Furthermore, the Soviet Union was a backward industrial country devastated by war and famine at its birth; it had just begun to grow when it was laid waste a second time in World War II. Obviously the relative merit of socialism and capitalism is not proven by choosing for comparison the richest capitalist country in the world, the one most advanced industrially and least affected by war’s devastation.

A fairer comparison would be the capitalism of Tsarist Russia with the socialism of the Soviet Union. Here every impartial observer agrees that socialism is far and away superior in every respect.

Similarly, a fairer comparison would be that between capitalist United States and a socialist United States.

In no other country are the material conditions so ripe for socialism. Nowhere could the change-over from capitalist insecurity, want, and war, to socialist security, abundance, and peace be made so speedily and with such a minimum of chaos and discomfort. Where other countries on the road to socialism must make great sacrifices to obtain the industrial plant, scientific and technical knowledge, ours is ready to hand. In other countries, as in the Soviet Union, the people must go without, temporarily, in order to create the capacity to produce abundance; in the United States the productive forces have been built—they need only to be liberated. That, capitalism cannot do, and socialism could.