I don't understand. Was the USSR socialist or communist?
Socalist
>>977751
*socialist
>>977809
>Socialism and racism are bad, unless Israelis are involved
>>977747
Communism is the state of the society, which is described by Marxists, yet never achieved anywhere.
Soviet system was the example of state capitalism, where the state owns the means of production and the oppressing class is the nomenclature.
>>977818
what?
>>977747
>Was the USSR socialist or communist?
It had money, private property and inheritance of property, so it wasn't communist.
Depending on your definition of socialism, it may or may not have been socialist.
I believe it is most accurately describes as state capitalist. It was a normal capitalist market, but instead of many private capitalists there was one primary capitalist, the state.
>>977747
They mean the same thing. In the 19th century the two terms occasionaly had some different uses but it was always applied to the same general concept. Any separation of the two terms is nothing but pure 20th century propaganda of which the Eastern Bloc and the West are both guilty. So the USSR was both but actual socialist influences within the political structure were always in decline after about 1921, 1922 or so (around the time the revolution failed) and after the death of Stalin they were on the slow road to turbo-capitalism.
>>977809
That fucking nutjob
I believe whe should free the word socialist from commies.
The seperation should be as individualism vs socialism. I'd call conservatives socialists then.
>>977747
It was effectively neither. It was more or less an autocratic state economy, that told it's people it was "socialist" whilst not really resembling any classical definition of socialism.
>inb4 "hurr ur just a butthurt commie who cant accept factzs!"
Nope. Not even a leftist. But I, for one, hate reducing political discourse down to demonstrably false talking points.
>>977901
It's Individualism vs collectivism, stop "inventing a bicycle"
>>977959
Strong government vs Strong people.
Collectivism vs Individualism.
Planned economy vs Free market.
There are many ways to put it, and the reality is never in any of the proposed camps.
USA and Britain for example have welfare states, yet also free markets. They have democracy, yet also strong governments.
>was it stateless?
no? then it wasn't communist
>were the workers in charge of the means of production?
no? then it wasn't socialism
like every other "communist" or "socialist" nation, it was some hybrid state economy mixed with totalitarianism
>>977747
Saying the USSR wasn't communist because they didn't practice perfect communism is like saying America isn't a democracy because we don't have a direct democracy. State capitalism and Republican democracy are the actual ways we implement these ideologies. Doesn't mean that they don't represent the bigger picture.
Communism doesnt exist, it's a meme.
People owning the means of production, no state? That's just anarchosyndicalism and it's very silly cause any country could steamroll them while you couldn't do to the URSS because it was a state with a capital, rulers and an army.
>>977838
Marx and Engels used the words communism/socialism interchangeably to mean the same thing.
It wasnt until later on, with people like Lenin, that they came to mean two separate things. Lenin defined socialism as the "lower phase" of Communism. The later phase, communism, will come into existence once the society reaches a sufficiently high level of material production, afterwhich the state will "wither away" to quote Lenin directly.
A load of nonsense desu. I find it hard to believe he believed any of it. Did he really believe that the people running the state would actually give up power? Of course they wouldn't.
So to answer your question OP, it was socialism as defined by Lenin.
>>978760
>It wasnt until later on, with people like Lenin, that they came to mean two separate things. Lenin defined socialism as the "lower phase" of Communism. The later phase, communism, will come into existence once the society reaches a sufficiently high level of material production, afterwhich the state will "wither away" to quote Lenin directly.
Wich is the most retarded quote of all time..
And to think that so many people have died because of it, shame.
Now some retard will show up talking about muh post-scarcity society.
>>977747
USSR had different economical and political periods so your question is too wide
But the idea was to build communism, so you can freely call it communistic. At least the early (till the death of Stalin) USSR was pretty much engaged in this idea striving to enforce the dictatorship of proletariat as a necessary stage to build communistic society.
Lately (after death of Stalin), it become too bureaucratic and just like anons here said, starts to look more like state capitalism society than communistic.
Dude transitional state lmao
>>977747
>Union
>of
>Soviet
>SOCIALIST
>Republics
>>977841
He probably refers to the experiment of collective agriculture in early Israel.
>>977747
1921-1928 New Economic Policy (NEP), capitalism with a lot of private capital. Also was Artelsat least from 1900 - 1956. Artel concept was near with joint-stock company. In 1956 Hohol Khrushchev killed them.
>>977848
This. Communism was a goal, not the current state of affairs, it was some kind of future paradise people need to work hard to "build". Meanwhile current situation was termed Socialism.
>>978741
I kinda get your point but feel that your analogy is off senpai
>Ctrl+F
>state capitalism
Despite being parroted by the left this meme wouldn't even survive under scrutiny from the founders of communism. In Marxian analysis capitalism is defined by the exploitation of wage-labor by capital and it's logic of endless accumulation. But things were different in the USSR thanks to a drastic change in the nature of the money form and thus wage-labor itself. Since budgets and capital were usually allocated to firms centrally Stalinism introduced a new method of extracting a surplus from the worker's labor, and thus a new non-capitalist mode of production. This method where an association of producers united by a single production body disposed of the income by conscious and non-market decisions was entirely in line with what Marx hoped to get out of socialism, albeit in the form of an undemocratic state apparatus.
