One can debate the meaning of the term socialism, but if it means
anything, it means control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions, whether in capitalist enterprises or an absolutist state.
To refer to the Soviet Union as socialist is an interesting case of
doctrinal doublespeak. The Bolshevik coup of October 1917 placed state power in the hands of Lenin and Trotsky, who moved quickly to dismantle the incipient socialist institutions that had grown up during the popular revolution of the preceding months — the factory councils, the
Soviets, in fact any organ of popular control — and to convert the workforce into what they called a labor army under the command of the leader. In any meaningful sense of the term socialism, the Bolsheviks moved at once to destroy its existing elements. No socialist deviation has been permitted since.
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