>So what what is left there?

You are referencing countries which were either part of the USSR (Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), or countries that were part of the Warsaw Pact. While there was still something left after the fall of the USSR (such as free healthcare and education, something rich countries such as the US don't offer, and that most post-USSR countries promptly removed) I agree the Soviet Union left behind a quite terrible legacy. I also believe, however, that it is wrong to argue that every socialist country will share the Soviet fate; the history of the Soviet Union (together with its worst aspects, such as Stalinism and the Gulag system) should be understood in the context of Russian society. Even then, your choice removes from the discussion quite a few altogether different societies, based on radical democracy, such as Republican Spain during the civil war, and the Free Territory of Ukraine during the Russian Civil war.

>Those are the societies that are being cherished by the remaining fans of Socialism in the West.

I'm sorry, but I rarely hear someone cheering for the DDR, or for the USSR in general. The legacy of Stalinism is such that the USSR (and its puppet states) are rightfully criticized, apart from a few small and unpopular groups (even in the left as a whole).

>You can say that about every society.

Republican Spain was challenged by a military general, leading to a conflict (the Spanish Civil War) which ravaged its economy and population. While the democracies (UK, France and US) decided not to intervene (partly because their interests were threatened by many policies of nationalization in Republican Spain), Franco received military help, both in terms of weapons and in terms of personnel from Germany and Italy. The USSR formed as a consequence of the extreme conditions faced by the general population in the aftermath of the First World War, followed by years of Civil War with an ever-decreasing availability of food. Once the Civil War was over, the USSR found itself in a state of constant panic of "capitalist intervention", the Five Year plans (and their horrible consequences) themselves a consequence of Stalin's fear of enemy attack. The Free Territory of Ukraine formed in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War, and lasted only a few years, being destroyed by a Red Army offensive. I'm sorry, but many societies haven't faced such extreme situations, and those that did usually had some kind of allies.

I'm sorry if you (as I am, maybe mistakenly, inferring) fled from an East Block country. I'm not arguing the USSR has a positive legacy. I'm simply arguing the western world (and the US in particular) has an extreme bias when it comes to left-wing politics (both the Red Scares come to mind), and that we should attempt to evaluate societies based on what they were, not what they claimed to be. Alternative societies (in particular Republican Spain and the Free Territory of Ukraine) should be evaluated differently from authoritarian countries such as the USSR: one of their main ideals were complete democracy. The fact that they aren't that well known is, in my view, a result of the bias I talk about above.

P.S. as for the comment above, my knowledge mostly comes from books, Sheila Fitzpatrick's being one. For the Spanish Civil War there is both Thomas' and Preston's. The historiography of the FTU is, unfortunately, mostly lacking.