> recognized as being fundamentally communist in nature by communist scholars
I'm familiar with that scholarship, and no, they weren't. The main reason being is that the USSR never claimed to be communist. The USSR based its ideology on Marx and Lenin, and Lenin invented this distinction, that "socialism" is a stage preceding communism, and communism is a stateless society (etc. etc. as Marx described it). The USSR claimed to be a union of socialist soviets. They used "socialist" in this sense.
By Communist party-affiliated scholars, there was some disagreement as to whether the USSR really was socialist. By academics in universities, there was more doubt cast on that.
I'm familiar with that scholarship, and no, they weren't. The main reason being is that the USSR never claimed to be communist. The USSR based its ideology on Marx and Lenin, and Lenin invented this distinction, that "socialism" is a stage preceding communism, and communism is a stateless society (etc. etc. as Marx described it). The USSR claimed to be a union of socialist soviets. They used "socialist" in this sense.
By Communist party-affiliated scholars, there was some disagreement as to whether the USSR really was socialist. By academics in universities, there was more doubt cast on that.