet support and its alluring albeit false propagandistic example.

Now that Soviet Union is gone for some time and china ditched all pretense of communism but for the hammer and sickle that remains on its national crest,  there is no clear source of support that would make such a social revolution seem practical for the foreseeable future.    you can see the beginning of serious backsliding on issues of income equity and basic protection with the progress of the economic agenda of the right wing, particularly in the US.

Every system has a darker and more abusive side that has the potential to become very dark and abusive indeed.    

 If any system remain unchecked by the need to fend off the machinations of a erstwhile rival to expose the system’s darker and more abusive side in order to undermine the system, then those in power in that system will inevitably find it ever more expedient to allow those darker and more abusive potentials to be fully realized in order ease and secure their own rule.

In a hundred years one might see that fall of the communist antagonist is, in the long run, not near as big a boon for sustained freedom and wide based economic welfare as it might have first seemed in the heady days of 1991.