<Folks seem to forget. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII, and from Poland to Stalingrad and Moscow a "scorched earth" war was fought. The Russians didn't leave anything when they retreated, and the Germans destroyed whatever the Russians overlooked.

Nice try, but that excuse doesn't work very well. A lot of places got ravaged by WWII. Hell, we NUKED Japan, a tiny nation with a fraction of the resources of the U.S.S.R. Those nations that adopted capitalist systems, or at least close approximations, went on to succeed and prosper. Like Japan. Those that adopted communism failed. Some, like Germany, were split in half with one going one way, and one the other. The perfect lab experiment, with obvious results.