Neo-Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Party's early ideological principles were outlined by Alexander Tarasov in "The Principles of Neo-communism" (Russian: Принципы неокоммунизма) and some other works ("Every Man is a King", "Chile, Cyprus crisis and Eurocommunism", "Revolutionary Dictature, NEP and Stalinism", "Swamp Rot. Black Hundreds as Revolutionary Counter-revolutionism of Petit bourgeoisie", etc.), which have been destroyed together with the party's archive in the village of Valentinovka in 1975.[3][8]

In accordance with those early principles the USSR economy was viewed as socialist from the late 1930s (which corresponded to the official Stalinism guideline), but at the same time the political system was seen as non-socialist: with socialism the power should belong to the society, to the people, but in the USSR it belonged to the ruling bureaucracy. In reality the society was removed from power. To explain this phenomenon A. Tarasov used Vladimir Lenin's idea of the possibility of the "power takeover". In Tarasov's interpretation, in the late 1920s – early 1930s a group of Joseph Stalin's supporters, representing the interests of petit bourgeoisie – first and foremost, of the bureaucratic officials, - has defeated the groups representing the interests of the working class and revolutionary intelligentsia in the inner-party struggle, and overtook the power. This became possible because the economy was not socialist yet, while in the multi-structural soviet national economy state capitalism was the most progressive form of economic organization. Through large-scale repressions and eradication of potential political opposition Stalin and his accomplices secured their own political immunity. In the late 1930s, when soviet economy has become socialist "in the main", and, consequently, the society could take the power over, no one who would be capable of doing so was left: politically active part of society was wiped out, the rest were frightened. The bureaucratic rule was established.

This theory implied that suchlike socio-economic system was unnatural and therefore would eventually lead to inevitable political revolution, when political superstructure would be aligned with the economic base. According to A. Tarasov, the bureaucratic rule is holding back the development of productive forces and thus brings to life the classic conflict of Marxism: the conflict between productive forces and the relations of production.[3][4]

Tarasov also advocated the idea that the dictatorship of soviet bureaucracy, counter-revolutionary by nature, is doomed to failure due to its foreign policy – the policy of rejection of the world revolution, the policy of "peaceful competition with capitalism" (which manifested itself in the dissolution of Comintern by Stalin). This policy was defensive - not offensive. USSR was losing its allies both on the state level (The People's Republic of China, Albania, Yugoslavia, Egypt, etc.), and within the communist movement (the breakaway of Maoists, Eurocommunists, Dominican Communist Party, Communist Party of the Netherlands, etc.) Therefore, Tarasov concluded, Soviet government would inevitably lose in the "peaceful competition", suffer economic breakdown and push the peoples of the Soviet Union to revolution.

According to this theory, the rule of bureaucracy was leading to the alienation of the people from the power, a phenomenon that would continue even after the complete abolishment of capitalism. In the presence of the bureaucratic domination, such alienation was causing cultural degradation and limiting public life to rituals, borrowed from the arsenals of the bourgeois representative democracy (parliament, elections, the presence of one or more political parties (in the satellite countries of the Soviet Union: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, China, North Korea, Vietnam), etc.). Imminent social tension created by the continuing alienation was acting as a psychological catalyst for the future revolution.[3]

The rule of bureaucracy, which represented the views of petit bourgeoisie, had led to the dominance of philistinism in all spheres of social life (everyday living, culture, professional activity, relations of production, formal politics) and to the annihilation of anti-bourgeois ideology and psychology. On the one hand, this was condemning the cultural and social life to stagnation and degradation; on the other – was leading to the crisis of social relations – the crisis, that the ruling regime could not resolve. Objectively, this was forcing the bureaucrats to "tighten the screws," promote neo-Stalinism or, most likely, reestablish downright bourgeois relations, restore capitalism. Consequently, any legal revolutionary activity had become impossible, creating the necessary for an underground organization and underground struggle.

The ruling soviet bureaucracy learnt from the events of the October Revolution of 1917. This is precisely why the representatives of the working class in the USSR (specifically those concentrated on large industrial enterprises) firstly, were a subject of particularly strong ideological control; secondly, the regime was constantly "flirting" with the workers, praising them and simultaneously imposing on them the ideology of ruling bureaucracy, corrupting them by mass culture; and thirdly, any attempts to create independent trade unions or other working class organizations were nipped in the bud. The information blockade was making it impossible for the workers to draw objective and outright conclusions about the real situation on the country; "brainwashing" (through propaganda and "political learning") did not allow them to develop their own ideology; the "canal system" of the social vertical mobility in the Soviet Union was enabling the most advanced and driven workers to obtain higher education and move to a different social category. Those were the main factors holding the working class from becoming the vanguard of the new revolution. Students, on the other hand, could become such vanguard, on account of being a social group whose position in the social structure of the soviet society was not yet secured; as a mobile group with wider access to information; finally, a group designated to intellectual activity. Besides, students could not be comfortable with the idea that after graduating from colleges and universities they were doomed to become ordinary, low paid employees, dependent on bureaucrats and, in the majority, with little prospect for growth. Control mechanisms among the young people were impaired by degeneration of the Komsomol (Russian: ВЛКСМ) which could no longer play the role of the youth's leader.[3][4]

The above explains NCPSU strategy, based on propaganda specifically among students, as well as its particular interest in the "youth revolution" of the 1960s in the West, with an emphasis on studying the experience of student movement in the United States, France, Italy, South Korea).[6]

Thus, in early stages NCPSU acted on the premise that the USSR was in need of a political revolution, not the social one.[5]

By 1978 these ideological postulates no longer satisfied Tarasov's fellow party members, as well as himself. They were seriously criticized by N. Magnat, V. Minorsky, S. Trubkin, V. Makartsov. During 1978-1979 Tarasov developed for NCPSU a new, much more serious and original ideology.[3][4]