The role of money in soviet society was always subordinate to material production. Money was necessary only due to the technical limitations of planning a vast economy without sufficient computing power. The sphere of commodity exchange was supressed as much as possible. Much of the soviet citizen's consumption was either heavily subsidised or free. This went all the way from food, transportation to even fancy entertainment (like spas and theatres). In fact, the heavy distortion of prices in soviet society is often cited as a reason for its eventual collapse.

Therefore, calling the soviet union state capitalist is absurd. Capitalism requires a dominant bourgeois class, the operation of the law of value and the anarchy of production. None of these elements were present in the soviet union.