Did the USSR truly reach Socialism?

I've heard yes and no from Marxist-Leninists on the subject. I know that for thing Stalin claimed they did when they didn't [after the NEP ended, I believe] but some even argue that socialism wasn't truly achieved anyway. My instinct says of course it was, but is there any other way of looking at it?

Socialism was most certainly achieved in the Soviet Union.

^ How exactly? I mean, how do you refute Trotskyist arguments that it wasn't -- that there was a bureaucracy, not enough freedom to criticize, etc?

Also, what do you make of the 1953 Berlin strikes?

^
Trotskys arguements dont really hold any water, they are designed to inspire a counter revolution.

Socialism was achieved in the USSR, as has been said, a socialist system is where power in in the control of theworking class.

^ How exactly? I mean, how do you refute Trotskyist arguments that it wasn't -- that there was a bureaucracy, not enough freedom to criticize, etc?

The whole criticism of bureaucracy is pretty dumb. As if Trotsky would have somehow made things less bureaucratic himself.

Some will argue that Stalin’s words are divorced from his deeds, and therefore mean nothing, but it is important to keep in mind that party officials and rank-and-file members invested much effort into trying to carry out Stalin’s words. Why would he say something that he knew would incite people to harm an institution he supposedly represented? Why would he risk turning people against him or his allies? Clearly bourgeois logic never thought of that, if it ever involved thoughts at all.

"Bureaucracy is one of the worst enemies of our progress. It exists in all our organizations.” - Stalin, Speech delivered at the Eighth Congress of the All-Union of the Leninist Young Communist League, 1927

“Bureaucracy in our organizations must not be regarded merely as routine and red tape. Bureaucracy is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on our organizations. With all the more persistence, therefore, must the struggle against bureaucracy in our organizations be waged, if we really want to develop self-criticism and rid ourselves of the maladies in our constructive work.” - Stalin, Against the Vulgarizing of the Slogan of Self-Criticism, 1928

"The surest remedy for bureaucracy is raising the cultural level of the workers and peasants. One can curse and denounce bureaucracy in the state apparatus, one can stigmatize and pillory bureaucracy in our practical work, but unless the masses of the workers reach a certain level of culture, which will create the possibility, the desire, the ability to control the state apparatus from below, by the masses of the workers themselves, bureaucracy will continue to exist in spite of everything. Therefore, the cultural development of the working class and of the masses of the working peasantry, not only the development of literacy, although literacy is the basis of all culture, but primarily the cultivation of the ability to take part in the administration of the country, is the chief lever for improving the state and every other apparatus. This is the sense and significance of Lenin's slogan about the cultural revolution.” - Stalin (THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE C.P.S.U. (B.), December 2-19, 1927.)

In the words of professor J. Arch Getty, who received a PhD at Boston College, taught at UCLA, and is considered to be a famous researcher and authority on Soviet history:

“Stalin and other leaders at the centre perceived this as an ossification, a breakdown and a perversion of the party’s function… the evidence shows that Stalin, Zhdanov and others preferred to revive the educational and agitation functions of the party, to reduce the absolute authority of local satraps, and to encourage certain forms of rank-and-file leadership."

So Stalin was against bureaucracy and wanted to raise the cultural level of the masses in order to combat it. He also wanted to carry out intense education campaigns among the masses and Party members about Leninism.

From 1930 to 1933 the number of Party schools rose from 52,000 to over 200,000 and the number of students went from one million to 4,500,000. In the same time period, the literacy level in the USSR rose from 67% to 90%.

The circulation of newspapers increased from 12,500,000 in 1929 to 36,500,000 in 1933.

The proportion of workers among the students in the higher educational institutions was 51.4 per cent of the total, and that of laboring peasants 16.5 per cent; whereas in Germany, for instance, the proportion of workers among the students in higher educational institutions in 1932-33 was only 3.2 per cent of the total, and that of small peasants only 2.4 per cent. I won’t bore you with anymore numbers, but the amount of children in grade schools also increased dramatically under Stalin.

Miami University history professor Robert W. Thurston once said that Stalin and the Soviet regime favored criticism, self-criticism, and listening to the people. In his books he has even detailed examples of how such things existed in the Soviet regime.

