I'd be willing to consider them "socialist" in the way that Marx used socialism. There's after all a whole chapter in the Communist Manifesto dedicated to forms of socialism that were all wildly different ideologies, ranging from the utopian to the outright feudalist.
In that Marxist sense, that "socialism" has a very limited implication about a very limited set of concepts around putative public ownership of the means of production, one could call the Stalinists socialist. But by that use, then one should be aware that it's a trait of a set of ideologies that otherwise have pretty much nothing to do with each other.
And indeed, he called out the "return of many of the forms of Tsarist autocracy, but with a paint job" explicitly in describing "feudal socialism".
A later preface (by Engels, I think? I think it was one of the prefaces from after Marx death) points out that they used the word "communist" because the word socialist at the time had become largely associated with some of those ideologies that they did not want to be confused with. And of course "communism" has since become equally overloaded by ideologies so different their adherents have pretty much nothing in common.
Already before Lenin died, there was already the notion of "left" and "right" communism, as two incompatible camps that were not even single ideologies, but sets of ideologies. Hence Lenin's "'Left-Wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder" that covered a range of "left" communist ideologies (because the Bolsheviks were considered "right" communists)
It's more complicated than that, because after Lenin, the USSR and countries in its sphere like East Germany considered themselves not to be Communist but rather socialist, as they believed that true Communism was an end goal to be achieved in the future like "We will achieve Communism by the year 2000"
Fair enough, though this also throws away 150/200 years of convention. In the end, the buckets and labels serve little purpose. What is important is to point out that "fascists are just socialists" is a garbage slogan/slander that obscures the reality of history behind an ideological cover that serves only the purpose of implying that any collective action inevitably turns into tyranny. Or something.
The reality is that "actually existing libertarianism" is just as or more liable to degrade into authoritarianism as it hands over blanket authority to the private market -- and, eventually, the form of the state that arises when said market goes into crisis. As we've seen in practice many times, and with the way a whole class of American "libertarians" have embraced the triumph of the will motive force behind Trumpism in the present day. (Or lined up behind Pinochet, etc. in the 70s)
I mostly agree with you - the point I made is mainly one to make with people who get really insistent on that labelling, as a means to point out that even if they believe Stalinism is socialism, that still doesn't mean it's the same socialism as whichever flavour they're trying to equate it to.
Fully agree with you regarding the "fascists are just socialist" canard.
With respect to libertarianism, I like to taunt US libertarians by pointing out that the first liberatarian was Joseph Dejacque, a French anarcho-communist, who, of course, given his anarchist background, praised Proudhon for the view that property is theft - and requires state power to oppress those who reject it - but criticized Proudhon as a "moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian" for not going far enough in his rejection of authority.
In that Marxist sense, that "socialism" has a very limited implication about a very limited set of concepts around putative public ownership of the means of production, one could call the Stalinists socialist. But by that use, then one should be aware that it's a trait of a set of ideologies that otherwise have pretty much nothing to do with each other.
And indeed, he called out the "return of many of the forms of Tsarist autocracy, but with a paint job" explicitly in describing "feudal socialism".
A later preface (by Engels, I think? I think it was one of the prefaces from after Marx death) points out that they used the word "communist" because the word socialist at the time had become largely associated with some of those ideologies that they did not want to be confused with. And of course "communism" has since become equally overloaded by ideologies so different their adherents have pretty much nothing in common.
Already before Lenin died, there was already the notion of "left" and "right" communism, as two incompatible camps that were not even single ideologies, but sets of ideologies. Hence Lenin's "'Left-Wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder" that covered a range of "left" communist ideologies (because the Bolsheviks were considered "right" communists)