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I'm sorry it seems too biased to you, but get used to it, because every source is biased, and subjective. If you want to try and find the objective truth and completely neutral and un-biased sources then good luck. Like it or not, historical sources are all based on one's observations and pre-conditioned interperatation of any given event; and if you don't like someone else's, and therefore want to discredit it, because it's not your own, then I can easily do the same to your perception's or views.
I'm not looking for a completely unbiased source, but to take the unsubstantiated observations of a biased source, and the only source I have ever seen of its kind which suggests that elections in the USSR were democratic (even the most glowing accounts of soviet "democracy" I have read that were not party propaganda were critical) would be a folly to say the least.
Elections which are not secret, which have only one candidate, and in which there is an implicit threat of force if you do not comply (which even your source suggested was the case before the introduction of the secret ballot in 1935-36) is a sham. If you disagree with that, then once again, I really don't have anything to say to you.
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Wow, a worker's revolution which abolished private ownership of capital and production;
But retained the capitalist mode of production.
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a worker's state governed by a federal organization of worker's soviets,
In which the representatives of the workers were hand-picked by a central party authority, and in which the workers had no right to recall representatives who they felt did not represent them, and which did not convene often, which when out of session did not actually control the state as the power was shifted whenever the organization of soviets was not in session to a single person.
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which by it's nature, defends worker's ownership of production and attains the value of their labor, as well as the social and economic security and benefit of the working population ingrained as a priory
Says you. I don't see how a federation of soviets, with representatives elected in a similar fashion as in bourgeois elections where the candidates are hand-selected by the ruling party and which has limited control over the running of the state, rarely convenes, and whose power is turned over to a single party member when out of session "by its nature defends workers ownership of production and attains the value of their labor"
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......how much more significant do you want? For the first steps of the first worker's society, the CCCP was pretty damn significant; and to claim that there was no significant change from the relations of production that we see in bourgeois society, is simply ridiculous.
Then I guess I"m ridiculous.
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You have not proved, in any way, how any election in the Soviet Union was a sham. Whether it's true or not, its irrelevant, because your just parroting the same thing over and over again.
See above. If you think that an election in which a ruling party hand-selects candidates, presents them for "election", gives no alternative candidate, and in which there is an implicit threat of retaliatory action if you do not vote "yes" for the candidate presented (as your source pointed out was the case before the introduction of the secret ballot) is NOT a sham, then we have a very different conception of what makes a democratic election and I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
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No party member or Soviet deputy 'extracted' surplus value from anyone, because they didn't have the means to do so.
You again, claim a bunch of things without any substantial historical accuracy or simple evidence.
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No, probably not; because for some reason vigourous left or libertarian communists are so quick to jump and critique every last aspect of the Soviet Union, mostly based on their own words and thoughts, rather than history. Not all 'communists' who proclaim their opposition to the USSR are like this, however it's a common occurrence for people to state their criticism without actually critiquing it, or to simply spew common slander (like a good portion of the posts in this thread) and it never gets resolved, even when evidence is given to suggest a different view.
And vigorous leninists often get so caught up in combating liberalism and left-communist critique that they forget to take a critical approach themselves and recognize that the Soviet Union had failures as it did successes, and that despite that it was likely a step forward for workers, was not a shining example of socialism, but had more in common with capitalism due to the unique historical circumstances in which it developed and the fact that it never removed the capitalist mode of production or transferred control over it to the workers, because the workers were not always well represented in government, for the variety of reasons I've outlined below.
I am not anti-stalin or anti-ussr (except to which degree is required to be critical of places where it failed), which you'd know if you read other threads in which I've posted, I just think it's important not to pretend that it was under worker control when it VERY CLEARLY was not. To pretend that it had aspects which it did not is to do socialism a disservice, because when we are uncritical of our own failings we cannot use those experiences to grow. We should learn from the lack of democracy in the USSR and use it to organize better in the future.