Dogma makes for good rhetoric, but it doesn't stand up to daylight. The Soviet Union advanced the technology of not just itself, but many of its vassal states such as Cuba. China has long since abandoned communism-in-practice, but it is still one of the most advanced nations in the world. If the success of those countries cannot be accounted to communism, then the success of the U.S. cannot be attributed to capitalism either..

And as far as death tolls, they're completely indefensible, that's why I am not a proponent of communism or other anti-democratic ideologies. But it is curious that the death tolls from fascism never get added to the death toll of capitalism. Each ideological wing generates human suffering at the far end of anti-democracy, which is what we need to avoid, whether it comes disguised as facism or communism, or whatever else.