I'd still hesitate to call what happened in the USSR as anything even beginning to approach communism. For instance, there's no reason why you can't have a democratic communist government. There are no classes in a communist society, and there most certainly were in the USSR. In addition, Stalin's frequent and seemingly random purges also didn't fit in.
There is no reason why you can't have a Democratic Communist Government...but there is also no reason why you can't have a Communist Dictatorship too. There are lots of different "sects" (for a lack of a better word) of Communists out there, so there is no reason why you can't just assume only one "sect" of Communism is the absolutely correct one.
And Stalin's purges were an outgrowth of the purges in the 1920's. These 1920's purges weren't violent at all, but they did start kicking out people from the Communist Party who were seen to not be Communists. Stalin's purges were different in that Stalin sent people to the gulags and to the firing chamber, but even that had some class elements:
1) If the USSR wanted to denounce a factory manager, the workers would assisting in denouncing their factory managers. The poor workers turning against the rich factory managers.
2) Joesph Stalin wanted to get rid of the kulaks (rich peasents) as a class, under the belief that the peasents were hoarding food that should go off to workers or be sold so as to assist in Russian development. So, you got class warfare between the Workers and the Peasents.
I understand it might be lame but...Joesph Stalin calls himself a communist. Hence why I also call him a communist. Joesph Stalin had a great effect on Russia, and he still have supporters to this very day. That's why I don't want to speak ill of this man, other than the fact that he is a mass murderer.
It is interesting though that, in the Stalinist Mod, the only reason the LCS would hate the Stalinists is not due to the Stalinists' economic policy (workers' rights, CEO Salary, etc.), but due to its social policies (freedom of speech, nuclear power, abortion, etc.).
Okay, back to the economy?