> It makes it harder to describe Stalinism as tyranny, and if he could
> have won an election, it makes it harder to criticze him on democratic
> grounds at all, if your definition of democracy is that the government
> should respond to popular will.
This produces absurd implications e.g. Napoleon III's coup d'etat didn't produce tyranny because it was popular with many peasants. According to Marx, it more accurately expressed their "prejudice" and "superstition" than the preceding electoral victory.
Ted