Taxing wealth is the next logical step

[Igel]

39. More dictatorship of the proletariat.

And judging by the vitriol here, it would be no better.

It would probably either end with another NEP, to save the butts of those manufacturing lots of vitriol and not much else; or, if they held to their ideology, Zimbabwe.

What people have to remember is that the Soviet citizens and even the Chinese citizens largely held to the politically correct line because they believed. All that sacrifice, all the crappy living conditions, where even for the poor it wasn't all that much better after a few years of Revolution, where the farmers were left to starve because the party bosses' political base was urban and workers, depended crucially on belief--and on having benefits flow to them because of belief. (Lest we think that ideology drove them: No, they wanted stuff and hoped for more stuff. Soviet soul-engineering wasn't nearly as good as their nuclear engineering.) Only later, when belief wasn't enough and nearly 100% compliance was needed did it turn to terror--and then boredom before collapse.

Boredom and collapse are what China and Vietnam are trying to avoid, as Lukashenka (with that Belorusian /a/ just to annoy him in absentia) has kept up low-key terror. Pol Pot didn't get much belief and went straight to terror. Zimbabwe's in terror. Chavez still has belief on his side, while most Cubans are simply bored but things aren't so bad as to necessitate collapse.