Also ... its not like there was some blueprint that the Soviet Union applied as if they were building a machine tool on a large scale. The Soviet State has, in its large scale state organized brutality and corruption, is completely in line with Russian history (no offense to my Russian friends.... Russia is also soulful and brilliant).
Yes, of course. Something that is shared by all socialists is redistribution. If you're not redistributing something, then you're doing nothing. To redistribute something, you must infringe upon the liberties of the individual for the sake of another or a group of others. The more you do this, the faster you accelerate the march toward totalitarianism.
For example, a minimal state that only provides a police force to enforce the laws and taxes individuals accordingly may take hundreds or even a thousand years to collapse into a totalitarian state. On the other hand, when you throw individual protections out the window, it may only take a few years. For example, contrary to popular belief, the period between the Russian revolution and Stalin's takeover was really interesting. It would take too long to go into it, but they tried some really exciting stuff and some of it worked. Unfortunately, when you discard individual liberty, it creates an opportunity for totalitarianism to step through the door.
Marxist-Leninism is what you're referring to, and yes, that has led to totalitarianism. However, socialism predated Marx, and there are non-Marxist (and anti-Marxist) socialist philosophies.
"From each according..." is not a tenet shared by all socialists.