Willravel

Please, take your own advice. Let's not say anything in here that we don't mean.
I love being a lefty, and I am a big fan of Marx. It's a shame that Russia botched his work so badly. Russia was never really a functional Socialist society because of the high level of corruption. It's the unfortunate reality of socialism: as the society under socialism becomes larger, it is less and less likely to succeed. The same is true of many forms of government. Socialism works better on the level of city-state or even village than anything else. A constitutional republic like the US could thrive with socialist systems (police force, for example) as opposed to a privatized force, but I don't think the US would make a good socialist nation. Most people here are wired towards the capitalist economic theories, anyway.

The reality is that Russia is a mess right now. They are in a state of relative desperation, unwilling to accept that they will not see the power they once held for at least several generations. They hold nuclear weapons, of course, but they are not anywhere near as powerful in an economic or military stance as they once were. I can't imagine how difficult it will someday be when the US is no longer a superpower, but I suspect that the process will be similar to what the Soviet Union did over the past 20 years and will no doubt continue to do for the next decade, depending on how well they can get on with China.