<<Socialism is not that different to communism. I believe that socialism is the step taken by the nation before becoming a communist nation>>
Socialism is incredibly different to communism. Socialism retains many aspects of capitalism and is, ultimately, a stumbling block on teh road to communism and it has consistantly led right back to capitalism.
<<Sort of what Hugo is doing in Venezuela,in my opinion venezuela is socialist at this point.>>
Has he established a dictatorship of the prolateriat? No. Has he established worker control? No. Has he started paving a road to communism? No. What's happening is he's building a less crappy form of capitalism, but it's still capitalism. Reformism seeks to modify and maintain the present system, capitalism. Only revolution seeks to change it.
<<Poland was communist,no?I say this because Stalin would set up a puppet gov't to his liking.And his "liking" would be communism ,no?>>
Poland was Socialist and not a particularly good example there of for many reasons. To simply yell and scream about Stalin is simplistic and ignorant in the
<<I couldn't agree more. Some say just "go for the gold" and just make a Communist government off hand, but you have to rid of "old capital" and what a better and more effecient way than Socialism? Though, in theory, it may take longer in larger nations>>
You have the period of the Dictatorship of teh Prolateriat in order to reorganise and reshape the country so that a communist society can be created. In addition to this if you build a strong support base that enjoys majority support within a country and has a fully developed and matured revolutionary spirit then socialism is not necessary. Socialism is nothing more than a one way ticket back to capitalism. Just look at history, every time socialism has been established the country has slid back to capitalism.
<<Socialism = Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which means the working class is the rulling class and controlls the means of production, therefor Poland, and certainly not Venezuela, are or were socialist.>>
Socialism does not = dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the state that is set up immediately after the revolution and is kept in place under resistance to the revolution is crushed. That's why it is a dictatorship, so that the stability of the worker state can be maintained while under attack from reactionaries both within and without. Once this resistance is crushed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is dissolved and socialism is established. The theoretical plan is that the state wuill slowly be withered away and communism will be established. Instead a new ruling class has been created by socialism that will suffer if communism is actually established, so holds things back and eventually this leads back to capitalism.
<<The Venezuelan project is so far a run in Social-Democracy, but communists hope that it will give the working class the conciousness and opening to seize power.>>
Quite. I can't say I understand why people are going spastic over Hugo.
And your friend Castro considered Poland socialist.