Reply #155: Yeah. The very early days of the USSR was the most free society on earth.

[white_wolf]

Then all hell broke loose when they got invaded by 17 rival nations and they were forced to implement War Communism and Lenin started cracking down on supporters of the Whites. It should be noted that before the Civil War and invasion broke out, Lenin was actually very tolerant of criticism, but when the war broke out and groups started actively aiding the Whites and calling for the restoration of the Tsar, he cracked down hard. Ironically enough it was Trotsky who came up with the plan for War Communism and was the first person to call for its end since when he saw it wasn't working. Lenin's death and Stalin's rise was really the point of no return for the USSR, once Stalin achieved power, socialism was dead in the USSR, and the Marxist-Leninists haven't managed to convince me otherwise.