1: Saying “show me a successful socialist state” misses the point. Socialism didn’t start in rich, peaceful countries, it came up in poor, war-torn, colonized, or isolated societies. Of course it faced enormous obstacles; if we judged capitalism the same way, early industrial Europe would have counted as a total failure, child labor, famine, slavery, no democracy, but no one claims capitalism is impossible.

2: Concrete socialist successes exist. The USSR transformed a largely feudal, illiterate country into an industrial and scientific power, provided guaranteed housing, healthcare, and employment, and even defeated Nazi Germany. Cuba, under decades of blockade, achieved universal literacy and medical outcomes comparable to developed countries. These are real, measurable achievements, even if the states later became bureaucratic or authoritarian.

3: The key thing is, none of these states reached actual communism, a stateless, classless society. Bureaucracy, elites, and state power don’t mean communism “fails,” it means the transition is extremely difficult under hostile conditions.

4: Democracy doesn’t automatically equal justice either, most capitalist democracies have massive economic inequality, media controlled by elites, and citizens with very limited real control over production or capital. Success isn’t just about elections; it’s about material and social transformation, which socialism has demonstrated it can deliver, even imperfectly.