I’m not trying to be mean here, but I really don’t care about anecdotes. When I say that the Soviet economy was strong and maintained some of the highest rates of growth in the world all while having a lower disparity, it’s because I’ve done the reading and research to see that. A quick article like *Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowans, or a full book like Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union by Albert Syzmanski or Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti all do a far better job than anecdotes at seeing what conditions were actually like systemically.

From the moment in 1928 that the Soviet economy became publicly owned and planned, to the point in 1989 that the economy was pushed in a free market direction, Soviet GDP per capita growth exceeded that of all other countries but Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. GDP per person grew by a factor of 5.2, compared to 4.0 for Western Europe and 3.3 for the Western European offshoots (the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) (Allen, 2003). In other words, over the period in which its publicly owned, planned economy was in place, the USSR‘s record in raising incomes was better than that of the major industrialized capitalist countries. The Soviet Union’s robust growth over this period is all the more impressive considering that the period includes the war years when a major assault by Nazi Germany left a trail of utter destruction in its wake. The German invaders destroyed over 1,500 cities and towns, along with 70,000 villages, 31,000 factories, and nearly 100 million head of livestock (Leffler, 1994). Growth was highest to 1970, at which point expansion of the Soviet economy began to slow. However, even during this so-called (and misnamed) post-1970 period of stagnation, GDP per capita grew 27 percent (Allen, 2003).

I’m also not saying the Soviet Union was perfect. There indeed were issues with black markets, misplanning, etc, but they didn’t outweigh the dramatic benefits the system provided. It’s no wonder that the majority of people who lived through the Soviet system wish it had remained. With the reintroduction of capitalism in the 90s, an estimated 7 million people died due to a loss in safety nets and a dramatic increase in poverty around the world.

The achievements of the USSR and its failings need to be contextualized in the fact that, unlike western countries, the USSR was a developing country. With it, however, came around the developed world a mass expansion in safety nets in order to provide what the USSR was already providing for its people. With the fall of the USSR, wealth disparity around the world began to climb more rapidly than ever:

As for the PRC, “Socialist Market Economy” is the official term for its economy. The fact that you admit to never hearing that term before means you haven’t actually done much research into it. State Capitalism refers to countries where private ownership is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries, but with strong state influence, like Bismark’s Germany, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore. In the PRC, it’s public property that governs the large firms and key industries.

The system overall is called Socialism With Chinese Characteristics, or SWCC. Here’s a study guide for it, in more depth. The key takeaway is that private property and markets existed in Mao’s era, in the USSR, etc, the modern PRC isn’t very different from those in terms of where the balance of power lies. Trying to plan all of the small, underdeveloped industry can often slow growth, while planning and controlling the large firms and key industries is not only more effective economically, also retains proletarian control over the economy. As the small and medium firms are developed through market forces, they can be better intrgrated into central planning and have their property gradually sublimated. It’s Marxism-Leninism applied to the conditions of modern China, also called Marxism-Leninism-Xi Jinping Thought. So yes, China is absolutely socialist.