Soviet Union I (establishment and problems for Marxism) >From 1917 to 1922, the predecessor to the Soviet Union was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), which was an independent country, as were other Soviet republics at the time. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922. The USSR grew to contain 15 constituent or "union republics" by 1956: As the largest and oldest constitutional communist-led socialist state, the Soviet Union became the primary model of an industrial economy without capitalist ownership of means of production. . Before the Soviet Revolution most Marxists held the theory position that the development of the productive forces incompatible with the bourgeoisie - an industrial economy with private property relations, would create the conditions for the communist revolution. This Marxist proposition was consistent with everything Marx had written on the law of social revolution. The Russian revolution occurred in Russia, where the productive forces was incompatible with the feudal system, within a world environment of capitalist production and bourgeois rule. Communists world wide relied and counted upon the workers in the advanced country to ushered in economic communism. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power and rejected the mechanical approach that the communist "should wait," and work within a bourgeoisie democratic framework and allow their country to go through a period of capital rule in the political superstructure. They reasoned that their practical task was to keep the workers as ruling class and industrialized the country with limited capitalist relations and a developing socialist sector of the economy. Lenin called this building the foundation of socialism. What Lenin saw and understood was the difference between theory and a reality demanding a doctrine of "what to do now." In 1928 a policy shift took place and the Bolsheviks, led by Stalin embarked on a oath to build socialism in their country; an industrial economy without capitalist ownership of means of production. Their plan was highly successful, with its inevitable shortcomings, errors and mistakes in domestic and international diplomacy. The Soviet Union achieved an unheard of rate of industrial expansion, based on the sweat and blood of the Soviet people. Soviet society developed cities without crisis of financing public services; a virtually free educational system; a socialist health care system open to all without any deductibles; guaranteed pensions and a standard of living that rose faster, in a shorter period of time than any capitalist country.
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