Question

In what ways did Soviet communism conform to the teachings of Marx? In what ways did it differ?

Answer 1

1) Marx claimed that history was marked by changed in the economic relationships of the classes, i.e. history marched on an "inevitable" path from hunter-gatherer to slavery, to feudalism to capitalism to imperialism to socialism and finally to communism. He stated that each of these stages morphed into the next stage when they were fully mature and through a process he called class struggle. Lenin believed that, although Russia had only just shaken off feudalism, and was barely capitalist (although it was imperialist) this stage could be "telescoped" - shortened - allowing for a socialist revolution.
2) His other major revision was that Marx claimed that the peasantry was always conservative and would support the existing regime; the workers would be the motor of the socialist revolution. Lenin realised that because in Russia the working class was so small then the peasants also had to be part of the socialist revolution.

Stalin made two further changes.
1) Marxism-Leninism is an internationalist ideology, it believes that the communist revolution is inevitable, and once it has happened in one country, then others will soon have their own revolutions - and so it was their duty to try to export the revolution. Stalin disagreed, he wanted to consolidate the revolution, so he began the policy of "Socialism in One Country".
2) Stalinist economics called for the farms to be amalgamated into collective farms and the farmers to become agrarian workers. It also calls for all economic activity to be owned and controlled by the state through a centrally devised Five Year Plans worked out through the state planning agency - Gosplan. The state's industrial focus became heavy industry - mining, iron and steel production and ship building.

He did make other significant changes, but these were the main ones that carried on throughout the rest of the time that the USSR existed.