Doug, this confuses democrcay as a procedure for making social decisions (voting, majority rule, competitive elections, free speech, etc.) with the popularity of the decisions (or of the decisionmakers, measured otherwise than by democratic procedures). It's not surprising, btw, that a dictator who has a semi-competent propaganda ministry and is not utterly incompetent as a ruler should be popular. Hitler was popular too. Even if you understand democracy substantively, as actual popular power to make important social decisions (by whatever procedures), then Stalinist Russia is not going to qualify. jks
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Ted Winslow wrote:
>
> > Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> >>One more thing you liberal democrats forget is
> that Stalin was quite popular.
> >
> >What implication re Stalin should liberal democrats
> and others draw from this?
>
> 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.
>
> Doug
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