Be honest would you live in communist russia

It depends on what person actually means by state capitalism.
If he/she means that state capitalism is when state appropriates part of the surplus value that he/she produced, than in his/her eyes SU even before Khrushchev sold out MTS was state capitalist.
And you can't convince him/her otherwise.

It all comes down to should worker receive full value of his/her labour, or not.

If person believes that should, than he/she advocates for direct ownership of the means of production, which means that SU for him/her is even more frightening than old fashioned capitalism, because he can't possibly run from this new total capitalist, this leviathan.

If person accepts that part of the surplus value should be concentrated and invested in something (science projects, free education, free healthcare, military or whatever), than he/she can be convinced that SU was not capitalist, or at least not capitalist in a traditional sense.

As I see it, it was one big corporation (or cooperative, if you like) by the name "USSR" with CEO Stalin. This corporation employed people, but said people were also the only shareholders.

This corporation operated in market environment. Players in said market were corporation "USSR", agricultural cooperatives, artels, and self-employed individuals.
All possibly commodifiable means of production were owned by corporation "USSR", other players in the market rented means of production from corporation, or were given MOP for free use. Corporation also enforced the law by which one person can't employ another.
Corporation managed the only unit of exchange which was used in said market, as well.

So there was commodity production, and so there was law of value in operation. But only in the sphere of end consumer market, because it was the only market. There was no market of MOP, no labour market, no market of intermediate/semifinished products.

Corporation "USSR" sold it's goods for fixed prices, which were calculated as cost price + fixed surcharge around 5% to cover operational costs.
Profit came in the form of tax on circulation.

Does law of value ruled over corporation "USSR"? I think not, because profit never was an ultimate goal, nor was it regulator of production. Plan ruled supreme inside the corporation, and ruled only partially outside.

As to why there was end consumer market, there's two points of view.

One, that of the CEO of corporation, Stalin, is that there was market because there were different forms of property in the economy, namely cooperative form of property and property of corporation "USSR".

Another point of view, that of the Ernest Mandel, one of the leaders of the 4th international, is that there was market because there was scarcity of goods.

sums up /lefty so well

That's just the thing, there was no revolution. Venezuela blindly trusted a demagogue and suffered for it.

This is a nasty habit the "old" left needs to get out of. It knows direct action is the only way, but it still gets all hopeful when some reformist dickhead makes headlines.

...

Russia went from one of the most backwards, unindustrialized countries in Europe with vestiges of serfdom and a medieval, landed gentry to an industrial juggernaut in less than 30 years and the world's first space power in less than 50.

But yeah, nah, despite the fact that the soviet union was regularly wiping the US's eye technologically, most famously in the technology of cruise missiles, obviously the SU kept the US at bay with sticks and rocks because comuhnizm dumm.

Let me just preface this by saying that I'm glad we're having this conversation. I was a bit salty over you screencapping your own post and trying to pass it off as a refutation of Holla Forums, but this is much better. This is what I think Holla Forums is about, tbh. Leftist individuals of different flavours coming together to debate. But without further ado, lets get started.

Except they weren't. Bela Kun, Jozsef Pogany, Ferenc Bajaki, and Dezso Bokanyi were all purged by Stalin.

He was called to Moscow by Stalin, prevented from leaving, and sent to Siberia. Not really much of being "kept safe in the Kremlin by uncle joe".

And yet you just admitted that most of the other Hungarian communists were purged.

It's true. What did the Soviet Union hope to accomplish with its only allies being Mongolia and fucking Tuva? The answer is nothing. They didn't become a superpower until after they got some real allies, including a piece of Germany.

The PRL was nothing more than a Soviet Puppet state. They were almost invaded just like Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And the PRL wasn't formed pout of a revolution anyways, it was set up by the USSR.

Cuba is literally just a carbon copy of the USSR's system, which is why it baffles me that Holla Forums supports it and not the USSR.

I'll give you that one. Still not a revolution, though. He came to power through a coup.

So AKA until he decided not to be a Soviet puppet. And as much as I like Tito, he didn't come to power through revolution either.

Fair enough. Except, y'know he was elected. He never led a revolution.

