Communist History

All I can think about when I'm learning about the history of the Soviet Union is Animal Farm, but I always loved Animal Farm and maybe that's part of the reason I find this so interesting. It was definitely heavily simplified from the actual event, as one would expect from a fairy tale adaptation, but I think the central themes were the same.
Stalin seized control, and from then on (and even for some time before that) it wasn't really communism, it was something resembling it, mostly because true communism, at least in Russia, was totally untenable. For one thing, it hadn't come about by a natural Marxist revolution, and in addition it had the New Economic Plan, which seems to me like a total refutation of communism that's so blatant as to be hilarious. The Communists, in order to strengthen their economy, turned partially capitalist temporarily. This was a refutation of all Lenin's ideas that Russia could turn communist anyway, no matter which way you look at Marx. If Marx was wrong, this proves that capitalism simply performs better than communism. Even if you look at Marx as right, this proves that Russia needed to become stronger and more industrial before it could become a true communist state, capable of staying communist and not backtracking to capitalism when weak. The final point that proves completely that Russia was not ready for communism was the appeals to nationalism - Stalin consistently appealed to nationalism rather than to the working class as a communist would be expected to.
The fact that Russia was not really very communist ties this back to Animal Farm - the pigs were, after all, not very different from the humans.