>>979083
Yes, but mainly because 'Republican democracy' or 'representative democracy' is an Orwellian oxymoron. It's also a powerful testament to the astounding ease with which big business can totally rig politics (even changing definitions of words as they please) and how elections, which are inherently anti-democratic, naturally generate plutocracy.
>>979247
Ok senpai let's have direct democracy then your meme big business won't have any power right
There's nothing wrong with mob rule, how could there be
>>977747
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were Marxist-Leninists by ideology.
The true irony is that it was never a socialist nor communist state. It was a *very* ironic final form of capitalism: State capitalism, where the ruling class and the Bourgeoisie have merged into a single class. In the case of the USSR, that class became the state bureaucrats, who in practice were the only ones with access to capital. The entire apparatus was dominated by engineers over virtually every other trade, virtually every single party man was an engineer by trade.
A true socialist state is one where class distinctions have completely evaporated thanks to the actions and maintenance of the state. Everybody is equally happy/miserable (depending on who you ask)
A true communist state is one where class distinctions have not existed for so long that the state no longer becomes necessary and itself gradually evaporates. True communism is probably many centuries in the future, and it would be laughable to think that current age humans would be capable of constructing such societies, just as it would be absurd to think of Romans building an F-16
I still don't understand the different. Is socialism just communism lite™?
>>977747
Neither. A state cannot be socialist, because socialism is not a political ideology. It's just a general term used to refer to people who advocate for more power and cash going to the workers. Meanwhile, it wasn't communism because the means of production was owned by the state, and not by the workers.
>>977747
State Capitalist
>capitalists say it's communism
>internet says it's socialism
>/his/ says it's capitalism
>>980975
Socialism can mean pretty much anything to anyone, it can just be thought of as some form of collective ownership of capital and distribution of the profits
Communism by definition would have to fully abolish waged labour and the monetary economy all together, noting in modern times have gotten anywhere near that
here is obama to explain it for you dummies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BadFTesAPzY&feature=youtu.be
>>979247
>what Marx hoped to get out of socialism
Which is exactly why there aren't any more orthodox Marxists in academia. Nobody still believes in the Bismarkification of the entire economy, which is what first generation Marxists seemed to think socialism would be, where %100 of the production is managed by the state. Even Karl himself didn't seem terribly impressed by them.
As they usually do when they are wrong, they grow old and retire bitterly. And the next generation learns from the mistakes and refines the theory. They can now acknowledge that the horrendously unfair nature of the Soviet economy made class distinctions even more extreme than what was seen in the state managed liberal capitalist economies of the west. In the Soviet Union, the state bureaucracy became the new ruling class, and they were also the class which had control of all the capital. Regardless of how they chose to organize labor, the fact that these class distinctions remained and intensifies only demonstrates that early Marxists were far too quick to presume what a socialist society would look like, and the truth will be far more nuanced.
>>977809
>Rand
intoletrashitgoes.jpg
>>981060
>Nobody still believes in the Bismarkification of the entire economy, which is what first generation Marxists seemed to think socialism would be
That was more Ferdinand Lassalle and his followers, Lassalle was even negotiating with Bismarck behind the scenes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Lassalle#Relations_with_Bismarck
>>981054
>muh middle ground
how is that compromising ass-cheek spreading moron's opinion relevant to shit?
Speaking as a fairly classical liberal person, no. It wasn't a communist society, and there has yet to be a communist society. The reason why is that the method of "seizing the means of production" seems to be "putting one person/a group of people into power and hoping they'll do what they say they will". There's no way to transition from that to a stateless, classless society. The only way you could achieve that stateless society is to declare it outright.
>>977747
Libertarian socialism and communism are the ones without a government.
>>981133
they are right.
those lefties are right hehehe.
>>978760
Just read "The state and Revolution" to see where you're wrong.
>>977747
Found the "I need to facts to help me scream 'guilt by association' to educate Bernie Sanders supporters on social media" thread.
>>977747
Most people will say communist
More reasonable people will call it socialist
Apologists will call it <anything else>
>>981200
>>978760
I remember this being true actually.
Initially, communism and socialism were used interchangeably; only with the creation of the Comintern was the distinction between the maximalist, revolutionary communists and the more moderate socialists created.
Of course, that leaves still the problem why they named it Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics.
My guess is that they either didn't give a shit and thought it sounded cool, or more likely took 'soviet socialism' as synonym of 'russian communism', which isn't technically incoherent since there aren't really too many 'soviet' political forces around the world.
What I mean is: while there could definitely be a distinction between 'socialists' and 'communists', there could very well not be any at all between 'soviet socialists' and 'soviet communists', since the soviets were a compact political force.
>>981466
>Of course, that leaves still the problem why they named it Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics.
Probably because Lenin actually believed in a doctrine of socialism being a transitional society to communism.
"Communism is a higher form of society and can develop only then, when Socialism is deeply rooted."
