Is it possible to have a democratic communist society/country?

[Viva Revolution!]

I was wondering if it's possible to have a democratic communist society? As it's only fair that the people get to decide what happen's to them.

[Tommy4ever]

It is impossible to have a communist society without democracy. For in a communist society the people are able to have a say in all their everyday affairs. This would be participatory democracy rather than the 'representative democracy' most people associate the word with.

[jake williams]

I was wondering if it's possible to have a democratic communist society? As it's only fair that the people get to decide what happen's to them.
Why wouldn't it be? Are you suggesting that it's impossible in principle for people to support collective ownership and control of the economy?

[Viva Revolution!]

No, not at all. I'm just new to communism, and i was judging by Cuba, because as far as I am concerned, that's far from a democracy.

[Lorax]

There is a very old argument about what democracy means in practice that this thread will probably cause people to rehash, including myself. It's a difficult problem. In bourgeois "democracies" money has a blatant role in helping to influence public opinion and determine the outcome of elections. Some nations have done better job of mitigating this influence than others, but none have been perfect. In nations like Cuba and China on the other hand, so called People's democracies, the average person has even less say than they do in bourgeois "democracies."

In theory we could have popularly elected truly socialist or communist parties that regularly stand for reelection and compete against capitalist parties, who would seek to re-implement electoral and campaign finance systems that favor capitalist parties, along with dismantling any sort of socialist framework we had managed to build up to that point. This isn't the sort of situation Marx envisioned, let alone Lenin. I'm pretty sure this isn't what the anarchists have in mind either. I suppose you could have a constitution that is basically impossible to amend short of revolution that requires socialism and sets limits on "democracy" just as the U.S. constitution in practice limits us to choosing between two capitalist parties, but how democratic is that?

[Zav]

Communism is the ultimate incarnation of democracy. In a Communist society, the people have ALL the power, as no higher power would exist to take most of it, as opposed to Capitalism (U.S.A., France, Britain, Italy, etc.) and State Capitalism (USSR, DPRK, PRC, etc.), where the people have virtually no power. Oh, and welcome to RevLeft.:)

[Spawn of Stalin]

No, not at all. I'm just new to communism, and i was judging by Cuba, because as far as I am concerned, that's far from a democracy.
It's probably closer to democracy than what you or I have

[#FF0000]

It's probably closer to democracy than what you or I have

In some ways, sure, maybe, whatever. in other ways, fuckin no.

[VirgJans12]

In some ways, sure, maybe, whatever. in other ways, fuckin no.

The main difference is people in Cuba vote on people instead of parties. These people represent socialist values and goals, and will somewhat differ in their plans or approaches. In our democracies, you can choose between very different parties, and so very different ways of governing the country.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

^^^

Exactly. All parties in Cuba are banned from elections.

The bourgeoisie tend to report this as 'bourgeois parties in Cuba are banned from elections'.

Having said that, on a national level there is a clear democratic deficit, as there is a constitutional hangover from the pro-Soviet era whereby the PCC has, legally speaking, a guiding role in society. Obviously, with the advent of a more market-orientated direction, and the soon-to-be replacement of the old guard, there is an obvious flaw in this legal situation.

On a local level, Cuba has a thriving democracy. Been there, seen it. CDRs are a great vehicle for non-party democracy.