The collapse of the Soviet Union has caused debate, questioning the socialist character of the Soviet economy. Scientists find in it features of state capitalism, feudalism with elements of multi-structuredness, etc. This necessitates an analysis of the implementation of the initial socialist principles in the USSR. The goals of this study are:

• to present historical facts and statistics, confirming the accordance of the Soviet socio-economic system to the Marxist model;

• to show that the collapse of the USSR is a natural result of the economic impossibility of socialism.

The basic idea is that the Soviet Union implemented the basis of classical socialism: the public ownership; common labour; directive management of the economy, the planned distribution of resources and products. The Soviet economic system was created by forcible introduction of these basis which were supplementing further by economic regulators.

The time period covered by the analysis includes 73 years (1918-1992). The main sources are Soviet statistics, resolutions of CPSU congresses, historical memoirs. The public property, “initial socialist accumulation”, socialist market, commodity ownership, bureaucratic socialism, the Soviet mentality were characterized. The "plan-market" antinomy and the forms of its manifestation under socialism were investigated.

The historical analysis confirms the expectations regarding the Soviet economy's commitment to classical socialist principles, which in practice failure. The establishment of public ownership led to nationwide exploitation. "The initial socialist accumulation" has become a means of destroying pre-socialist forms of the economy. Socialization of means of production was carried out from above; it has formal similarity with state capitalism. Under socialism, it serves the interests of the people, whose representative is the bureaucracy. The concentration of all rights turns it into the ruling class; it negates the principle of justice. The “socialist market” was an artificial synthesis of administrative and economic regulators. “Commodity property” was a form of involving state trusts in trade, without the right to dispose of means of production.

The socialist experiment as a whole was a failed attempt to eliminate the "plan-market" antinomy by absolutizing the directly social form of connection. The practical realization of this idea is impossible because of the resistance of the natural market forces. If we follow the Marxist scheme, then “market socialism” is not socialism. Socialism without a market is a fictional construction, it has no genesis. It can only be built on the basis of the suppression of individual freedom. It adversely affects the psychology of people, contributes to the education of the "soviet mentality".

The analysis made allows us to conclude that the Soviet socio-economic system had all the features of a socialist one. What outwardly gives rise to historical analogies is, by definition, inherent in socialism. Only so it could get when trying to bring it to life. The substitution of real essence with other analogies gives a chance for the restoration of this utopian idea.