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Socialists (including myself) DO NOT strongly oppose democracy and we are not dead set against Democracy

It is true to state that all socialists (like me) without exception oppose a phenomenon (https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/uTj40lLYk1p36h65NtA879gUYroqgwJPUBSJZOnIEWg.png) that we variably call ‘bourgeois democracy (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/nov/06.htm)’, ‘capitalist democracy’, or ‘(neo)liberal democracy’: where the handful of parties with any chance of winning elections are both almost identical functionally and are invariably dominated by the upper classes. However, with the exceptions of Amadeo Bordiga (https://libcom.org/files/Amadeo%20Bordiga-%20The%20Democratic%20Principle.pdf ) and similar left communists, most socialists never say that they are opposed to democracy as such. For example, many socialists argue that the state democratically reflecting the people’s will is in fact intrinsic to the proletarian state as proposed by Engels (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm). Similarly, most anarchists, such as Errico Malatesta, support directly democratic collectives (https://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca29), based on ‘one person; one vote’. We, in fact, would argue that it is ‘capitalist democracy’ that is oxymoronic, and that no liberal state was any more democratic than the people’s republics and other socialist organizations.

Some people may think that most of the people’s republics (with a few exceptions like the German Dem. Rep.) being unipartisan states proves conclusively that there was no democracy, but a people are not powerless simply because only one party is legal. In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qeYeYeLN7uKxfMdoe7TAmOMD2fmgyZdU_urvW6eAsRg#bookmark=id.pp2tckgjj2rp )for example, the electoral process that decided the representatives of the Central Committee (the Soviets’ largest governing and legislative body, later named the Supreme Soviet) was chosen via participatory democracy; worker groups and other mass organizations elected candidates before the 1950s and elsewhen; both historians (https://www.youtube.com/embed/2aMsi-A56ds ) and laborers (https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.261348 ) noted as much. The same applies in the Republic of Cuba (https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=96454), where the party (https://www.youtube.com/embed/2aMsi-A56ds )does not select candidates, nor does it decide elections, nor does it track voters, nor does it participate in the elections at all; individuals directly nominate any adults whom they think should be candidates. In fact the Republic of Cuba (https://books.google.com/books?id=tFQ7bVuGkBsC&pg=PA103 )has demonstrated that it is possible to abolish corruption through the semidirect democracy of electing people to the National Assembly of Peoples Power [1], ineluctably indicating that corruption is not ‘intrinsic’ to socialism.

Of course almost all antisocialists shall rationalize these elections, from the DPRK (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1we5OEdteZFfAh11v0s_RVh3LWAkVICGrFnvksVynGxw#heading=h.91mxkbo7190y )to elsewhere, as being transparent ceremonies and that there is clearly an unpopular autocracy beneath the surface. Why then do we have records of ‘omnipotent’ politicians like Joseph Stalin trying unsuccessfully to resign four times (https://socialistmlmusings.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/stalins-four-attempts-at-resignation/amp)? Why do Western scholars like Daniel Pinkston report that the DPRK elected 443 new members (including 107 active military members https://web.archive.org/web/20170302164721/https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/1998/north-korea)? Why did the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments determine that the DPRK’s voters cast ballots personally to a deputy in candidacy and in a place where a secret ballot is thoroughly maintained (https://web.archive.org/web/20131016023953/http://www.asgp.info/Resources/Data/Documents/CJOZSZTEPVVOCWJVUPPZVWPAPUOFGF.pdf)? Why did dozens of international observers (https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/65/56 ) judge the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s elections to be fair (https://www.reddit.com/r/shitliberalssay/wiki/venezuela#wiki_most_or_all_venezuelans_hate_socialism)? The standard explanation is simply that all of these otherwise competent and reputable reporters gullibly fell for ‘state propaganda’, allowing antisocialists to relax, confident that their ideology infalsifiable. But the narrative of ‘a totalitarian dictatorship forcing political hegemony through terror’ is simply ahistorical. The Soviets themselves said it best:

‘Do you really believe that we could have retained power and have had the backing of the vast masses for 14 years by methods of intimidation and terrorization? No, that is impossible. The tsarist government excelled all others in knowing how to intimidate. It had long and vast experience in that sphere. The European bourgeoisie, particularly the French, gave tsarism every assistance in this matter and taught it to terrorize the people. Yet, in spite of that experience and in spite of the help of the European bourgeoisie, the policy of intimidation led to the downfall of Tsarism.’ (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1931/dec/13.htm)

Some accuse us of overthrowing democracies. The phrase ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’  (https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dictatorship-proletariat )is often cited as the original sin in these regards, but the careful reader shall note that the phrase refers to a class (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm), not an individual. And with the arguable exception of Czechoslovakia, there are no instances of socialists overthrowing what could be meaningfully categorized as a democracy. One example sometimes given is Russia’s provisional government, but this was a deeply unpopular and unelected entity; the duma that assigned it did not even hold elections since 1913 (https://www.youtube.com/embed/OWUUIVJRgs4). Another is the Republic of Chile on grounds that the electoral victor was a minority president, hardly an unusual occurrence in the Americas (https://www.reddit.com/comments/ccyxx1/_/etqgfzl). All other overthrows were likewise not against popular governments but against upper‐class dictatorships, such as colonial territories (Angola, China, Guinea‐Bissau, Korea, Mozambique, Poland), neocolonial states (Cuba, Vietnam), Fascist occupations (Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia), decaying monarchies (Ethiopia, Romania), parafascist states (the Baltics, the Bourbon Restoration, Nicaragua), and similar.

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