I don't understand why we Marxists continue to talk like this. This grandiose, otiose, "world-historic" stage-theory stuff is precisely the branch of Marxism that deserves to be lopped off and buried.
The USSR was an attempt to create socialism out of a weird late feudal society. It was not an absolutist monarchy. It was not capitalism. It was an undemocratic socialist state. To deny this through fancy circumlocution is to offend potential allies and advocates of future attempts to make democratic socialism.
The USSR wound up preceding the delivery of the former USSR into third-world capitalism, but that was a result of particular choices made by the Stalinists and their heirs, not an automatic result of some "stage."
Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands all failed at making big-time capitalism out of feudalism. Why should anybody be shocked that big-time socialism hasn't happened yet? People have only been trying for 100 years.
^^^^^^
CB: Yea ! Your last paragraph has the right spirit. The transition to communism is an epochal process, i.e. multigenerational. Some of us don't feel we have to designate the SU as a "failure" ( since it did accomplish much) but rather as what might be expected in a trial and error process, . Since it's epochal, discussions of "world-historic" and the like are very appropriate. We have no need to be shy of Big theory and enthusiasm for Big concepts and terminology some of the time, especially on an "intellectual" list. It's part of the inspiration to carry out such a big task that it is important enough to use big words. Marxism _is_ a grandiose idea. And we aren't ashamed of that.
As to "stages", more precisely it's modes of production. What is the Marxist theory you are thinking that doesn't have modes of production as a necessary concept ? This is _historical_ materialism, we are talking about.