I wouldn’t go that far-- the USSR certainly churned through the elite of the German Army (largely by throwing bodies at it to slow it down and letting distance and time do their magic)-- but it’s pretty freaking convenient to ignore both the contributions of Western Allies and the complicity of the Soviets in the…

Seriously? Wow. Okay. I guess Stalin was actually a pretty great guy he just suffered from bad PR.

This. I’m not defending the various crimes of capitalism or denying that there were authoritarian states on both sides of the Iron curtain but seriously it’s not really possible to make a moral case for the USSR-- especially the USSR after say 1925 or so (they had a body count prior to that but nearly all revolutions…

Are you seriously arguing that millions weren’t killed in the Holodomor?

I mean after Hitler overstepped by invading the USSR, the Soviets didn’t have any issue working hand in hand with the Germans to partition Poland

Yeah the USSR was all about allowing the Czechs, Hungarians, etc to choose their own path.......

How was Soviet Foreign policy not an imperial one utilizing colonialism?

Wait.....are you really arguing that China and Russia aren’t (and weren’t) authoritarian?

To be fair to Hoover (who was almost hilariously hyper-successful pre-Presidency)-- I don’t think anyone could have done much to prevent the crash-- no one top to bottom was really prepared to take the actions FDR took until after the crisis had already hit. 

You know there was another political movement that thought an elite ruling class had appropriated the fruits of the people in 30s as well.

Huh...former serfs turned peasant farmers across Ukraine probably had a slightly different point of view in the 30s.

Minimizing and/or writing off the Holodomor is no better than minimizing or denying the Holocaust. 

Also-- East Germany really, really isn’t the cohort I’d use to make that argument.  Russians would probably get you the highest “it was better in the USSR” numbers but that’s also a bit misleading because they were the center of a vast Empire-- ask the same question in say Ukraine, or Georgia, or Poland and the answer…

Ehhhhhhh......would they though? Compared to their brethren in West Germany? 

How about the million plus Uighurs currently in internment camps in Western China, what’s their read on Chinese Authoritarianism? 

Not on that one- beyond just the millions of lives lost, you also have the fact that in practice the Soviet Union was just as imperialistic as the worst East India Company trader. 

Eh...the Senate is inherently flawed but high Presidential turnout levels in 2020 and 2018 turnout levels in 2022 would almost certainly shift the Senate blue-- the big issue in 2018 was the calendar and the seats up. 

I don’t understand, you mean like playing golf or holding a rally?

Interesting. Not in anyway morally justifying the horrors of communism but an interesting example how competition— even from an inferior opponent with substantially greater flaws can spur improvements nonetheless. 

You mean like the hard stance advocated by the author of the original piece?