mikema63 wrote:The scientific method isn't applicable here, in science you can only change a single variable. Otherwise you cannot make conclusions based on the data.
There are so many variables that changed over time in the USSR, so many variances between their ideology from beginning to end of the nation, that you cannot conclude that the political ideology failed outright.
Early Soviet history was marked with state-instituted terror, secret police, and ideological betrayal (at least by Communist standards.) I won't even talk about Stalin, because Stalin's atrocities have been talked to death. The only time that the Soviet Union had some real progress, economically and socially, was under the rule of Khrushchev. Khrushchev worked hard to undo the damage Stalin had inflicted upon the psyche, advanced space travel, and strived to give some degree of pleasure and social mobility that Stalin's collective farms lacked.
Of course at the end of the day, the Soviet Union collapsed. In addition to that, the list of countries presently claiming to be Marxist-Leninist is dwarfed by the list of former Marxist-Leninist states. So I'd say, on the whole, Marxist-Leninism is far from a perfect ideology.
Before the hardline Communists start shaking their fists at me, I recognize my own ideology is flawed as well, so please refrain from calling me a dirty westerner.