Are you kidding! The Soviet Union and China are the two most successful economic growth stories ever.

The Soviet Union started with deep poverty and with 4 major countries attacking it (UK, US, France and Japan) followed by other invasions and yet in less than 50 years, the USSR became a world power. It was a great economic success story although at great human cost while the reason it broke apart has many complex reasons. A rough estimate of its economic growth in its first 50 years is 6% per year without the boom-bust cycles of a capitalist economy. That is something never achieved by a capitalist economy. Over the same period, the US grew at an average of 3 to 4% with boom years of up to 5 to 6% but negative growth during the Great Depression.

As for China, its average yearly growth in the last 40 years was between 8 to 10% and again with no ‘business cycle’ of boom and bust. It grew from an extremely poor country to the largest economy today, about 20% larger than the US now. More importantly, they lifted over 800 million people out of deep poverty.

You may criticize the former USSR and China on other grounds but in terms of economic prowess they are by far history’s greatest success stories with China being meteorically better than any present or past economy.