I really don't think the UK NHS was created in response to anything the Soviet Union did - the Labour movement in the UK had a long history long before the Soviets were around.
The NHS actually shows the power of democracy over an elite - after all the 1945 election removed Churchill and voted in the socialist Attlee government. Attlee was so effective as a leader that even Thatcher spoke highly of him:
'Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the Nineties, he was all substance and no show.'
Do you think the fact that the UK NHS funding model closely followed the existing Soviet NHS model was a coincidence?
The Tories fought long and hard in the 40s to make the proposed new 'cover everybody' system insurance based (something like Obamacare I guess) and ultimately didn't prevail. They used all sorts of scare tactics that would seem very familiar today.
A large part of that failure was Labour being able to point to the Soviet Union (not yet enemies of the highest order) and go "look, we can achieve the same success in curing infectious disease that they did".
The NHS actually shows the power of democracy over an elite - after all the 1945 election removed Churchill and voted in the socialist Attlee government. Attlee was so effective as a leader that even Thatcher spoke highly of him:
'Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the Nineties, he was all substance and no show.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194059/A-giant-ma...