The Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the USSR as a "workers' state" has dominated political thinking for more than three generations.

In the past, it seemed enough for communists to define their radical separation with much of the "left" by denouncing the Soviet Union as state capitalist. This is no longer sufficient, if it ever was.

Many Trotskyists, for example, now feel vindicated by the 'restoration of capitalism' in Russia. To transform society we not only have to understand what it is, we also have to understand how past attempts to transform it failed.

In What Was The USSR?, Aufheben explores the inadequacies of the theory of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state and the various versions of the theory that the USSR was a form of state capitalism.

Aufheben is a UK-based libertarian communist journal that has been active since 1992. What Was The USSR? was a series of articles published by them in issues #6-9 between 1997 and 2000. The Radical Reprint by Pattern Books is made to be as accessible and as close to manufacturing cost as possible.