The Origins and Essence of Leninist-Stalinist State Socialism

Abstract

The research goal is to determine what kind of state system existed in the Soviet Union under the name socialism / developed socialism. The research methodology based on a civilizational approach to history and the application of the principles of historicism, systemicity, and content analysis, allows us to prove the fundamental difference between the essence of Leninist-Stalinist state socialism and the understanding of socialism in the works of socialist utopians, the calls of revolutionary Marxists of the era of the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1847), the political practice of Western European social democracy, and the mood of unconscious socialism among the Russian common people. Scientific novelty. To substantiate the civilizational uniqueness of the Russian-Soviet state socialism created by propaganda and terror, whose totalitarian nature envisaged the fusion of the state with society and combined the absolute political and economic dependence of the expropriated society on the leaders of the communist party with the paternalistic attitude of the state towards its citizens. Main conclusions. Through its ideological, diplomatic, and military policies, the modern Russian Federation has challenged civilized humanity, seeking hegemony over the national republics that gained independence after the collapse of the USSR and over the European states that were part of the so-called socialist camp formed by the Soviet Union after the victory in World War II. To describe the essence, politics, and practices of the socio-political regime that has formed in Putin’s Russia, the neologism Rashism is used, which comes from the English name of the country, i.e., it only indicates that the country and its deep-rooted peoplehood occupy a specific place among modern civilizations. An analysis of defining the specifics of Russian-Soviet state socialism helps to understand the origins and essence of modern Rashism. The restoration of the Russian variety of totalitarianism in the new guise of Rashism was formed by the merger of the pre-revolutionary triad of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationalism with the remnants of Soviet repressive structures and, most importantly, due to the desire of the broad masses of the deep people to return to the paternalistic order of Leninist-Stalinist state socialism.