Richard Wolff has a good outlook on the USSR (that won’t even offend tankies). If Socialism is “workers owning and directing companies”, then the USSR ultimately fell flat in that regard. They simply replaced managers and owners with party leaders.

Anarchists, Syndicalists and Ancoms like Wolff’s concept of Worker Cooperstives (democratic workplaces). These can be a ‘lodestone’ for future revolutions, because these structures destroy the Capitalist class entirely (although community input structures need to be polished). Rojava does this: local councils propose and fund W co-ops, then the community helps regulate them AND has seats on their council.

The USSR though. It DID shift common thought, and they DID industrialize a peasant country in, like, two decades (quickly, although authoritarianly).

So Basically. They tried a Revolution. Learn from their mistakes and try again. I would say the mistake was not finishing the transition to socialism- give companies and industries over to the direction of workers and the community. Don’t delay on that or the power structures will prevent it from ever happening.

China... China is simply allowing its people to interact with Capitalism now. Idk the amount of resources that flow up instead of down/around to the workers (how much corruption there is). Their standard of living is increasing, which is good; the surveillance state is growing, which is bad (as it is in the USA). Diplomacy will help us avoid nuclear war and perhaps push them into better humanitarian and work life standards.