• FluffyPotato
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    1 month ago

    You know the anarchist group I’m part of had people like you join from time to time that seem more interested in reading, purity testing and just calling other members “bad lefties” instead of taking part in local politics which is our main goal. Calling me unserious while complaining about definitions takes the cake though.

    You seem to have misread it more. Yes, parties were banned but so were factions in the bolshevik party, elected city soviets and pretty much all groups outside the party. Meaningful elections happened only inside the party, the elections everyone took part in were for show, they gave no control to the workers. It’s all in that source.

    If you are interested in how elections were run in the USSR this is pretty much how I remember: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union From what I remember the candidates you could actually vote for were party picks that would do the same thing anyways so your vote was merely symbolic. Over time people cought on to that and voter turnout crashed so hard the party started handing out exotic fruit to people who show up, I got my first orange that way.

    If you want to know what happened to the worker councils in the USSR read it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_council

    Pat Sloan probably took part in an election before Stalin, as I previously said, the election process after Lenin was very different. So, yea one dissenting historian.

    • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      I’m not purity testing, knowledge of the Bourgeoisie is the basic fundamental of Socialism. If you’re rejecting reading and saying it doesn’t matter, you probably are a bad leftist.

      So now you agree with me, there were elections, and many sources support their efficacy.

      You have no evidence about Pat Sloan, and given that his work was published in 1937, it’s likely he was talking about the present day for him.

      You are indeed deeply unserious.

      • FluffyPotato
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        1 month ago

        What I wrote was that workers did not control the means of production, the party did. Having symbolic elections does not give workers any control.

        You should find a local political group that actually takes part in local politics, that actually has a chance of bringing about socialist policy. Political book clubs are largely useless and only good for mutual mental masturbation.

        • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          You would have to prove the party and the workers entirely distinct.

          Assuming I am not involved in local politics because I am more well-read than you is a silly ad hominem attack when logic is exhausted.

          • FluffyPotato
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            1 month ago

            Are you saying that if the bolshevik party had 1% workers in it it would count as socialist even though the party had different class interests to the workers and workers had no control over the means of production? If the party was controlled by the workers there would be no need to violently put down mass worker protests.

            The assumption was made based on how insufferable some of your ad hominems were and contact with other people who talk like that. Work in effective local politics groups tends to mellow people like this out and makes them less pedantic.

            • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              Who in the party represented another class? Workers, and who else? As the USSR liberalized towards the end, there were bourgeois elements added, but for most of the USSR’s existence there was no other class.

              Calling correcting your misconceptions “ad hominems” is goofy, lmao.

              • FluffyPotato
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                1 month ago

                The Wikipedia article you started with had this info. The party was more interested with remaining in power and benefitting it’s members than the working class after Lenin. They banned any dissenting voice and cracked down on the working class. They became closer to a royal family in a monarchy with Stalin. And I do repeat that the workers had no control of the means of production after 1924, potentially even after 1921.

                • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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                  1 month ago

                  So it still had elections, and workers still participated, got it. Via having elections and participating in government, workers can direct production.

                  What royal family is as large as the USSR’s Communist Party and allowed new membership?

                  Flawed Socialism is still Socialism.

                  • FluffyPotato
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                    1 month ago

                    Are you being purposely optuse or bad faith? The elections were symbolic with no effect on production as I already said and provided sources for. It’s not socialism if workers have no control over the means of production.