What kind of a government did the Soviet Union have?

In my opinion, beginning with the exile of Trotsky it became a thuggocracy.

“Communism” was just an ideal used to motivate people, the government had nothing to do with Communism.

No it did not. As a matter of fact the communist party was never elected in the USSR. It was just a dictatorship sugar coated by the idea of the people putting it in power.

Totalitarian, I suppose communist.

It was most definitely not communism.

But in a way, it was little different from what was before. Power has been held in the hands of very few in Russia for many centuries now. Even today, I wouldn’t say they have a democratic “democracy.”

The problem with the USSR was that there was a lot of corruption. Their system was Communism but in the truest sense of the word, the USSR was not indicative of Communism nor is the US a true democracy. It’s a republic.

It was communism warped into a grotesque regime in a large part because of relentless American pressure. I think Trotsky was correct without the arrival of international communism, the Soviet Union was fated to fail.

It would best be described as an oligarchy:

noun, plural -chies.
1. a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
2. a state or organization so ruled.
3. the persons or class so ruling.

Nominally, it was a parliamentary government, with a legislature known as the Duma, but all power within the Soviet Union was vested in a handful of senior officials in the Communist Party, and led by a single strongman, viz., Stalin, Krushchev, Breshnev, et. al. Succession was always handled through the machinations of a few at the top, with the populace having no say in the matter.