Another model existed during the last global depression, in the 1930s. The Soviet Union was socialist and the bloom wasn't yet off that rose. Visitors from the West often returned with accounts of how well it worked. That shook up enough powerful people to help make the New Deal possible. In Canada in those years, the leader of Canada's Communist Party, Tim Buck, could draw a bigger crowd anywhere than prime minister Mackenzie King.
During later crises, when the Soviet system had ossified and its stench was unavoidable, there were other models: huge China, little Cuba, all the ex-colonies in Africa and Asia with versions of socialism. They weren't just in the heads of Western protesters and dreamers; they were on a map. You could go and see (or project) the dream fulfilled.
Never mind the millions of innocent people slaughtered by these tyrannies. The confiscation of property, the totalitarianism, the squashing of free speech. The utter failure of their economies. They provided a good example, and helped shake up the Canadian political establishment back in the good old days? Is that what he's saying?
How is this kook employed by a major newspaper?