"Precisely in order to develop self-criticism and not extinguish it, we must listen attentively to all criticism coming from Soviet people, even if sometimes it may not be correct to the full and in all details. Only then can the masses have the assurance that they will not get into "hot water" if their criticism is not perfect, that they will not be made a "laughing-stock" if there should be errors in their criticism. Only then can self-criticism acquire a truly mass character and meet with a truly mass response." (J. V. Stalin, REPORT TO THE SEVENTEENTH PARTY CONGRESS ON THE WORK OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE C.P.S.U. (B.) Pravda, No. 27, January 28, 1934

There was a system of workers’ and peasants’ inspection set up by the Stalin regime. It worked by drawing a committee from among the masses who would act as a sort of jury and visit officials, sometimes without notice, in order to point out what needed reform and punish the officials who did poorly.

According to professor Thurston, production conferences were used in order for workers to voice their grievances about production and the administrators.

A Soviet émigré, interviewed by J. K. Zawodny in the early 1950s, as saying: "Honestly, I have to say that the People’s Court usually rendered just sentences favoring the workers, particularly with regard to housing cases". Another interviewee said: "anyone could complain in a formal way, especially when he had the law behind him. He could even write to a paper, and in this way let the higher officials know about his complaint."

The Central Control Commission purged anyone from the Party who they found to be guilty of being corrupt or bureaucratic. Then there were elections. During the May 1937 electoral campaign, for the 54,000 Party rank and file organizations for which we have data, 55% of the directing committees were replaced. In the Leningrad region, 48% of the members of the local committees were replaced. This is according to research done by J. Arch Getty.

“The Party … must firmly and resolutely adopt the course of inner-Party democracy; our organizations must draw the broad mass of the Party membership, which determines the fate of our Party, into discussing the questions of our constructive work. Without this, there can be no question of raising the activity of the working class.” - Stalin, The Economic Situation Of The Soviet Union And The Policy Of The Party, 1926

“The principle of election must be applied in practice to all Party bodies and official posts, if there are no insuperable obstacles to this such as lack of the necessary Party standing, and so forth. We must eliminate the practice of ignoring the will of the majority of the organizations in promoting comrades to responsible Party posts, and we must see to it that the principle of election is actually applied." (J. V. Stalin, THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE C.P.S.U. (B.), December 2-19, 1927)

Inner-party democracy should not be confused with factionalism, which is causes members to form various groups within the Party and fight with others in order to form an alternative Party program. Factionalism can be very dangerous when a socialist country is surrounded by enemies and plagued by foreign spies and wreckers because it distracts and ruins the attention and discipline of the Party.

Also, what do you make of the 1953 Berlin strikes?

What do you mean, how the Red Army handled it or how the GDR leadership reacted (by the way, the GDR hadn't achieved socialism at that time nor did it later)? In any case: the strikes were initiated by Western agent provocateurs and heavily fueled and led by the American radio station RIAS (a fact later admitted even by people who worked for RIAS at that time, e.g. Egon Bahr: "Exactly because there was no organisation [leading the strike from within the GDR] it couldn't be denied: without wanting it [sure...] RIAS had become the catalyser of the uprising. Without RIAS the uprising wouldn't have taken place in this way.").

While the Western bourgeoisie tried (and still trys) to portray the strikes as a mass uprising of the people of the GDR against the "Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship" the actual numbers of demonstrators speak another language: 300,000-400,000 people participated in the strikes – out of 7 million workers and over 17 million people in the GDR.

But of course it can't be said that those people who protested were all sworn reactionaries or Western agents, there obviously was discontent among the workers. This was due to several flawed policies like starting to give considerable privileges to the the intelligentsia and party functionaries while raising the work norms and taxes for the ordinary workers at the same time, plus increasing prices. The party leadership also started to ignore criticism from the workers and unions for presenting accomplished facts rather than listening and explaining to and discussing with the workers.

All of this created a medium very welcome to the Western imperialists and unfortunately the revisionist SED leadership continued to follow policies which served to alienate more workers further from the party and the state.

In Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism (1980), Hoxha stated that (p. 54),

When Khrushchev began to advocate these theses, the construction of communism in the Soviet Union not only had not begun, but moreover, the construction of socialism was not yet completed. True, the exploiting classes had been eliminated as classes, but there were many remnants of them still existing physically, let alone ideologically. The Second World War had hindered the broad emancipation of relations of production, while the productive forces, which constitute the necessary and indispensable basis for this, had been gravely impaired. The Marxist-Leninist ideology was predominant, but this does not mean that the old ideologies had been completely eradicated from the consciousness of the masses.

The state was led by the DOTP, but it is important to differentiate between the DOTP and socialism.