[Leninist]

When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia they instituted a political system designed to center power in the hands of people who were educated, informed, and, consequentially, communists. This made sense given that most of the country was poorly educated peasants, with a minority of (also poorly educated) workers. But the goal was that one day the people would be educated and informed (and communist) enough to play a greater hand in the leadership. Now, much of this went to pieces, as the regime became more repressive to keep down counter revolutionary groups (monarchists, zealously religious, etc.,) and much more so when Stalin took power and the precedent of supremely centralized power was instituted, and 40 years later it collapsed. OK.

So the point of discussion for this post is this: was there ever a point in the Soviet Union where the people were meeting the criteria well enough to begin to play a more broad role in things, and if not, why, and how long would it have taken to reach that point? Was any chance of this actually happening destroyed by Stalin, Lenin's death, the Bolsheviks rise, or was the very pretense of trying to create a communist people out of so conservative a one as inhabited Russia always doomed? I have my own opinion, I just wanted to see others. thanks.

[fuser]

in 1986 44% of CPSU members were Blue Collar Worker and 12% collective farmers.

What goal? USSR was a democracy. The worse thing than a rabid anti communist is a self proclaimed communist parroting the line of ideological enemies.

Kurschev was a metal worker, Andropov was an orphaned manual labour and there are much more examples like this. So, much for people from lower strata not rising up to play a greater role in leadership.

[Leninist]

Hm. Your point about workers in government is a good one. But I would remind you, Khrushchev was removed from power Undemocratically. And I recall there was a problem with term limits, namely lack there of, which a democracy should have to ensure a good turn over of leadership. I guess my main reservation about the ussr being a "democracy" is that the leadership had such little turn over of high level leadership, and far too much power directly invested in their hands. Institutions bellow the politburo a were not very powerful, and the high level people just died in office usually. All the heads of state did except for Gorbachev.

[fuser]

There's no such thing as perfect democracy, yes USSR needed further democratic reforms but to say that it was not democratic in any way is parroting enemy propagandist line.

USSR was relatively a young state than other liberal democracies who took centuries and countless reform to reach here at this present stage but yet "liberal democracies" are a façade namely because there is no democracy in the most important sphere of life i.e. economy. So, basically what I am saying is that with time USSR would also had went through numerous reform to reach at a more better functioning, stable and mature democracy just like liberal democracies did.

Finally, Soviet Democracy > Liberal Democracy

Oh, and you can't have colour avatars, it must be black and white.

[Leninist]

There's no such thing as perfect democracy, yes USSR needed further democratic reforms but to say that it was not democratic in any way is parroting enemy propagandist line.

USSR was relatively a young state than other liberal democracies who took centuries and countless reform to reach here at this present stage but yet "liberal democracies" are a façade namely because there is no democracy in the most important sphere of life i.e. economy. So, basically what I am saying is that with time USSR would also had went through numerous reform to reach at a more better functioning, stable and mature democracy just like liberal democracies did.

Finally, Soviet Democracy > Liberal Democracy

Oh, and you can't have colour avatars, it must be black and white.

That's fair. The ussr had much less time to develope than other places. And the founders of the us did a similar tactic when they created the constitution here, except it was Just rich white guys. I think you are correct. Really the brake up of the ussr was rather stupid, as most people in the country did not support the brake up. Yeltsins fault I suppose.

And thanks for heads up, ill change. But y no color?

[Dagoth Ur]

Rules is rules my dear.

Also why are term limits so important? All that does is rotate the public face of the State. I don't see why they're supposedly so valuable. It's only when things are being changed to make them like "eternal" leaders and so on that it goes too far.

[Leninist]

Rules is rules my dear.

Also why are term limits so important? All that does is rotate the public face of the State. I don't see why they're supposedly so valuable. It's only when things are being changed to make them like "eternal" leaders and so on that it goes too far.

Well term limits are important because without political turnover it can turn into a gentocracy or a party can lose touch with the public. Some would say this happened in the ussr. It also means that a state or system will not become overly centered on on figure. Imagine if nazi germany had existed long enough for hotler to die. It also makes it harder for a hitler style dictatorship to rise.

[The Immortal Goon]

You should read John Reed's articles on the early soviet state. Regardless, the idea was that the soviets would have instant recall and full representation to check their leaders. You do actually see this with Lenin. He pretty quickly trying to put a kind of early version of the NEP, but voted down.

