I won't go and find any of the writings where my hero anticipates that the transitional phases retain some of the aspects of capitalism because it might make Ian fall asleep, and we need him wide awake for this discussion.
>>> "Charles Brown" <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 02/15/2008 5:13 PM
>>>
FWIW in the section of the GCP to which you refer, Marx says, "Within the cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products here appear _as the value of these products_, as a material quantiuty possessed directly by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no loger exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labor." CTucker, ME Reader 2d ed, at 529.
^^^^ CB: It's not clear that this is the _transitional_ stage. It may be full communism. The SU was not communism , but socialism, retaining some of the characteristics of capitalism, like to each according to work, not to each according to need.
What goes "to each" is based on the labor time put in by each. What goes to each is appropriately termed "value", since "value" in _Capital_ is labor time.