Is every attempt at socialism the same to you? Do you not see a meaningful difference between Laos and the Soviet Union? Or China and the Soviet Union?
Are all they same to you? The Soviets were as close to socialism as it gets. It WAS the socialism in its purest possible form. This is what you get when you take the ideal marxist socialism AND mix in the actual human nature.
See, to you these things are some abstract ideas, a beautiful theory. To me it is practice - this is what I lived in and lived by. So yes, I can tell the difference between SU and Laos. Laos has never been even close.
The official position was that China (along with Yugoslavia) wasn't truly socialist (they were referred as "opportunists" - google that), a kind of socialist-capitalist-feudalist hybrid. Vietnam, Laos, and DDR were considered developing semi-socialist. Romania, Bulgaria and to some extent Albania were the "true" socialists though.
The arguments were pretty solid. I think it was a fairly correct classification as it was based on who owned and managed the means of production. Only USSR, Romania and Bulgaria (and Albania) had a nearly total ban on private ownership.
Again, it wasn't about who was "better" or "purer" in some superficial sense, but there was a formal criterion: who owns the means of production.
So, if I put on my old soviet socialist hat, I would describe Laos as developing socialist semi-feudal state transitioning from the military communism phase to some opportunistic mixed capitalist form, kind of like NEP. In short, it's not a question whether it is socialism or not, but rather where it fall on the spectrum, and more importantly - in what direction it is developing.