>>977809
Why does North Korea exist then?
>>981013
It was state capitalism with retarded idealistic Communist laws that were rarely followed.
>>977747
>communist
Taking another opportunity to proselytize my lonely belief/observation that this word actually doesn't mean anything. People just pretend it does. There are so many contradictory values attributed to this buzzword by so many people that it can't logically contain them all.
It was an oligarchy.
>>981466
>My guess is that they either didn't give a shit and thought it sounded cool, or more likely took 'soviet socialism' as synonym of 'russian communism', which isn't technically incoherent since there aren't really too many 'soviet' political forces around the world.
There seems to be a lot of buzzwords that were floating around the left that believers tended to attribute to themselves depending which way the wind was blowing and how they were feeling that year: communist, socialist, libertine, anarchist, social-democracy, unionist, spartacist, council-"whatever", radical, revolutionary, etc.
The Bolsheviks used to call themselves social-democrats. I don't know why they changed their name to "Communist" but it probably had something to do with being edgy and trying to distinguish themselves from their peers over some perceived slight i.e. Judean People's Front syndrome strikes again. It's pretty funny reading Stalin's old papers talking a big talk about "we need social democracy and we social democrats are working hard to build a better more social democratic future blah blah blah". Can you imagine if they stuck with that name? It would cause mass confusion today. "Is Bernie Sanders the same as Stalin???"
That's the problem with politics. It's so prone to sophistry. Political factions adopt titles with more concern to manipulate or socially signal than to communicate a clarifying universal truth that is hashed out with all other concerned parties.
>>979247
>private property exits
>can inherit private property
>money exists
>can inherit money
>can lend money for intrest
>"entirely in line with what Marx hoped to get out of socialism"
No, you dumbass, it was the exact opposite of what Marx wanted to get out of socialism.
Marxism explained in as few words as possible: there is no money and no private property. Everything follows from there.
>>981133
Not an argument.
>>981560
>The Bolsheviks used to call themselves social-democrats. I don't know why they changed their name to "Communist" but it probably had something to do with being edgy and trying to distinguish themselves from their peers over some perceived slight i.e. Judean People's Front syndrome strikes again.
It was to separate their movement from the party of Karl kautsky (SPD) and others, who stopped being revolutionaries and instead wanted to reform the system incrementally from within the capitalist system
>>982151
There was no inheritance in the Soviet union and you didn't own property. The state did.
>>982611
>There was no inheritance in the Soviet union
Abolished by law in 1922, 4 years of trying to enforce these laws, reverted back to legal in 1926.
>you didnt own property
The private property was divided into chastnaya sobstvennost (means of producing wealth) and lichnaya sobstvennost (your personal private property and belongings).
At no point were there actions against the lichnaya sobstvennost, meaning that at all points people did own some stuff.
Further, most people owned their houses, owned cars, owned consumer goods, furniture, villas, etc. What they didnt own was farms and factories. These were taken by the state when they were of a certain scale. You could still have a pottery shop (basically small factory) in your garage and own it, and you could still have a vegetable garden (basically small farm) in your back yard.
So no, the USSR didnt lack inheritance (except for the initial 4 years, and only on paper) and it did have private property (throughout its existence).
retard
>>982625
socialists don't have a problem with personal property though, the issue with "private property" is specifically with property that is used for socialized production but controlled by private interests.
marx never wanted to take your chair or your hat or whatever. he wanted your workplace to be democratically controlled by the working class.
>>978775
you?
>>982635
Marx wanted you to work all day, and when you are done working to go to the Pants Washing Factory, leave your pants there, and go to the Sleeping Building to sleep. When you wake up you go to the Pants Factory, take some pants that someone else wore yesterday, you put them on and you go to work.
>>978760
>Did he really believe that the people running the state would actually give up power? Of course they wouldn't.
I think what he meant was that the absence of class distinctions would, over time, gradually reduce the necessity of a state, as in the Marxist tradition a state's primary function is maintaining the obedience of the lower classes to the ruling class and the Bourgeoisie.
In a world where everyone's needs are met, crime and domestic violence is unknown, and wars are waged through peaceful exchange of information rather than with bullets and artillery shells, a centralized force monopoly becomes more and more of a redundancy.
>>977809
>Ayn Meme
> state capitalism
> state capitalism
> state capitalism
Okay.
Let's put this meme to rest.
Lenin:
> Socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people, and therefore, no longer capitalist monopoly
>>983346
And yet the Soviet state apparatus was not arranged the benefit the whole people, it was arranged to benefit the small cadre of party bosses dominating its totalitarian political structure. Class distinctions didn't evaporate, they intensified. The capital owning class was no longer separate from the ruling class, fitting the description of state capitalism, making the USSR a (very ironic) example of such.
>>977747
Degenerated worker's state
>>983346
>Lenin
>Stalin
>Lenin
>Stalin
Okay.
Let's put this meme to rest.
>One person saying something doesn't make it true.
Socialist from 1927 to 1956.
>>977747
It was shit.
>>977809
Top kek
