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0 pointsblululu2y ago0 comments

FWIW The Soviet Union never stated that it was communist. They were officially socialist with the constitutional goal of establishing communism. for that matter the Mensheviks predate the Bolshaviks and always opposed Lenin.

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5 comments · 3 top-level

klooney2y ago· 2 in thread

Saying that the Mensheviks predate the Bolsheviks is kind of odd- there was one political party, then they had a big fight and split in two. Menshevik literally means "minority" and Bolshevik "majority", that's how intertwined the two are.

vkou2y ago

By the time of the October Revolution, the Mensheviks were actually a majority, and were a significant faction in the Russian Provisional government. The Bolsheviks were not.

The Bolsheviks were a minority, but controlled key elements of the army. After months of civil unrest and violence, they staged an armed coup.

My understanding is that the Mensheviks were technically a majority on the first day of the split, because Lenin had pushed so many people out before the climax of the conference. The point still stands though, that's what the words mean.

pavlov2y ago

Khrushchev, enjoying a short-lived post-Stalin economic boom in the early 1960s, did proclaim that the Soviet Union would achieve communism by 1980:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_20_years

So for a while there was an actual date attached to the constitutional goal.

I believe the deadline was quietly buried by his stagnation-oriented successors, but I’m not sure.

They were ruled by the communist party, so they were communist by ideology.

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