"
Socialism is nothing but
state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people." --
Vladimir Lenin, demonstrating his
ignorance
A deeply flawed off-shoot of a moderately flawed
philosophy (
Marxism, which I shall critique soon.) If you ever wondered what a country would look like if
Microsoft took over the
government and all
industry, this is it. Leninism is
vanguardism; the revolutionary
intelligensia considers itself the only group worthy of running a country. The
Bolsheviks practiced democratic centralism, where internal debate would take place, but party members would never openly question the party in public, so as to preserve the myth of
omnipotence. The
Soviets -- the democratic mechanism, independent of the state, by which the workers directly controlled industry -- were seen as a threat by the Bolsheviks and were crushed, and managers ("state priests") were appointed by the state to direct the factories.
And so did the Bolsheviks create a proto-
fascist state while cloaking their actions in "
socialism", duping a great number of Western intellectuals. Few recognized this. One who did was the
English socialist icon,
George Orwell, whose satirical attacks on the
USSR (
Animal Farm) earned him the
animosity of the
Fabians.
Am I biased? As something of a
Libertarian Socialist, yes.