If the previous poster had simply called the Soviet system "Sovietism" rather than "socialism" would you have called him ignorant of history? (Of course the Soviet Republic was not a republic either, but we get the concept.)

I would have preferred him to keep "socialism" out of it also, in the same way we don't really consider Peoples' Republics republics at all, but merely tyrannies run by committee. It is people who are justifiably sympathetic to socialism who get confused about the Soviet Union, and start talking about how the Soviets were just well intentioned, misunderstood collectivists who reacted to the pressures of aggressive Western capitalists.

Also, I don't see how the first poster's contention that Russia turned to Bolshevism due to enormous economic failures is in conflict with your statement that they turned to it out of a democratic spirit. Both were true.