Achievements of socialism

The ruling class which owns the corporate media regularly demonizes the notions of socialism and communism to serve their own profit-seeking interests. They promote the idea that "socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried." (without mentioning the fact that these failures are oftentimes brought about through CIA coups)

In addition to raising the basic living conditions of citizens, socialist states have also produced valuable advances in the fields of science and technology, debunking the false claims that socialism cannot produce innovation.

USSR

The broad masses of pre-revolutionary Russia were deeply poor and lacked basic necessities, while only the upper class had access to education and healthcare. Under the rule of the CPSU, the USSR increased living standards faster than any previous country in history and worked relentlessly to combat racism, sexism, and national oppression.

Following the establishment of the USSR, the following rights were introduced to all citizens:

• The right to eight-hour work day.
• The right to annual paid leave.
• The right to three-year maternity leave.
• The right to free general and professional education, including higher education.
• The right to free health care.
• The right to use nurseries, kindergartens, summer camps — free of charge.
• The right to free sanatorium-and-spa treatment.
• The right to free housing.
• Equal rights for women.

Many of these rights forced Western bourgeois countries to adopt similar policies to stave off the risk of a proletarian revolution.

Living standards

Housing and basic food were subsidized in the USSR. Rent took up only 2–3% of a family's income and utilities only 4–5%. All citizens had the right to free education in arts and sciences.

Economic development

Industrial production in Russia increased 151 times from 1913 to 1984 and 17 times from 1940 to 1984. It increased by more than 200 times in Kazakhstan and over 300 times in Kyrgyzstan since the First World War. In 50 years, industrial production rose from 12% to 80% of the U.S. amount and agricultural production rose to 85% of the U.S. level. The wealthiest people in the USSR earned only 10 times as much as the poorest, while corporate executives in the U.S. made hundreds of times more than their employees.

Space Race

Chart of "firsts" achieved by the participants in the space race, illustrating the US propaganda's attempt to paint the US as the winner of the space race.

During the Space Race between the two cold war superpowers, the USSR and the USA, the USSR achieved many great leaps before the US did.

• First artificial satellite - Sputnik 1
• First animal in space - Laika
• First photographs of the far side of the moon - Luna 3
• First person in space - Yuri Gagarin
• First woman in space - Valentina Tereshkova
• First spacewalk - Alexei Leonov
• First spacecraft landing on the moon - Luna 9
• First spacecraft landing on another planet (Venus) - Venera 7
• First space station - Salyut 1
• First spacecraft landing on Mars - Mars 3

Notable technologies invented

The following are technologies not already listed in the space race section above

• Life support machine called the Autojektor, invented in 1926.
• Human anthrax vaccine in 1930, predated by a French invention of an anthrax vaccine for animals.
• Artificial heart in 1937
• Mobile phone in 1957 (20 years before Motorola, the first non-Soviet mobile phone producer)

China

At the beginning of the 20th century, China was deeply impoverished due to external colonization and internal feudal relations which held back economic development. During this period, China was referred to as the "sick man of Asia."

When the Communist Party of China came to power in 1949, its leaders' fundamental long-range goals were to transform China into a modern, powerful, socialist nation. In economic terms these objectives meant industrialization, improvement of living standards, narrowing of income differences, and production of modern military equipment. The immense economic rise of China in the 21st century is, according to the Communist Party of China, the result of the application of Marxist theory to the material conditions of China.

At the time of the Chinese revolution, a fifth of land was devoted to opium production. The CPC eliminated drug addiction within two years of coming to power.

End of warlordism

By 1952, the CPC cleared mainland China of bandits and warlords.

Economic development

Between 1950 and 1952, agricultural production increased by 15% and the economy grew by an average of 25% every year. Heavy industry increased by 30 times between 1952 and 1979. Rural consumption of electricity increased by 71 times up to 1965. Since 1978, the Chinese economy has grown an additional 37 times with an average growth rate of 9.5%.

Living standards

Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, China's life expectancy rose from 38 to 68 years. It continued to increase after Mao's death and surpassed the U.S. to reach 78.2 years by 2022.

In 1949, less than 20% of China's population was illiterate. Adult literacy rose to 57% by 1959 and now stands at 99.8% while the U.S. only has a literacy rate of 79%.

Poverty alleviation

In the past 40 years, China has lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty, accounting for three-quarters of global poverty reduction.

Latin America

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua, under the socialist Sandinista government, has diversified away from colonial-era cash crops and monocultures, delivered sustained economic growth, poverty alleviation.

Cuba

• Despite the US blockade, Cuba is still able to boast having the highest quality healthcare system for its national income range.
• Cuba has a far higher standard of living than most of its neighbors, according to the very CIA which has plotted to destroy the communist Cuban government countless times.

See also

• Failures of capitalism