The Soviet Union looms large over the entirety of the Socialist movement. For 74 years it was the primary source most people looked to for their idea of what Socialism was supposed to be. However, even its status as a Socialist state is called into question by many on the left. I am here to offer my take on the history of the USSR. I will try to offer an objective view of the criticisms of the USSR but naturally my opinions about these criticisms will be included. This will be a Marxist-oriented critique and I am making a point to exclude Bourgeois, Fascist, and Liberal criticisms of the Soviet Union. Those criticisms are widely known and available and form the basis of how most people in the West understand the USSR. I will state that most of those non-Marxist criticisms are based on lies spread by the Nazis and Cold War propaganda used in an effort to undermine both the USSR and Socialism. As such, most non-Marxist criticism of the USSR cannot constitute a reliable source of accurate criticism. Would you trust an oil company to form an accurate statement on climate change? That is the same as trusting a Capitalist to form an accurate critique of Socialism. The Capitalist has too much skin in the game to be trusted with truthfully criticizing a Socialist State.
Most leftists, and certainly all tendencies that descend from Leninism, will usually divide the history of the USSR into various periods. The debate and inevitable points of contention stem from how the different currents within the left view these various periods. The most common point of contention, and the point that I will focus on, is whether or when the USSR became revisionist.
To begin, what is revisionism? Revisionists are those Marxists who have "revised" their interpretations of Marx's writings in such a way as to remove the revolutionary nature from Marxism. One example that is commonly mentioned on the left is that of democratic socialism. Democratic socialists moved away from the idea of revolution in favor of reforming capitalism into socialism from within bourgeois democracy. This is viewed by almost all on the far left as revisionist, although democratic socialists prefer to call it "reformist" socialism. A further point among these discussions of Soviet revisionism are whether the leaders of the USSR adhered to Leninism or revised Lenin. This leads to a further divide within Leninism itself on the nature of the Soviet Union.
First, we must begin with the revolution itself. Naturally all groups that descend from Leninism (which includes Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists or "Stalinists", Maoists, and Hoxhaists) believe that the revolution was not revisionist. However, many on what is termed the "Ultra-Left" (Luxemburgists, Council Communists, Libertarian Communists, and Anarchists) believe that since the revolution was led by a vanguard then that alone constitutes revisionism. These groups tend to believe that only the spontaneous rising of the entire proletariat in a decentralized movement would constitute a proper revolution. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that these tendencies have never led a successful revolution because these decentralized movements usually fail to follow through with establishing a workers' state or never have a significant enough following to even mount a revolution in the first place. Only Leninist-style vanguard revolutions have ever succeeded in establishing workers' states.
Next we move to Lenin and the NEP period in Soviet history. I will skip over the Russian Civil War period because it is my belief that everything in that period was done under emergency conditions. Instead I will judge Lenin and his legacy by what he and the Communist Party did once they gained total control over the Soviet Union. Lenin championed the NEP, or New Economic Policy, after the Civil War as a way to reinvigorate the economy, which was on the brink of collapse. Lenin himself described the NEP as State Capitalism. Under the NEP the Soviets implemented a mixed economy where small enterprises could be privately owned. This was an effort to encourage economic growth while ensuring that the State remained in charge of the important national industries. The goal of the NEP was to allow for a future transition to socialism when the economy had been properly developed. Many on the left, again mostly among the ultra-left, hold that because there was not an immediate implementation of Socialism then the USSR had become revisionist. I believe this to be a naive assumption that focuses more on appeals to ideological purists rather than the pragmatic necessities of real life. Following the Russian Civil War the Soviets needed to rebuild the economy and State Capitalism is the best method to achieve that goal especially given the situation in the USSR at the time.
Following Lenin's death there was a period of joint rule by numerous individuals in the Communist Party. Each of these individuals was jockeying to become the ultimate leader of both the Party and the State. This period saw a continuation of the NEP and should be judged in accordance with that period. This interregnum ended with the ascension of Stalin to the leadership of the State and the Party and the exile of Leon Trotsky.
