[lbo-talk] Stalin, democrat

[andie nachgeborenen]

Well, at a minumum by democratic I mean a set of
procedures in which the majority rules through voting
or some equivalent expression of its preferences, and
I'd add, since I am a liberal democrat, that there has
to be some approximation to universal suffrage,
competitive elections or (if there are not elections,
as in some smaller societies) effective ways for
diveregent interests to express thjeir views without
repression, amd an extensive set of political and
civil liberties. Since you ask.  Mere majority rule by
itself might count as non- or subliberal democracy.
The USSR was not, and did not support, even that -- it
was, and supported, one-party dictatorships. 

I don't really want to get into the boring (here)
issue of Was The USSR a Good Thing. If you start on
this, I'm just going to stop participating. I will
discuss concrete questions about Soviet history,
politics, and economics, like whether Beria was a
reformer or was Stalin in some sense a democrat.

My answer to the WTUSSRAGT is: in some ways yes, in
some ways no.  But I don't believe it was "one the
side of the vast majority of the people of the earth,"
It was a realpolitik dictatorship, decreasingly
horrible over its last three decades, whiose existence
served as countereweight to US imperialism. I'm not
not to change my mind on that.  

And I don't understand how anyone who really think of
himself as a Marxist could think a secrety policdeman
could be democratic period.

jks

--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:


> andie nachgeborenen 
> 
> How else would you describe a secret policeman,
> Charles?
> 
> ^^^
> 
> CB: If he's on the side of the vast majority of
> people on earth , I wouldn't
> call him undemocratic or evil, andie ?
> 
> What do you mean by democratic ?
> 
> 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
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> 

		
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