Hi everyone,

I was wondering if most Russians think that the USSR was in anyway communist? Many people in the west think of the USSR as communist when in fact it was obviously socialist.

So, are Russians taught about socialism and communism? Do they know the difference?

I find this quite interesting, because the west is just as socialist as the USSR was. It is just that they are different types of socialism.

So I want to know, do Russians know that?

Not only that, do they know about socialism and communism in detail? I mean, it seems that the Soviet military had political officers that were suppose to teach conscripts about socialism/communism. If they only taught the subject superficially, then they would run out of things to say after 5 minutes I think.

I guess another way I could ask this is: what do Russians think socialism is? what do they think communism is?

Would most Russians think that the USSR collapsed because socialism and communism (according to their understanding of it - whatever that is) can't work, or because of mistakes made by political leaders.

Socialism in the USSR was nothing like how the old European communists described it.

Based on what the European communists were thinking of when they described socialism hundreds of years ago, Europe (and even the United States) are socialist countries. Russia is also socialist.

I haven't described socialism and communism here, because I want to hear what people (Russians specifically) think it is first.