Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Do you live in one of these western countries?
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
What would china give you right now that you would move there for?
Please, be specific so I can understand.
Pretend you had a chance to convince me instead of angrily and frustratedly arguing your point in a defensive manner.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
We don’t, we support proletarian democracy, not bourgeoisie electoralism.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter III: The Dictatorship
The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.”
Let us take first the formal facts of voting, though this is far from exhausting in the Soviet citizen’s participation in government. The Soviet Union has today the largest body of voters any where in the world. Moreover a larger percentage of them come out to elections than in any other country; they give more time to their elections and decide a greater variety of questions.
All “toilers” over the age of eighteen may elect and be elected; the word is interpreted to include students, housewives, old people who have passed the age of work as well as those more formally known as workers. Voting thus extends to a younger age than is common elsewhere, and there are no disqualifications for transient residents, paupers, migratory workers, soldiers, sailors, such as exist in most countries; even non-citizens may vote if they work in a Soviet industry. There are no restrictions for sex, creed or color, nor even for illiteracy. The only significant restriction relates to “exploiting elements,” but the steady decrease of privately owned enterprises has cut the disfranchised to 2.5 per cent of the population in the 1934 elections; by 1937 it is expected that all will have the vote. In the 1934 elections 91,000,000 people were entitled to vote, and of these 77,000,000, or 85 per cent, actually participated, which is double the proportion found in most countries.
Several elections which I attended will show concretely how soviet democracy functions. Four election meetings were held simultaneously in different hamlets of Gulin village, which had no assembly hall big enough for all. One of these meetings threw out the Party candidate, Borisov, because they felt that he neglected their instructions; they elected a non-Party woman who had displayed energy in improving the village and were praised by the election commissioner—himself a Party member—for having discovered good government timber which the Party had neglected. The central meeting in Gulin expected 235 voters; 227 appeared and were duly checked off by name at the door. There ensued personal discussion of every one of nine candidates, of whom seven were chosen. Mihailov “did good work on the roads.” The most enthusiasm developed over Menshina, a woman who “does everything assigned her energetically; checks farm property, tests seeds, collects state loans.” Dr. Sharkova, head of the Mothers’ Consultation, was pushed by the women: “We need a sanitary expert to clean up our village.” The incoming soviet was instructed to “increase harvest yield within two years to thirty bushels per acre, to organize a stud farm, get electricity and radio for every home, organize adult education courses, football and skiing teams, and satisfy a score of other needs.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter IV: The Growing Democracy
Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Yes, full-time, though the plight of the unemployed and unhoused is equally important. Not telling you any more, not doxxing myself. Additionally, it absolutely is not relevant.
Do you live in one of these western countries?
Yes.
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
The US is a dying Empire. It has no long-term future, conditions are worsening. Disparity is rising and will continue to do so, and Real Wages will continue to stagnate. The world is already throwing the US off their backs at increasing rates.
Meanwhile, Socialism has stable growth over time that doesn’t depend on self-destructive systems like Capitalism or Imperialism.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Social Democracy is not Socialism. I am not talking about Capitalism where “the government does some extra stuff.” Social Democracy in the Global North depends on Imperialism to support itself, and worker protections are crumbling as disparity rises. Social Democracy is a temporary concession.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Do you actually know how these countries function, democratically and politically? This isn’t a gotcha, I want to know to what extent you’re familiar so we can even begin to talk about them. Even then, North Korea isn’t a One-Party State.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
I don’t, that’s why I am a Communist and not a Liberal. Come on, this was a useless gotcha.
In what communist nation are there free elections?
I don’t understand this mental gymnastics.
You’re talking about the benefits of socialism while advocating for communism but my questions have been about communism.
In what communist nation do you have free elections?
In what communist nation do the people actually choose their leadership, instead of a “elite (but remember communism is supposed to be classless…) group that elects the leaders”?
Communism is a novel idea BUT it hasn’t done a very good job demonstrating its benefits to the world. That’s the unfortunate reality of the situation.
You are talking about Socialism, Communism is the status after Socialism. “Communism” as a status hasn’t been achieved, as it must be global, so we are talking about Socialism, and Marxism, the path to build Communism.
Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?
Do you live in one of these western countries?
What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?
What would china give you right now that you would move there for?
Please, be specific so I can understand.
Pretend you had a chance to convince me instead of angrily and frustratedly arguing your point in a defensive manner.
I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.
Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.
Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?
We don’t, we support proletarian democracy, not bourgeoisie electoralism.
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter III: The Dictatorship
EPUB
This is a post advocating for communism.
Communism allows elections and choice for its people?
Where?
During the Stalin years in the Soviet Union
Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter IV: The Growing Democracy
Yes, full-time, though the plight of the unemployed and unhoused is equally important. Not telling you any more, not doxxing myself. Additionally, it absolutely is not relevant.
Yes.
The US is a dying Empire. It has no long-term future, conditions are worsening. Disparity is rising and will continue to do so, and Real Wages will continue to stagnate. The world is already throwing the US off their backs at increasing rates.
Meanwhile, Socialism has stable growth over time that doesn’t depend on self-destructive systems like Capitalism or Imperialism.
Social Democracy is not Socialism. I am not talking about Capitalism where “the government does some extra stuff.” Social Democracy in the Global North depends on Imperialism to support itself, and worker protections are crumbling as disparity rises. Social Democracy is a temporary concession.
Do you actually know how these countries function, democratically and politically? This isn’t a gotcha, I want to know to what extent you’re familiar so we can even begin to talk about them. Even then, North Korea isn’t a One-Party State.
I don’t, that’s why I am a Communist and not a Liberal. Come on, this was a useless gotcha.
In what communist nation are there free elections?
I don’t understand this mental gymnastics.
You’re talking about the benefits of socialism while advocating for communism but my questions have been about communism.
In what communist nation do you have free elections?
In what communist nation do the people actually choose their leadership, instead of a “elite (but remember communism is supposed to be classless…) group that elects the leaders”?
Communism is a novel idea BUT it hasn’t done a very good job demonstrating its benefits to the world. That’s the unfortunate reality of the situation.
If only you spent even a fraction of time you’ve spent trolling here actually educating yourself on the subject.
All of them practice democracy. What do you mean by “free?” Is that a vibe, where if Socialist = false, Capitalist = true?
I’m not talking about socialism.
I’m talking about communism.
This post is about communism.
You’re advocating for communism.
The terms are not interchangeable.
The terms were used interchangeably by Marx.
So we’ve decided socialism was invented by Marx then?
You are talking about Socialism, Communism is the status after Socialism. “Communism” as a status hasn’t been achieved, as it must be global, so we are talking about Socialism, and Marxism, the path to build Communism.