You don't see that with Stalin for several reasons, not the least of which being a buerocracy getting between the democracy and the administration. It's something Lenin is keenly aware of when he dies. Whether he's saying something flowery or not, Trotsky was once asked why he didn't use the Red Army he built to take out Stalin. His response was that changing out what buerocracy for another would solve no problems, and legitimizing the military to do so would make things worse.

[Leninist]

You should read John Reed's articles on the early soviet state. Regardless, the idea was that the soviets would have instant recall and full representation to check their leaders. You do actually see this with Lenin. He pretty quickly trying to put a kind of early version of the NEP, but voted down.

You don't see that with Stalin for several reasons, not the least of which being a buerocracy getting between the democracy and the administration. It's something Lenin is keenly aware of when he dies. Whether he's saying something flowery or not, Trotsky was once asked why he didn't use the Red Army he built to take out Stalin. His response was that changing out what buerocracy for another would solve no problems, and legitimizing the military to do so would make things worse.

Thank you so much, that question about Trotsky has been bothering me for years, and even my soviet history teacher didn't know. I was aware of the bureaucracy problem, but Trotsky being so influential over the army as he was, I was always stunned he didn't just kill Stalin. In fact lenin also could have killed Stalin, I guess they just had a too much faith in the party, or they just seriously underestimated Stalin. Probably both.

[The Immortal Goon]

When I'm at my computer I'll try to drum up the source. It's on MIA and it's Trotsky answering questions in the late thirties or early forties I think to an American delegation, if you want to look it up.

It always seemed to me like there must be something more to it, as Trotsky in no way opposed violence. But I can't think of anything else, and it's consistant with his call for the defense of the gains of the USSR.

[park]

Word democracy doesn't mean a lot.People can't really choose what governments do,politicians lie and don't do what they got votes for,they make decisions against the will of people.The USSR didn't collapse for democracy

[The Immortal Goon]

I was aware of the bureaucracy problem, but Trotsky being so influential over the army as he was, I was always stunned he didn't just kill Stalin. In fact lenin also could have killed Stalin, I guess they just had a too much faith in the party, or they just seriously underestimated Stalin. Probably both.

Here's one of the quotes I promised. I cut it down as Trotsky is often long-winded:

The question – it is very current (and very naive) – “Why did Trotsky at the time not use the military apparatus against Stalin?” is the clearest evidence in the world that the questioner cannot or does not wish to reflect on the general historical reasons for the victory of the Soviet bureaucracy over the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. I have written about these reasons more than once in a certain number of books, beginning with my autobiography. I propose to sum up the most important conclusions in a few lines.

It is not the present bureaucracy which ensured the victory of the October Revolution, but the working and peasant masses under Bolshevik leadership. The bureaucracy began to grow only after the definitive victory, swelling its ranks not only with revolutionary workers but also with representatives of other classes (former czarist functionaries, officers, bourgeois intellectuals, etc.). The present bureaucracy, in its overwhelming majority, was, at the time of the October Revolution, in the bourgeois camp (take as examples merely the Soviet ambassadors Potemkin, Maisky, Troyanovsky, Surits, Khinchuk, etc.). Those of the present bureaucracy who in the October days were in the Bolshevik camp in the great majority of cases played no role even slightly important in either the preparation or the conduct of the revolution, or in the first years following it. This applies above all to Stalin himself. As for the present young bureaucrats, they are chosen and educated by the older ones, most often from among their own children. And it is Stalin who has become the “chief” of this new caste which has grown up after the revolution.

...It emerges from the movement of the masses in the first period, the heroic period. But having risen above the masses, and then having resolved its own “social question” (an assured existence, influence, respect, etc.), the bureaucracy tends increasingly to keep the masses immobile. Why take risks? It has something to lose. The supreme expansion of the influence and well-being of the reformist bureaucracy takes place in an epoch of capitalist progress and of relative passivity of the working masses. But when this passivity is broken, on the right or on the left, the magnificence of the bureaucracy comes to an end. Its intelligence and skill are transformed into stupidity and impotence. The nature of the “leadership” corresponds to the nature of the class (or of the caste) it leads and to the objective situation through which this class (or caste) is passing.

