Because I’m a fairly basic Chinese (Mandarin) learner, this gave me a moment of feeling dumb before realising it’s Cantonese.

Even picking up is a data point which will mean you’ll get more spam calls, unfortunately

But this is a good habit for when you’re expecting a call from a doctor’s office or something, I’ll be using it, many thanks!

You would not expect a government based on a set of self-serving antidemocratic bureaucrats to result in such benefits

Sure, there was genuine ideological reasons for the USSRs achievements, but you’re moving the goal-posts a bit. The original claim you were disputing was whether the USSR was authoritarian, which many people agree that it was.

There can be genuine and successful efforts to improve people’s lives under any system, including in the USSR.

What was imperialist about it?

• The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and occupation of Poland
• The Winter War against Finnland
• The East German uprising of 1953

are the first to come to my mind.

It would be a lot easier to defend the USSR if they only intervened to allow the proletariat to hold referendums, but we both know this is not what happened on many occasions.

It seems to me that Russia was continuing in the tradition Russian Empire, just under new management, and was definitely the first among “equals” in the USSR and its sphere of influence.

In my point of view calling yourself a socialist and not being able to criticise the blatantly anti-democratic and imperial power the USSR became is weird.

Socialism (in my view of it) necessarily requires democratic structures at work as well as government.

Despite the USSR’s positives (all countries have them) let’s not pretend like they had a good template we should emulate (on governance and voting, that is).

Without democracy, you’re basically hoping the people in charge are benevolent. But then when they’re inevitably not at some point, you have no way to peacefully remove them.

Next minute you’ll be telling me China is a democracy just because they elect people the the National People’s Congress. (Another country, with many positives, which is not a democracy).

And please do not confuse my criticism of notionally socialist states (China is definitely not), with implicit praise of the “democracy” in the United States, what they have is barely democracy.