The ruling party of the USSR certainly considered themselves communists. Whether they lived up to the ideals of communism is another thing. The arms race wasn't a plot. No one was pleased when the Soviets learned to make nuclear weapons. The growth of the US economy following the war was far more a result of consumer demand than military expenditures. Communism was quite the rage in the US during the thirties. Most weren't afraid of it before the war. But when the Soviets became aggressive about spreading their sphere of influence after the war, Americans became apprehensive. How can you say Stalin didn't try to export the revolution? I think that a lot of Eastern Europeans would strongly disagree. And the Soviets certainly considered China and North Korea within their sphere of influence. Whether communism was a genuine threat to western democracies may never be known, but it's easy to understand why it was frightening fifty years ago.
Paul
Lenin has started the "NEP", the program for industrialistion of Russia, as a "step backward" as a temporary downgrade of the revolution. For him it was neccessary step to catch with the developement of the western countries. When Stalin had arrived on the head of USSR he presented the NEP as the "true communism". So there is ambiguity between leninist communism and stalinist communism. For Lanin the NEP is step backward, for Stalin - step forward. So the stalinist communism is in essence state capitalism (in terms of Marx)
luben
