How exactly was the USSR "not true communism" if the literal definition of Stalinism is "The pursuit of communism"?

Zirp

What part of "centralization and totalitarianism" don't you understand? Actual communism is "work according to ability and receive according to need", with the means of production owned *decentralised* by the workers/people or their local democratic collectives. According to communist theory, a period (decades? centuries?) of "get paid according to your work" SOCIALISM is necessary before communism becomes feasible. Nasty things would happen if millions had to switch from quid-pro-quo capitalism to post-scarcity communism overnight

Sadcat

Pursuing something and attaining it are two different things. Communism refers to the absence of private property. There was still private property under Stalin.

Walter B

Russia and the USSR were run by communists and communist parties but they were socialist countries with socialist economies. The economic system in the 13 countries of the USSR never reach communism.

Anonymous

I am in pursuit of riches and fame. I guess that makes me a TRUE rich and famous person. LOL

mommanuke

Can you tell us when if at all the Soviet Union was communist? I realize that you believe the name you call something makes that true, just as you I assume believe that North Korea is a Democratic Republic, because that's what Un calls them. Stalin was never and never wanted to be a communist. He used that as a ploy to get into power, supported by people who had suffered decades of total powerlessness and poverty. He never once put all the private property and industry under control of the government, which was a government of a committee set up to run things, with NO ONE at the top. You can go on hating ideologies that have only been practiced one time on the planet but it won't make your hatred valid. The only time they ever existed was in the early Christian Church. Read Acts 4 if you don't believe me.

Anonymous

youre WAY too young to understand these things.

Big One 0909

Because Real Communism means Community ownership of everything, NOT Government ownership of everything. Real Communism is Anarchy, with everyone holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Which is why it is said to have Never existed. The closest ezample was what the pilgrims first tried at plymouth rock. As soon as people figured out that they got the same portion of everything whether they helped produce it or not, it fell apart overnight. Most countries that are called "Communist" are really Socialist, and the rest are just Tyrannical Dick-Tater Ships. Persuing something does not mean you EVER catch it.

humpty

The problem is that you are operating with a false definition of Stalinism, which was totalitarian dictatorship disguised based on an existing Communist economy. Stalin was a Tsarist secret policeman sent to infiltrate the Bolsheviks, whose ruthless paranoia and utter lack of principles helped him to subvert and derail the Communist experiment of Lenin and Trotsky, seizing power and liquidating all the real Communists in a series of show trials. Compare that to Hitler, a secret policeman sent to infiltrate the National Socialist Party, who seized control of that and liquidated all the real National Socialists (the brown shirts of Karl Roehm) but based his dictatorship on a controlled Capitalist economy. Basically they were opposite sides of the same coin, both examples of what happens when a single party state is established under the rule of one leader. Hitler was a fascist because it served his ends. Stalin pretended to be a Communist for the same reasons. They were both maniacs who gained power because better men were too decent to stop them. Reverse their roles and the end result would be the same.