Why was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) called that when they were communists?
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That is a very complicated question to answer. The official answer was that the end goal was a communist society, but in order to achieve the ideal society, people must first forget their bad (capitalist) habits while living in a socialist society. In a communist society, all the members would naturally take only what they needed, and give what they could back. There wouldn’t be a need for any leaders, everyone would decide things by popular opinion among equals. In a socialist society, because people weren’t yet free of greed or bad habits, people would have to be forced to give what they could, and given what they need, all while being educated to help prepare them for communism.
As stated, the intermediate step towards communism was socialism, where a group of supervisors would enforce communist ideas. It turned out that these supervisors liked being in charge, and didn’t want to give up their positions of power, which would be required in an egalitarian communist society. It also turned out that the supervisors, instead of being the paradigm of communist virtue, were some of the most corrupt people in society.
Of course the switch from socialism to communism never quite happened, it kept being pushed back. All the issues they had preparing for the switch were of course blamed on the evil capitalist empire.
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