People's Republic/People's Democracy

[Fruit of Ulysses]

Whats the difference between a Socialist People's Republic and a People's Democracy and all that? I forget but I know in classic 20th century Marxism-Leninism the terms had particular meanings and thus name changes held signifigant implications. Like the difference between a Revolutionary People's Party and a Communist Party

[Fruit of Ulysses]

no muthafucken replies homie?

[Ostrinski]

They're the same.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Generally Marxist Leninism adhears to the world systems theory, where the world is organized as an imperial system of oppressed (or perhaps the better word is exploited) and oppressor nations. The bourgeois of the imperialist nations have lost their progressive role while the ones at the peripheries still have a progressive role however are incapable of defeating it because imperialism keeps the oppressed nations in a state of underdevelopment. Lenin distinguished between socialist revolutions and bourgeois democratic revolutions where the national bourgeois overthrew imperialism and integrated themselves into the international bourgeois. The Chinese could be considered a bourgeois democratic revolution insofar that the bourgeois played a progressive role but as soon as it was successful they lost this progressive role and were eliminated through class struggle after the New Democratic period was over.

So in short, the reason why some countries are called People's Republic is because instead of the proletariat being the sole revolutionary class in these situations, the proletariat form a bloc of classes which they led as the vanguard. Hence the term "peoples" because this act encompasses the entire population

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Whats the difference between a Socialist People's Republic and a People's Democracy and all that?

First of all they are spelled differently...:laugh:

Seriously now:

Both are used by totalitarian dictatorships of a great leader who just happens to be in the communist party. They are used to give the illusion that the great leader is communist, is fighting for communism, or is fighting against western imperialism. All lies.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

First of all they are spelled differently...:laugh:

Seriously now:

Both are used by totalitarian dictatorships of a great leader who just happens to be in the communist party. They are used to give the illusion that the great leader is communist, is fighting for communism, or is fighting against western imperialism. All lies.

Well he was asking from a theoretical standpoint. What they meant in practice is another matter entirely.

[Veovis]

I think it should be said that a truly socialist state wouldn't be a "People's" Democracy, Republic, or whatever. It would have to exclude a section of the people, the bourgeoisie and their collaborators, from political participation.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Well he was asking from a theoretical standpoint. What they meant in practice is another matter entirely.

In theory they are perfect dictatorships of the proletariat where the bourgeosie is being suppressed by the state and the workers are in control of the state. Sounded marxist enough?

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I think it should be said that a truly socialist state wouldn't be a "People's" Democracy, Republic, or whatever. It would have to exclude a section of the people, the bourgeoisie and their collaborators, from political participation.

I don't know much about the application of People's Democracy in other countries, but I do know that in China during the New Democratic period reactionaries and the wealthy were barred from political positions in party and party relation organizations and from voting. They were explicitly given the right to employment as long as they did not engage in any counter-revolutionary activities and did not give their position to their children. This was probably a mistake but I can see where Mao was coming from. In China the proletariat represented only 3 Million people so the only other class with any technical knowledge that China would have needed for industrialization would be the petit bourgeois and the bourgeois. Because of this mistake, capitalism was restored in the 60's. Mao corrected this mistake during the Cultural Revolution by barring the bourgeois from, well pretty much everything, and by forcing every privileged "princiling" created by the restoration of capitalism to go into the countryside to teach the industrial workers the sciences and engineering so they count improve industrial productivity. It worked quite well actually since industrial productivity increased about 10-11% per year during the Cultural Revolution, but unfortunately capitalism was restored again shortly after Mao's death

[Q]

Whats the difference between a Socialist People's Republic and a People's Democracy and all that? I forget but I know in classic 20th century Marxism-Leninism the terms had particular meanings and thus name changes held signifigant implications. Like the difference between a Revolutionary People's Party and a Communist Party

About the name of the CP: A big factor was the Sino-Soviet split which caused all Western Maoist groups to add a "Revolutionary" for their party. And later there was the Sino-Albanian split. Other factors include mergers (like the East-German SED).

But there wasn't a whole lot of theoretical underpinnings to these names. It was more a pragmatic political thing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Both terms were underpinned by self-admitted state-capitalist development, something that can't be avoided even in today's Third World.