Hello everyone! I’m here to start an interesting theoretical debate, as the title states, how can we avoid the degeneration (not in the moral sense) of the worker’s state and avoid capitalist restoration.

As we know, after Stalin’s death, the Soviet Union went downhill. Starting with Khrushchev’s opportunistic policies, such as the reform of the economic system, the bureaucratization through the nomenklatura and eventually the downfall of the union.

While I already knew about this, I didn’t know that Stalin tried to prevent this, here I quote the work of Grover Furr, which I highly recommend reading:

To summarize, the evidence suggests that Stalin intended the new electoral system to accomplish the following goals: Make sure that only technically trained people led, in production and in Soviet society at large; Stop the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party, and return Party members, especially leaders, to their primary function: giving political and moral leadership, by example and persuasion, to the rest of society; Strengthen the Party’s mass work; Win the support of the country’s citizens behind the government; Create the basis for a classless, communist society.

Stalin wanted to achieve this through universal, direct, multipartyism, secret elections and removing the party’s control over the economy of the union. Which would make the party useless for anything other than agitation and propaganda purposes.

I found this very interesting, the article from Grover Furr I mentioned earlier goes way more in depth, which again, I highly recommend reading.