To the editor:

When I argue in favor of socialism, some people think it failed in the Soviet Union and is a discredited economic system. Mistakes were made, but aircraft inventors failed many times before succeeding.

Every socialist country on earth was continually under attack. Russia was invaded by many capitalist countries following the Bolshevik revolution If an experiment to compare two different systems was deliberately sabotaged, no one could call the results fair.

Following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, there was a tremendous propaganda barrage against socialism, and now people believe the most ridiculous things.

I’ve heard people say socialism means one must share the shirt on one’s back. It is capital property, not personal property, that is collectively owned.

I’ve heard communism described as everyone making the same wage, no matter how hard one works. Evidently many people have never heard the statement, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” or they think that it is from the U.S. Constitution, as a survey indicated.

Capitalism will destroy the ecosystem of this planet. There will be growing human misery, disease and death.

It is impossible to exploit the Third World and simultaneously develop it. The answer is the old World War I idea of workers owning and democratically operating the factories they work.

It was tried briefly in Spain, but was destroyed by the victory of fascism. Read Howard Zinn’s wonderful book, “A People’s History of the United States.”

Gary Sudborough

Resident

Bellflower, Calif.