...The genuine revolutionary proletarians in the USSR drew their strength not from the apparatus but from the activity of the revolutionary masses. In particular, the Red Army was created not by “men of the apparatus” (in the most critical years the apparatus was still very weak), but by the cadres of heroic workers who, under Bolshevik leadership, gathered around them the young peasants and led them into battle. The decline of the revolutionary movement, the weariness, the defeats in Europe and in Asia, the disappointment of the working masses, were inevitably and directly to weaken the positions of the internationalist-revolutionaries and, on the other hand, were to strengthen the positions of the national and conservative bureaucracy. A new chapter opens in the revolution. The leaders of the preceding period go into opposition while the conservative politicians of the apparatus, who had played a secondary role in the revolution, emerge with the triumphant bureaucracy, in the forefront.

As for the military apparatus, it is a part of the bureaucratic apparatus, in no way distinguished in qualities from it. It is enough to say that in the years of the civil war, the Red Army absorbed tens of thousands of former czarist officers. On March 13, 1919, Lenin said to a meeting in Petrograd: “When Trotsky told me recently that, in the military sphere, the number of our officers was several tens of thousands, then I had a concrete picture of what is meant by the secret of using our enemy: how to have communism built by those who were formerly our enemies; build communism with bricks collected against us by the capitalists! And we have no other bricks!” These cadres of officers and functionaries carried out their work in the first years under the direct pressure and surveillance of the advanced workers. In the fire of the cruel struggle, there could not be even a question of a privileged position for officers: the very word was scrubbed out of the vocabulary. But precisely after the victories had been won and the passage made to a peaceful situation, the military apparatus tried to become the most influential and privileged part of the whole bureaucratic apparatus. The only person who would have relied on the officers for the purpose of seizing power would have been someone who was prepared to go further than the appetites of the officer caste, that is to say, who would have ensured for them a superior position, given them ranks and decorations, in a word, would have done in one single act what the Stalinist bureaucracy has done gradually over the succeeding ten to twelve years. There is no doubt that it would have been possible to carry out a military coup d’état against the faction of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, etc., without any difficulty and without even the shedding of any blood; but the result of such a coup d’état would have been to accelerate the rhythm of this very bureaucratization and Bonapartism against which the Left Opposition had engaged in struggle.

The task of the Bolshevik-Leninists was by its very essence not to rely on the military bureaucracy against that of the party but to rely on the proletarian vanguard and through it on the popular masses, and to master the bureaucracy in its entirety, to purge it of its alien elements, to ensure the vigilant control of the workers over it, and to set its policy back on the rails of revolutionary internationalism. But as the living fountain of the revolutionary strength of the masses was dried up in the civil war, famine, and epidemics, and as the bureaucracy grew terribly in numbers and insolence, the revolutionary proletarians became the weaker side. To be sure, the banner of the Bolshevik-Leninists gathered tens of thousands of the best revolutionary fighters, including some military men. The advanced workers were sympathetic to the Opposition, but that sympathy remained passive; the masses no longer believed that the situation could be seriously changed by struggle. Meanwhile the bureaucracy asserted: “The Opposition proposes international revolution and is ready to drag us into a revolutionary war. Enough of shake-ups and misery. We have earned the right to rest. We need no more of ‘permanent revolution.’ We will build the socialist society at home. Workers and peasants, rely on us, your leaders!” This nationalist and conservative agitation was accompanied – to mention it in passing – by furious slanders, sometimes absolutely reactionary, against the internationalists...

[Leninist]

Thank you that is very helpful.

[Leninist]

Word democracy doesn't mean a lot.People can't really choose what governments do,politicians lie and don't do what they got votes for,they make decisions against the will of people.The USSR didn't collapse for democracy

No, Russia is a hard place to change. It's outside is fluid enough, but deep down its rather conservative and authoritarian.

[Travesty]

The Stalinist constitution was very democratic. It was laughable of course I think that it was something to be strived towards and not designed to actually reflect reality.

[Rich]

The Bolsheviks destroyed the Duma and the local councils, within hours of taking power they set about destroying the railworkers union. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly. They fixed the supreme Soviet to give themselves a majority. In the Spring and Summer of 1918 even the urban workers turned against the Bolsheviks and voted the Bolsheviks out of power in the city Soviets. Of course the Bolsheviks just reconstituted them with a Bolshevik majority. They destroyed the factory committees and all Trade union independence. One by one they banned all the political parties. Once the Bolshevik Jackboot had conquered all, they set to killing each other as they fought over the spoils of their victory.

