Yea critics of socialism always harp back to the USSR for this "evidence" of socialism's failures. But how much do they even know about the soviet economy?
A quick search yields some useful information -
By the 1950s, the Soviet Union had, during the preceding few decades, evolved from a mainly
agrarian society into a major industrial power.
[15] Its transformative capacity—what the
US National Security Council described as a "proven ability to carry backward countries speedily through the crisis of modernization and industrialization"—meant communism consistently appealed to the intellectuals of
developing countries in Asia.
[16] Impressive growth rates during the first three Five-Year Plans (1928–40) are particularly notable given that this period is nearly congruent with the Great Depression.
[17]
USSR's implementation of socialism if that's what it was, was far from perfect but it wasn't nearly as bad as critics like to believe.