Degenerated workers' state
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In Trotskyist political theory the term degenerated workers' state has been used since the 1930s to describe the state of the Soviet Union after Stalin's consolidation of power in or about 1924. The Soviet state of that period was held to be a workers' state because the bourgeoisie had been politically overthrown and the economic basis of that state lay in nationalized property -- the Soviet state was degenerated because the working class was politically disposessed. The ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was held to be a bureaucratic caste, and not a new ruling class. The theory that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state is closely connected to Trotsky's call for a political revolution in the USSR, as well as Trotsky's call for defense of the USSR against capitalist restoration.
The term "degenerated workers' state" is commonly used to refer only to the Soviet Union. The term deformed workers' state was coined by the Fourth International to describe states other than the Soviet Union which are or were based upon nationalized property, but in which the working class never held direct political power.
A wide spectrum of political groups and individuals describe themselves as Trotskyist in one sense or another, and across this spectrum there is considerable disagreement regarding the use of the term "degenerated workers' state". Among the disputed issues are the relationships between a workers' state (of any type), a planned economy, and some form of socialism. Some tendencies tend to equate two or all three of these concepts, while other tendencies draw sharp distinctions between them.
Another question which is disputed among groups that call themselves Trotskyist is whether at some point during its political evolution, the Soviet Union ceased to be a degenerated workers' state and became something else, and if so, what was that something else, and when did the transition occur? Among the theories that such a transition took place are theories that the USSR developed into state-capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism.