Russia was never Marxist (socialist): It was Leninist ( state capitalism) and Stalinist ( totalitarian state capitalism ).

If anybody really bothered to read the processes in Marx's writings leading from capitalism to communism, they would see that Marx's socialism arose from the proletariat ( workers ) taking ownership / control of the means of production first.

There was no actual state involvement in the movement from capitalism to socialism, it was all bottom up, never top down.

Lenin's campaign / attempt to implement socialism was all top down, or a bourgeoisie revolution pretending to be in the name of the proletariat, but again it was a total failure, since it only involved taking over of business ownership by the state, which was not Marx's definition of socialism.

Lenin even admitted his failure and termed the outcome of his revolution as "State Capitalism".
Which was correct because the workers never became the owners of the means of production, instead they remained essentially serfs / slaves because they remained at the bottom of the hierarchy. 
Essentially what Lenin implemented was Leninism or state capitalism.
Lenin stated he had more work to do to correct his mistake, but died before he produced any strategy to fix his error.

Essentially Socialism is a worker democracy, where workers decide the fate of the means of production, not the state.
But even dictionaries get it so wrong:  Why? 

Because Stalin being a psychopathic megalomaniac, never wanted an actual democracy, unless he would always be elected unopposed.  
Essentially Putin is a Stalin clone.

So Stalin lied to the world, by declaring Russia had achieved "Socialism" when it was still State Capitalism.

Thus most Americans and many around the world think the USSR was Socialist even though the "Socialist" in the title was a ruse, produced by Stalin.

It could be called Stalin's great lie.

The USSR should have really been named the United Soviet State Capitalist Republic.
It was the strict state control over capitalist hierarchical industries that produced Russia's great progress and was similar to Germany under Hitler for industrial expansion. 

Economists like Richard Wolff and Social Historians like Noam Chomsky back me up on this.

You should see Richard Wolff's university lecture on Youtube entitled "Lets Talk About Socialism"

And "Chomsky on Socialism.

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And that great lie led to "socialism" becoming an all-purpose well-poisoning word that, to many people, immediately dismisses and discredits any idea it touches.

That was the plan of the West, to use Stalin's great lie to discredit and demonize Marx.

Yet those who bother to read Marx and understand his attack on capitalism realize the west is wrong and deliberately deceptive to further its neoliberal agenda of putting profit ahead of people.

America has genuine Marxist socialism in its midst, called worker cooperatives.
That is workers taking ownership of the means of production as Marx intended.

Marx also predicted that capitalism leads to communism which almost occurred in the 1930s except Roosevelt stopped it by having the worker unions agree to his new deal.

I don't agree with Marx on much but his prediction almost came true.

Maybe it will again as capitalism is currently struggling.




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