Mao was just Stalin 2.0, except with somehow even less of a grasp on Marxist theory. There's a reason Stalin was pushing him to take over the party and oust Chen.

They only supported the parties that adhered to Stalinist principles. And again, not revolutions.

ohboy
Not something you should be proud of. Most "socialist" states in Africa merely called themselves such to get support from the USSR. In many cases, the parties that held power at the time are still in power and not much has changed. The only difference is now they no longer call themselves communists. The only exceptions to this I can think of are Burkina Faso under Sankara (which I don't think even called itself socialist), Ethiopia (which was pretty much just the Soviet system), and Seychelles (which I'll give you).

And Eastern Germans can tell you plainly well how they were raped by Soviets and how they did what they pleased, as individuals. That doesn't make the Soviets rapists.

The point is that they didn't need to industrialize. They already had the most industrialized part of the whole country in their territory. The fact that the Bolsheviks didn't want to work with them shows more about the Bolcheviks than it does of the Makhnovists.

What's the point when the proletariat can do it themselves?

The same could be said of most other socialist states. Most socialist states were not first world and did not have an educated proletariat. Hell, Russia's literacy rate before the revolution was less than 25%.

How so?

Yes, and Stalin made the same mistake by purging all his generals. Operation Barbarossa almost succeeded because of it.

The point is that the idea that anarchists are bandits came from Trotsky himself. Not Lenin or Stalin. Lenin liked the Makhnovists, and Stalin? Well, we all know how that went.

The point is they were working on it. What they managed to accomplish was pretty impressive, regardless of the fact that they were unable to complete their goals.

Your argument was that they never progressed past the initial stage in 3 years, not that they couldn't manage production, which they completely did. War Communism also took 3 years in the Soviet Union before they progressed to the NEP.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the USSR was state capitalism, because I don't think it was. I think both Catalonia and the Soviet Union were socialist. Just that the Soviet Union was a pretty shitty nation, whereas Catalonia was, well, okay. I mean, they were on the right path, but god damn the fascists wouldn't have it.

Why would Tito let Stalinist militants into his country when Stalin very clearly wanted him out of the picture?

Alright, I'll take your word for it.

I'm doubtful about this, but I don't even like Khrushchev, so go ahead and shit all over him all you want.

Agreed.

But I'm talking about Soviet-aligned states here. The point is that you didn't have to be an American puppet to have debts to the IMF.

What I meant was that the Soviet Union very rapidly went from a quasi-feudalistic state to an industrial superpower. How was this a bad thing when Yugoslavia did it?

The communist party is supposed to be the party of the people. Why prevent the people from joining it?

I'd say more along the lines of from 1948 to 1956. After that they were truly nonaligned. Let's not forget that they were getting support from the Soviets after Destalinization.

I fail to see how multi-party democracy means working with nationalists and how workers councils means reverting to capitalism.

And Khrushchev also kicked him out the first time too.

There was no negotiating to be done. He just wanted to make the country more democratic. He still wanted to stay in the Warsaw Pact and remain a Soviet ally.

They're both pretty shitty for different reasons. That's why several of these people tried to fix the democracies in their countries.

No, because they couldn't have been do to the pre-revolutionary states being dictatorships. The problem is that they maintained the dictatorships once they got in power.

You're aware that the Chinese and Vietnamese actually went to war over the Kampuchean Revolution, right?

The USSR was around before the mas industrialization, you know.

Many countries have built socialism, not just the USSR.

Some better than others. They pretty much just supported revolutions worldwide so long as they called themselves socialist. In more important areas like the Eastern Bloc, though, no revolutions allowed.

That's just blatantly not true. Even Yugoslavia and East Germany had better living standards on average.

I'll be the first to admit I got a bit salty. That's my bad.

Sounds a bit like the Soviet Union in World War II. What I've said about the Soviet Union is true about the USA. Both are pretty shitty. But that doesn't mean they can't do the right thing from time to time. (Even if they do it for the wrong reasons.)

Woah, huge slam on the proud nation of Tuva just out of nowhere.

Hate to break it to you, m8, but the Tuvan People's Republic was irrelevant as fuck.