Is it true that...

[Chow Foo]

Is it true that the USSR under Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the MOST Democratic government in History? How?

Thanks in advance

[New Tet]

Is it true that the USSR under Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the MOST Democratic government in History? How?

Thanks in advance

A complete falsehood.

[Kukulofori]

Lmao.

[StrictlyRuddie]

Initially in the beginning with the use of soviets(workers councils) it was. Bureaucracy got the best of them though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy

I hate to link a wikipedia article but it is surprisingly good.

[Lolshevik]

Yes.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Yes.

I won't waste both my time refuting this talking comprehensively about the complete lack of democratic value of the Bolshevik Party, it's disregard for Sovietism nor their willingness to ignore the will of the workers and put the party wellbeing above and beyond that of the USSR population..

But perhaps you could explain something to me, how did the Bolsheviks, with minimal support from the Russian Population, establish a democratic order? If they didn't have the consent of the people, they aren't democratic, I read that in 'A Dummies guide to Government' perhaps i'm wrong :/

[New Tet]

I won't waste both my time refuting this talking comprehensively about the complete lack of democratic value of the Bolshevik Party, it's disregard for Sovietism nor their willingness to ignore the will of the workers and put the party wellbeing above and beyond that of the USSR population..

But perhaps you could explain something to me, how did the Bolsheviks, with minimal support from the Russian Population, establish a democratic order? If they didn't have the consent of the people, they aren't democratic, I read that in 'A Dummies guide to Government' perhaps i'm wrong :/

You're right.

The hostility of Lenin and the Bolsheviks toward any kind of worker democracy is amply documented.

[21st Century Kropotkinist]

Is it true that the USSR under Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the MOST Democratic government in History? How?

Thanks in advance

Democratic government is an oxymoron.

[Communist Theory]

I suspect a troll.

[Lolshevik]

I won't waste both my time refuting this talking comprehensively about the complete lack of democratic value of the Bolshevik Party, it's disregard for Sovietism nor their willingness to ignore the will of the workers and put the party wellbeing above and beyond that of the USSR population..

But perhaps you could explain something to me, how did the Bolsheviks, with minimal support from the Russian Population, establish a democratic order? If they didn't have the consent of the people, they aren't democratic, I read that in 'A Dummies guide to Government' perhaps i'm wrong :/

Woah, take a chill pill dude. My post was a half-joke anyway. It would be a gross oversimplification to say at ANY stage of the revolution, that Soviet Russia was the most democratic government in history.

But yeah, you don't consider the disillution of the bourgeois Constituent Assembly & its replacement by a federation of soviets, based on the principles of electoral recall & workers' power, to be a good step?

[scarletghoul]

There was considerable democracy existing in early Soviet Russia, with workers having a lot of power. However, to say it is the "MOST Democratic government in History" is incorrect, as there have been other socialist democracies in history, all with varying degrees of success and of democracy and they should not be overlooked. Some good examples are Anarchist Catalonia, Maoist China and the Zapatista territory. So it's important when considering socialism to look not just at the Soviet Union, because many cool things can be found in other movements and countries.

[RotStern]

No u were killed if u disagreed with the government

[Charles Xavier]

Is it true that the USSR under Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the MOST Democratic government in History? How?

Thanks in advance
yes

[Guerrilla22]

Define "democratic"

[New Tet]

Define "democratic"

Majority rule.

[ComradeOm]

Most democratic ever? An impossible comparison. You also have to contrast the state of the Russian Revolution, and the state it produced, in 1917 to that of, say, 1924 by which point it had thoroughly degenerated. What is however in no way productive is the likes of below which comprises a simple generalisation spun across the years. Instead of asking how a vibrant democratic movement broke down in such as fashion, there's a popular tendency to simply assume that it was never that in the first place. Which is nonsense


I won't waste both my time refuting this talking comprehensively about the complete lack of democratic value of the Bolshevik Party, it's disregard for Sovietism nor their willingness to ignore the will of the workers and put the party wellbeing above and beyond that of the USSR population..Bullshit. The Bolshevik party of 1917 (and the immediate post-October period) was a vibrantly democratic body. All positions throughout the party were elected. The Central Committee itself was elected by the party congresses that met at least once a year during the revolutionary period (often more, there were two CC's elected during 1917) which was also where major party programmes and policy decisions were voted on. Nor was the Central Committee the be-all and end-all of the Bolsheviks - there was a host of other committees and sections, all similarly democratic, that possessed the freedom to vote on CC measures and significant leeway in running their own affairs

