It all depends on your... WORLD VIEW!!!

What makes a culture successful? That's a very tricky question. I believe cultural success should be measured by the people for a certain culture, not outsiders. For instance, in capitalist, democratic America, we would consider our culture a success if our country has money, and everyone gets a vote and relatively equal rights.I am sure the ancient Mayans and Aztecs thought their culture was a brilliant success, even though from our standpoint ritually murdering others is not a good thing. So really, it depends on point of view. "Success" means the culture portrays its ideals, which is different not only between nations and cultures, but even form person to person. Although I could definitively answer this question, I can't.

"The (capitalist/communist) countries of the world were wrong to judge the (communist/capitalist) countries of the world based on outsider cultural knowledge. The only sound judgment comes from hard economic, political, or scientific facts."

This statement is not entirely valid, although it has truth. I think most of the first sentence is valid, in that you cannot judge another culture based on your own bias. However, a few things generally translate between cultures, and in this case (ideal) communism and capitalism both value human rights, and some degree of equality, so I think both cultures were perfectly justified in judging each other on the ideals they have in common. I disagree with the second sentence entirely, because I believe that there is no such thing as a hard fact. Excuse me while I go on a philosophical tangent, but your own existence isn't even a hard fact. For all you know, you entire world could simply be a dream. But anyways, back to the world where most people believe in their own existence. The use of "hard facts" as evidence against another culture is something done only in certain cultures. It seems a little funny to worry about how countries judge each other now, especially when a long time ago the way battles were fought was: "who has what I want? Can I kill them? Let's go!" So while maybe the "judging" might be sort of wrong by my standards (as someone in a capitalist culture), I think it it is not so much a judgment of culture that moves nations to act as a want for power or a want to remove power from others.