In response to the many shortcomings of the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, and Venezuela, the refrain, “It wasn’t real socialism,” has emerged as a rallying cry among apologists of socialism. Some readily admit the failures of these regimes and attribute the failures to capitalism rather than socialism. Some refuse to recognize the failure whatsoever; they see these experiments as genuine instances of “real socialism” and perceive them to be unequivocal successes.
How can this happen? Don’t we have mountains of evidence that these regimes were catastrophic failures? That is definitely the case, but these socialists also claim to have mountains of evidence in their favor—at least enough to catch a capitalist off guard. Most Americans have been taught their whole lives that the USSR was
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