Centralized socialist states can evolve into democratic comm

[MaxB]

Centralized socialist states can evolve into democratic communitarian societies.
The odds against this happening seem very long indeed. It is true that the old capitalist dogma that Communism was irreversible except by revolution from below or intervention from without was belied by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, but his attempt to create democratic socialism failed and the nation he governed disintegrated. The centralized economy was discarded not because it had been transcended, but because it had failed. Once power is concentrated in the hands of a certain class of people--whether bureaucrats or apparatchiks--they do not willingly let it go. Even the most idealistic rulers--perhaps especially the most idealistic rulers--are easily deceived into thinking that they speak for the people or at least govern for the people's good. The sort of debate necessary for the emergence of a functioning democracy is almost always viewed by the leaders as a form of treason and quickly stifled.

[j]

The problem was that the Soviet Union got out of hand under Stalin. Gorbachev had some good ideas but the way the government and country was due to Stalin created a very difficult transition.

I think that this does not mean that socialism can not be democratic. What Gorbachev attempted was turning a econimcally centralized Totalitarian state into a truly socialist state (of course a true socialist state IS democratic). That is why he failed not because he tried to turn a "centralized socialist state" into a "democratic communitarian society." In truth, a centralized socialist state IS a democratic communitarian society. Remember, a truly socialist state has not exisisted--making it a theory.

j

j

[honest intellectual]

Exactly, that is why there must be democratic, accountable, replacable power at any stage in socialism

[Guest]

Democracy, in the form of electing technocrats to do managerial jobs at certain levels is what is needed in Communism compared to Capitalism which elect little talking shops while the people that do the real work remain. You don't elect an ideology in Communism, ou elect a person to do a JOB.