The Stalin period was the most explosive period of Soviet history both in terms of economic development and contention among Marxists. Stalin led the USSR in the greatest period of rapid economic growth ever witnessed in the world. Stalin took the Soviet Union from an agrarian society to become the second largest industrial economy in the world in less than a generation. Stalin collectivized agriculture which single-handedly ended famine in the USSR after over a millenia where famines occurred every five years. The Stalin period also saw the failure of the spread of revolution across the world thus leaving the Soviet Union as the only workers' state in existence capable of self-reliance. This failure of the spread of revolution forced the Soviets to focus more on internal development. This focus on internal development, along with Stalin's purge of Trotskyists, opportunists, and fascist collaborators from the Communist Party, forms the center of the ideological battle between the tendencies within Leninism. First you have "Stalinists," Maoists, and Hoxhaists who hold up Stalin as the last true Socialist leader of the USSR. They praise Stalin's actions as not only necessary given the situation in the USSR and the world at the time but also as the proper way to develop the USSR and move it towards Socialism. Next you have Trotskyists who believe that Stalin betrayed the Revolution by bureaucratizing the USSR, throwing out the "Old Bolsheviks," and failing to spread the Revolution out of Russia. Some Trotskyists hold that at that point the USSR became a "degenerated workers' state" and could only be saved by a revolution that swept the world and replaced bureaucratic Stalinism with Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution." Finally you have the ultra-left who were still opposed to the very nature of the Soviet State since the Revolution. All Stalin's rule did for them was confirm that the Soviets had become bureaucratic, elitist, and undemocratic further degenerating the revolution.
Finally, we have the post-Stalin period. This period, which lasted from the death of Stalin to the fall of the USSR, is usually lumped together by all sides of the revisionism debate. The other accepted starting point for this period would be the "Secret Speech" by Khrushchev. Khrushchev made a speech to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party where he outlined the "crimes" of Stalin and his cohorts, especially Beria. This speech was made in a secret meeting in the middle of the night where stenographers were not permitted to take notes on what was said, although the contents of the speech was later made public. Many at the meeting could not believe what they were hearing but refused to speak up in defense of Stalin for fear of reprisals from Khrushchev's allies. At this point Khrushchev had cemented his position of power and used it to lash out against his political enemies who were also attempting to gain control of the Party. Most of those opposed to Khrushchev were former officials in Stalin's government and seen to many as friends of Stalin and his ideas. This made it politically expedient for Khrushchev to speak against these other leaders because their association with Stalin could be used to keep them out of positions of power. Following the speech, however, many of those enemies of Khrushchev were arrested and executed for their part in Stalin's administration. Almost all major currents of Marxism, with the notable exception of the orthodox members of the post-Stalin Communist Party of the Soviet Union, describe the post-Stalin Soviet Union as revisionist at best and outright Capitalist at worst. This is because at that point the bureaucratic opportunists within the Communist Party had cemented control over the Party and the State. They slowly but systematically removed all vestiges of revolutionary fervor from the Party and instead implemented a policy of entrenched bureaucratism and cronyism. The economy continued to be dominated by heavy industry with little emphasis on consumer goods or services. This would directly lead to the Brezhnev Stagnation which was a 20 year period of economic stagnation that almost toppled the USSR on its own. The failure of the Soviet leadership in this period to reform the economy in the direction of Socialism and away from State Capitalism is, in my opinion, what led to the failure of the Soviet economy to keep pace with the West. The period ended with the fall of the Soviet Union following the "reforms" of Gorbachev that had the effect of returning the Soviet Union to Bourgeois Democracy and Capitalism. The political collapse of the USSR was inevitable following the liberalization of the economy by Gorbachev. All true Communists and Socialists hold that Gorbachev was at best a Liberal sympathizer and at worst a Bourgeois infiltrator. To see just how deep the infiltration by Liberal sympathizers and bourgeois infiltrators was in the Communist Party one must only look at the political positions adopted by many former Communists after the fall of the USSR. For example, Yeltsin, first President of the Russian Federation and former Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR (a very prestigious position), upon becoming President aggressively pushed for the privatization of the Russian economy. Failure to take any regulatory action in favor of laissez-faire economics directly led to the rise of the current Oligarchic Capitalism that reigns in Russia today. Yeltsin and Gorbachev are but two of the worst examples of what can happen when revisionism is allowed to take hold in the Socialist movement. But it should surprise no one when you look at how rotten to the core the USSR had become, especially during the Gorbachev era. Only old, hard line Communists maintain that the post-Stalin era was not revisionist and that position was most likely only held because of their desire to use the Communist Party as legitimacy for their corrupt rule over Soviet society.
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Addendum
I would just like to clarify my use of the term "Socialist State." Some language purists may take offence to my use of this term because there has never been a truly Socialist state and I would agree with that statement. However, when I use the term "Socialist State" I am referring to any country that describes itself as "Socialist." Today this would include China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, and Laos. My use of this term does not imply that I believe that they are Socialist in practice, only that they are socialist in name. I use the term "Socialist State" in order to separate those countries that have declared themselves Socialist from countries that are still obviously Capitalist. While these states may practice Capitalism there remains the hope that should revolution sweep the world they could be counted on to join the new Socialist order readily.
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