Quite right .............agreed.

I did know and had not forgotten that the Nazis and Soviet Russia signed as non aggression pact............. nor am I unaware that the Nazi's... pre 1939...... trained thier army, airforce etc on Soviet territory were they could not be observed by the rest of the world.

Hence the use of the term "ironic".......... You and I are here today because two thieves fell out.

My main point... as you are well aware..........and avoid addressing.......... is that what they did achieve...........NOT as "Free market........" etc. etc.." ....... but as what they were, Godless communists, is easily a match for what the rest of us, have achieved living under "Free market"..etc, etc. conditions over the same period.

Difference is............ they started from a fuedal serf base..........., they lost fifty million of thier population.........had thousands of thier best and most advanced cities and towns destroyed........ then faced sustained hostility from the far richer free west.......and still got into space first.

Would we, given the same starting conditions have achieved as much? And if you think so can you point to any capitilist free market society that even remotely started under such disadvantages, yet got so far?

By the way, although you may think it........and although I may at times sound like it.... I am niether a communist nor a marxist.........I'm a democrat.......... (Though not in the US party poltical sense)

That is, someone who believes that the important forces acting within and between nations should be subject to close scrutiny by a public who can vote out anyone or any organisation who are seen to be abuseing or misuseing, in ways that damage the publics long term interest, the powers they have.

We are a long, long way from that position.