Like allowing multiple political parties, full freedom of speech and assembly, abolishing the police, ownership of weapons, direct democracy etc.

The common justification is that they were in a dire situation where allowing too much freedom would allow counterrevolutionaries and foreign imperialists to sabotage and destroy them. I find this unconvincing, to what extent is security better than freedom? To what extent can the current leadership be trusted to "protect the revolution" than possible others better suited who couldnt take power?

Even then, why did the Soviet Union and other communist countries not democratize after WW2 when they arguably established sovereignty with their nuclear weapons?

Just as the capitalist ruling class preferred fascism to losing their power to communists, it seems the Marxist-Leninist rulers preferred capitalism to a more democratic form of socialism.

We see this happen now in Cuba, the last bastion of Marxism-Leninism, where the ruling class has been gradually introducing privatization and market reforms rather than allowing things like open elections, freedom of speech etc. Under capitalism, they can still rule.

  • KiaKaha [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Cuban democracy is incredibly participatory. Read these two comparisons of its system with America’s, and this process of writing and approving its new constitution.

    Here’s a primer on how China’s political system works, complete with multi-party collaboration But China’s real gem is its responsiveness to people’s needs. It’s how it ends up with such a high approval rating, and why more people in China feel like they live in a democratic system than people in America.

    I’m not a huge USSR-head, so I don’t have much info on their democracy, but in passing I’ve heard it was pretty decent.

    I don’t see why a two party, partisan system ought to be the final form of democracy, especially when its results are so blatantly shit. If there’s a different form that people feel is more democratic, why shouldn’t that be considered democracy?

    Do you really need a formal, country-wide vote for leader, replete with game show esque contests on national TV and mass advertising, to qualify as ‘democratic’? If so, is that sort of ‘democracy’ even worth having?

        • Churnthrow123 [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Places like China get a reputation as dictatorships because they treat """respectable""" people like bankers, business owners, and their propaganda arms (journalists, think tanks, "intellectuals") in the same way that the US treats the poor, racial minorities, etc.

      • GVAGUY3 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Xi really did numbers to end a lot of corruption.

      • Churnthrow123 [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The US imprisons proportionally about as many people as the USSR did in the GULAG system. Then add in a the people on parole and probation, the NSA, CIA, and FBI, and our tyranny would frankly make Stalin blush.

        The difference is that the US "justice" system targets poor and working people while the Soviets imprisoned a lot more members of the intelligentsia and reminants of the bourgeoisie. No shit the media loves to crow about the "tyranny". It's tyranny because places like the USSR targeted the people who rule our society now. Naturally the wealthy and their lapdogs and voices (most "journalists" and "policy wonks" in the West) freak the fuck out when a system treats them like they treat the so-called lazy poor.

        China is similar. A lot of the people who get executed or imprisoned are corrupt business leaders. Would it really be tyrannical if the CEO of Wells Fargo was perp walked in primetime, or people like Larry Summers disappeared into a van?

    • ComradeRat [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I've been wondering something about the research Bloomberg cites there actually. The poll looks really good for China, but kinda terrible for Venezuela. Any idea what's going on there?

      • KiaKaha [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Sanctions have dropped the quality of life. The oil industry is in tatters. There’s an opposition party calling for coups and invasions on the regular. The democratic system there is barely functional right now.

        EDIT: or it’s what Unperson said.

      • cpfhornet [she/her,comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Well the pressure from the US certainly is stronger on Venezuela than China. While Venezuela seems to be holding firm well enough despite it, I can't imagine it's been easy for the people either.

      • unperson [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        If you go to the source you immediately see the problem:

        Methodology

        This report presents an overview of a study conducted by Dalia Research and the Alliance of Democracies in the Spring of 2020. The sample of n=124,000 online-connected respondents was drawn across 53 countries, with country sample sizes ranging from 1,000 to 3,000. Nationally representative results were calculated based on the official distribution of age, gender and education for each country’s population, sourced from most recent and available data from Barro Lee & UNStat, and census.gov. The average margin of error across all countries sampled is (+/-) 3.25%.

        Data Collection

        Dalia’s surveys are conducted online through internet-connected devices, such as smartphones, tablets and computers. Dalia follows an open recruitment approach that leverages the reach of over 40.000 third-party apps and mobile websites. To ensure coverage across different demographic groups and geographical regions, Dalia targets a highly diverse set of apps and websites – from news to shopping, to sports and games. As a result, Dalia generates up to 21 million answers every month from respondents living in as many as 100 different countries.

        The 'survey' is an online poll, deliberately not adjusted for income. The fact that Bolivia always ranks really poorly in these kinds of polls, because most of the population doesn't even have access to the Internet, let alone use it for anything but interpersonal communication, was used as justification for the coup.