OzOne wrote in message

The biggest problem the USSR had was that it spanned so many
countries/republics, all with their own levels of corruption that
drained the system and its people.

Socialism always breeds runaway corruption among those who impose it upon
the populace. Too much power over the people. Even capitalism can't hold a
candle to such corruption, and we all know what level of corruption it
fosters. The problem is that under socialism, no one is creating wealth or
jobs--only spending money at an increasing rate, and the whole mess simply
collapses due to a lack of funds, all the while the leaders are lining there
pockets, knowing full well the eventual outcome. It's nice to have a dacha
to fall back to when the **** hits the fan.

Couple that with some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world
and you have a recipe for disaster.

Much of the old USSR is similar to North America and Canada, that is to say
arable land rich in resources. And the oil reserves in Siberia, if
exploited, could have provided much-needed funding for the economy. But you
are correct in that much of the northern Asian continent is wasteland.

'Commune ism' works in it's original form, but can't in a society as
large as the USSR where high levels of Govt are required

Communism doesn't even work in a commune, and it's a disaster in virtually
any larger scale. I spent some time in two communes in the late
Sixties--they were hotbeds of jealousy, dissention, and infighting. Some
people worked, some didn't, and eventually the workers got fed up with the
sponges and threw them out. Communism is an economic system that works only
in computer models, but not where humans are involved.

One of the best examples of pure and applied communism was a socioeconomic
experiment in New Harmony, Indiana. Do a Google search and look it up. And
bear in mind that it ultimately failed there, too.

Max