• PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
    49·
    5 days ago

    Explanation: After overthrowing the Tsar in 1917, the Russian provisional government made preparations to hold the first free and fair elections Russia had ever experienced. Once the votes were in and the legislators seated in early 1918, it was apparent that the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) had won a near-majority, with aligned parties giving them a comfortable majority. The Bolsheviks had less than a quarter of the vote.

    … the Bolsheviks decided to dissolve the national assembly by force, and take control of the government themselves, kicking off a ~4 year long civil war, which they, unfortunately, won, establishing the Soviet Union as an oligarchic bureaucratic despotism.

      • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
        27·
        4 days ago

        It happens far too often, certainly true.

        In the defense of leftists, though, I feel obligated to point out that this is a very commonly cited example of why ‘Vanguard’ parties made up of small groups of elites who are sure THEY know how to get to socialism (unlike the UNWASHED MASSES) are untrustworthy.

        When socialism arrives, it’ll arrive by the people’s hands, not against their will.

        • Eldritch@piefed.worldEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

          Yep, who watches the watchmen. And what does the vanguard guard. Two of the more important questions never asked.

      • LurkingLuddite@piefed.socialEnglish
        7·
        4 days ago

        Those bastards aren’t real communists and never were. Do not allow traitorous autocrats to redefine what communism means. They are traitors to the cause, nothing more.

        Same goes for tankies of all flavors. Such as ML tankies.

        • Ricky Rigatoni@piefed.zipEnglish
          5·
          4 days ago

          When we can find a single instance of communism that didn’t devolve into an auth hellscape I’ll believe you.

          • LurkingLuddite@piefed.socialEnglish
            6·
            4 days ago

            Those are not communism. At all. An autocrat using the language of communism is not communism.

            If I say I’m a gay fish, does that make me a gay fish? If no, then some dumbass country led by a ruler that you often cannot question, is by definition not communist, no matter what they call themselves.

            • Ricky Rigatoni@piefed.zipEnglish
              2·
              3 days ago

              It works the same way how capitalism is the pathway to fascism. If you give people a government structure that allows them to consolidate and abuse power, they will do so because humans are shitbirds. This is basic humanity 101.

        • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          I mean, they are traitors to the cause, but other than how hilarious it is to call them out as indistinguishable from right-wing bootlickers except for their team colors… at some point, we do have to accept that there are fucking lunatics who are in broad alignment with our goals. Such is unavoidable in any ideology.

          MLs do, nominally, want communism. In the same way that both mercantilists and alchemists want gold - only one has a realistic conception of how to get there, while the other is busy chanting magic formulae and blindly following superstitious cults, but they are both definitely gold bugs.

          In that sense, I don’t begrudge them the shared usage of the word ‘Communist’, especially considering the widespread usage during the SovUnion’s existence - so long as we can emphasize that their red-painted fascist lunacy is not the only ‘Communism’.

      • Eldritch@piefed.worldEnglish
        91·
        4 days ago

        Obligatory ML aren’t communist and never will be. And it pisses them off to no end when it’s pointed out. 😆

    • gandhibobandhi@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      Would it not be correct to say that there were two parallel democratic institutions at the time? i.e. The soviets and the duma? And the bolsheviks recognised the soviets as the legitimate one (where they also happened to be much more popular).

      • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        Curious that they put the full force of their party running in the Constituent Assembly, only to declare it illegitimate when it became apparent that they didn’t have a working majority. Almost like they decided that the assembly was illegitimate only it was clear the people hadn’t spoken FOR them.

        Well, at least they gave power to the Soviets after that, right?

        … right?

        … massacred dissidents, you say? For demanding “All power to the Soviets”, the Bolshevik motto in 1917? Hm.

        Also, the Soviets at this time period were open ballot and run by voice vote or show of hands, as counted by the Soviet’s chairman overseeing procedure, of course. Many Soviets elected their representatives with only a fraction of the electorate - turnout for the 1917 Constitutent Assembly election was ~60% - turnout in some Soviets, including prominent Soviets like in Petrograd, could be as low as 5%. And as each Soviet determined eligibility to vote independently, each such tiny portion of the voting ‘electorate’ was free to deny whomever they found too ‘bourgeois’ to vote, or be allowed to speak. No points for guessing whether the tightly organized party of dogmatic lunatics dominated in those circumstances.

        The Bolsheviks genuinely became more popular as 1917 wore on (and then rapidly lost popularity in 1918, leading them to suspend elections even in the Soviets); but that’s not the same as saying the system of Soviets was ‘just another’ democratic institution. It was a markedly less democratic institution than a national vote for a representative legislature, and a national vote for a representative legislature is not exactly peak democracy.