The Bolsheviks were brutal dictatorial terrorist parasites who exploited the workers and peasants so as they could live in luxury. Trotsky who particularly liked the good life proudly declared how they butchered the peasants and workers of Kronstadt when they had the audacity to ask for a say in how their country was run.

[fuser]

Don't forget the tortured kittens and Satan worshipping.

[Leninist]

The Bolsheviks destroyed the Duma and the local councils, within hours of taking power they set about destroying the railworkers union. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly. They fixed the supreme Soviet to give themselves a majority. In the Spring and Summer of 1918 even the urban workers turned against the Bolsheviks and voted the Bolsheviks out of power in the city Soviets. Of course the Bolsheviks just reconstituted them with a Bolshevik majority. They destroyed the factory committees and all Trade union independence. One by one they banned all the political parties. Once the Bolshevik Jackboot had conquered all, they set to killing each other as they fought over the spoils of their victory.

The Bolsheviks were brutal dictatorial terrorist parasites who exploited the workers and peasants so as they could live in luxury. Trotsky who particularly liked the good life proudly declared how they butchered the peasants and workers of Kronstadt when they had the audacity to ask for a say in how their country was run.

The Duma was ruled by plutocrats and was overthrown by popular revolution. The reason the Bolsheviks came to power was because no other group was able to present the people with a plan which was satisfactory. The Unions were likely to be reactionary and dominated by old guard from before the revolution. As for being unpopular once in power, well enough people supported them to let them win the civil war. And as for being undemocratic, I say let the country that founded a pure democracy cast the first stone. The United States only allowed rich white guys to vote at first, and took more than a hundred years to let everyone have the technical right to vote, and discrimination still disenfranchises some people. There were also attempts to overthrow the leadership, look up Shay's rebellion. Britain and most of Europe had similar situations. At least the Bolsheviks had the goal of letting everyone vote once they were educated enough, while in much of the world, even democracies, the right to vote had to won against racism and sexism.

Whatever the crimes of the Bolsheviks and Stalin, you might want to consider this before you make your final decision about them. Before the revolution, workers often lived in mud huts around the factory in which they worked if it was in the country. Doctors were rare and almost never saw the poor. When the USSR fell the workers at least had apartments, electricity and healthcare. Stalin may have killed millions, but think of how many millions of babies and mothers didn't die in child birth in the seventy years the Union existed. Without communism, Russia would still be a third world country. Since communism's fall the country has seemed to regress if anything.

[The Immortal Goon]

The Bolsheviks destroyed the Duma and the local councils, within hours of taking power they set about destroying the railworkers union. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly. They fixed the supreme Soviet to give themselves a majority.

They never legitimized the old foundations of power. Which is why they didn't participate in the Duma, incidentally. They would have been total hypocrites to deny it was a basis of power, wait until they were popular enough to be voted in (all agree they could have) and then rule from there. They chose to consistently always see it as a flawed organization of oppression.

In the Spring and Summer of 1918 even the urban workers turned against the Bolsheviks and voted the Bolsheviks out of power in the city Soviets. Of course the Bolsheviks just reconstituted them with a Bolshevik majority. They destroyed the factory committees and all Trade union independence. One by one they banned all the political parties. Once the Bolshevik Jackboot had conquered all, they set to killing each other as they fought over the spoils of their victory.

This is blatantly not true.

The Bolsheviks were brutal dictatorial terrorist parasites who exploited the workers and peasants so as they could live in luxury. Trotsky who particularly liked the good life proudly declared how they butchered the peasants and workers of Kronstadt when they had the audacity to ask for a say in how their country was run.

Oh please, not only was Trotsky not in charge of that operation, but the Kronstadt sailors were the most loyal Bolsheviks and not left to be sitting there off to the side doing nothing during civil war. They were cycled out to the fronts and less reliable units brought in to hold the area. The opening of the Soviet archive has pretty much confirmed Trotsky's interpretation, which is no surprise as Trotsky ran the civil war.

But you don't actually care about facts. If you did, then you wouldn't have even bothered to try and state such obviously transparent lies.

[sans-culotte]

The supreme Soviet (the legislative body of the USSR) was probably more democratic than most democracies today.
It is also true that real worker democracy was undermined by Bolshevik dictate in 1918-1921. Soviet democracy was bourgeois corporate democracy, like Mexico in the PRI years.