Its also extremely peculiar to claim that the Bolsheviks had a "disregard for Sovietism" given that they played a major role in transferring power to the Soviets and later relied entirely on the Congress of Soviets for their own support. Once again it was delegates elected by the Sovnarkom Soviets that provided the basis of and direction for any Bolshevik government. At least two congresses of the Soviets were held every year to determine the composition of the Central Executive Committee. In turn this body exercised complete oversight over the Sovnarkom. Hardly sounds like an arrangement intended to minimise or sideline the soviets but then, as events were consistently to prove, such an improvement was pretty much the "will of the workers"

The slur about "party wellbeing" is nothing but that - a baseless slur. What I will note however is that contrary to arriving at power intent on installing some 'dictatorship of the party', the Bolshevik organisation itself was almost entirely ignored in the post-October period. Virtually all party activity halted as the Bolshevik members, amongst the most militant and revolutionary of the working class, moved en masse into Soviet work or the Red Army. Membership dropped like a stone in 1918 and the party organisation itself became an irrelevancy until resuscitated at a later date. It did not exert influence over the soviets or the government, and it was certainly not in the position to pamper its members

But by all means, please enlighten us as to why you feel the above is anti-democratic. If its not a waste of your time of course


But perhaps you could explain something to me, how did the Bolsheviks, with minimal support from the Russian Population, establish a democratic order? If they didn't have the consent of the people, they aren't democratic, I read that in 'A Dummies guide to Government' perhaps i'm wrong :/You think the Bolshevik majority at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was a fabrication? Similarly for the Constitutional Assembly results which portrayed them as the party of the Russian proletariat? Throw in the Left SRs (although their popularity is less tangiable) and it is absolutely clear that the October Revolution, with its transfer of power to the Soviets, enjoyed overwhelming popular support of the Russian proletariat and indeed population at large

[Pogue]

I don't think the Bolshevik government was democraitc at all. There was active supression of non-Bolshevik opinion often manifested in violence, and the Bolsheviks often appointed important membera of the state rather than let the people elect them. The Soviets became undemocratic in the first years after the revolution and thats why there was the Kronstadt rebelleion, amongst other reasons.

I think the main problem was that they didn't really have democratic values. Democratic centralism is far from democratic, its dictatorial, and Lenin was fuelled by the misguided idea that the will of the working class was represented by the self proclaimed vanguard party and so anything the party did was what the people wanted and thus democratic. This was clearly totally false.

[ComradeOm]

I think the main problem was that they didn't really have democratic valuesExcept that this clashes heavily with reality. The internal workings of the Bolshevik party that I have outlined above, and in numerous other posts, has not been drawn from polemics or out-of-context quotes culled from works of theory. The historical fact is that within the Bolshevik party of 1917 all positions were elected, policies and decisions were voted on at every level, and the various committees, sections, and fractions had considerable independence. This is not my opinion, it is not theory, and regardless of whatever Lenin and Trotsky wrote (I'm sure Dave B will be along shortly with some unflattering quotes) this was the reality on the ground

Which makes the whole suggestion that the Bolsheviks "didn't really have democratic values" absolutely ludicrous. How on earth can a party with such democratic structures and democratic practices be accused of not having "democratic values"? That makes no sense. But then your entire thesis is based on a selective reading of polemic fragments which attempts to paint the Bolsheviks were dictators-in-waiting. It is flatly contradicted by the actual structures and practices of the pre-Revolution Bolshevik organisation

This obviously has significant impact on discussions of the post-October period. Its equally bizarre and illogical for a democratic party that comes to power via at the head of a democratic revolution to suddenly turn around and purposefully create a police state. Its a sudden shift in mentality and purpose that makes no sense. Hence the requirement that either pre-Revolution Lenin be reshaped into a wannabe dictator or the socialist and democratic character of the Revolution is denied entirely. Either way is a dishonest portray of events that bears little relation to history

[Misanthrope]

Worker collectives and councils emerged. The Bolsheviks crushed these institutions in favor of one man management and the like. To argue that The Bolsheviks were trying to save the working class from the dire conditions around them is just rubbish and it shows the failure of their ideology. The Bolsheviks vision of socialism was from the top - down, that is not inline with democratic principles.

If you want historical examples of democratic governments look into, Paris Commune, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, Israeli Kibbutz ect.

[NecroCommie]

I would have to say yes.

This is not because I think that the USSR was somehow unfathomly democratic, but because being the most democratic regime in the history is not much of an accomplishment. The competition on this sect of industry is not of biblical proportions, to put it mildly.