I didn't say that money = power is bad. I just said that under capitalism it's true.

And what I've always said is that capitalism is good, if it is restrained. Unrestrained capitalism results in, AT THE VERY BEST, Enron and WorldCom's.

There's nothing wrong with socialism, either, if there are allowances for capital.

And, communism seems to be working in China. One of the things about the former USSR that's misunderstood is the role of the various ethnic groups in the demise of the confederation. On a book about WWIII, a former British general and high official of NATO wrote of a nuclear exchange. Birmingham in England, and, maybe Smolensk or Sverdlosk were "traded".

What ended the war was the split of the Soviet Union due to racial divisions. As soon as the central government was diverted they split.

Another thing which is not understood about the Soviet Union is the devastation wrought by WW II. In their retreat the Soviets carried out a thorough scorched-earth policy all the way over to Stalingrad and up to Moscow. On their way out the Germans destroyed what was left. That's a huge chunk of property to have to rebuild.

And the Russians lost 20 million people. (A reality is that while the US is focussed upon it's efforts in Europe, the brunt of the war against Germany was carried by the Russians. And every Lend-Lease item used by the Russians was one tank or plane which didn't have to be operated by an American. It was a great deal.)

They came out of WW II seriously crippled, and didn't receive a Marshall Plan to help them. Their re-armament was primarily defensive. They were quite "adventurous", especially in Africa, but were mainly scared to death of WW III. WW II had been pretty hard on them.

Arf