The party holds that the former Soviet Union was not socialist , but instead a " tragic degeneration " of the Russian Revolution and the socialist tradition . While it views the Russian Revolution positively as a mass democratic revolution of the working class in Russia , it opposes Joseph Stalin 's reign of terror following the death of Vladimir Lenin . Like other Leninist and Trotskyist parties , it upholds the principles of democratic centralism in order to ensure bottom-up democracy among party members
reign of terror
Great Purge
Socialist Alternative (United States)