"Communism in Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea and Cuba brought land reform and human services, a dramatic betterment of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or never since witnessed in human history.

And that is something to appreciate: communism transformed desperately poor countries into societies in which everyone had adequate food, shelter, medical care and education. To say that socialism doesn't work is to overlook the fact that it did work and it works for hundreds of millions of people."

–Michael Parenti