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That sounds like although you see some errors, you overall agree with their approach of totalitarianism?
Was/is there actual worker control in these systems, though? Are the migrant workers from rural areas in China actually in control of the country? How much influence did the ordinary workers actually have on the party elites running the countries in the Soviet Bloc? In the end, the ordinary workers didn't seem to be so happy with their control, when they opposed and toppled the system.
I have never been to the USSR and its too vast a subject spanning too long a period for me to develop strong opinions, but I know all but the lowest ranking party members had to be elected, and during purges, every member would be tested and their constituents were invited to air any flaws in the members actions or character.
In the end, Yeltsin shot the congress building with a tank to stop them from meeting and carrying out what they were elected to do.
I haven't had too many political conversations in rural China, but I did see more nostalgia for the past and individual patriotic displays. Mao print mugs aren't uncommon, but in the city a young person told me it was all passe.
But to answer your original question, the question is like "do you think there can be too democratic of a system?" The alternative to total worker control is partial or total control by the bourgeois or aristocracy or w/e.
That was 1993, so after the coup attempt by the Communist Party and after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Up until that point, there already had been widespread cracks throughout the entire Union and its bloc - or what was left of it. What happened a few years prior in Beijing's Tiananmen Square is certainly known to you. Somehow, the average workers were of the opinion that this system didn't work for them, there was widespread discontent. Isn't that something that should be considered in a form of reflecting self-criticism, given that officially, the power should be in the hands of the working class.
Imo, there absolutely can be a "too democratic" of a system. If everything is decided by majority alone, there will be very little room for minorities. The real value of a system comes from how minorities are treated in it.
Yet, in stable democracies, you find awfully few labour camps for political opponents. Why don't these systems need totalitarianism to be stable and widely accepted by their citizens? Why do these countries regularly score highest in terms of happiness of their citizens?
When a liberal country says this, the only minority they're protecting is the capitalist class.
Are China and Vietnam less democratic because they grant autonomy and special representation to minorities? I wouldn't say so, because democracy means rule by the people and those people's unique situations mean they're affected differently by the same rules, so its more democratic for them to have their own institutions and protections.
Honestly I am divided on the subject; you have a hmong sending their children out to beg or dance on a school night, its the end result of a cascade of social failures. I don't think it could be solved by giving the minority fewer tools to deal with it.
All prisoners are political.
But also spending a few months working alongside the people you're supposed to represent is an ideal punishment for failures to represent them, IIRC both president Xi and his father were purged at various points.
Imagine if the people of Arizona/WV could have recalled Kyrstyn Synoma/Manchin and sent them to plant trees for 6 months in 2020.
Yet, in modern democracies in Europe you have protective clauses granting special rights for minorities. Both the Soviet Union and China meanwhile are/were extremly keen on streamlining the local culture under the roof of Russian/Han leadership. If the system works so well for the average worker, why the need to suppress local cultures, languages, religions..? Be it in Sinkiang or in Tibet. Why do the Chinese think that the Han culture is surpreme to all the other cultures on current Chinese territory if the common struggle of the working class knows no (cultural) borders?
Yet you won't find that many people in stable democracies that are imprisoned for their political views, not to mention labour camps. In the totalitarian states, however, both a far more common.
The big question remains whether these potential purges were actually initiated by the people (the masses) or by the party (the elites). The fundamental dilemma remains whether the interest of the party is actually equal with the interest of the people, despite the omnipresent label that the elites act on behalf of the masses. In case of the Soviet model implemented in their bloc, the verdict of the people actually living under it have been rather clear: the vast majority of people having lived in such a system and managed to overcome it absolutely don't want to go back to it. Shouldn't that make one wonder?
That's not what I observed, instead I saw the government funding mosques and cultural centers and promoting minority cultures.
collapsed inline media
Nearly all of the party works normal jobs, including the members who get elected to go to Congresses.
The US literally had to interfere in the elections in the 90s to prevent the communists from being reelected.
So you don't think there is (forced) cultural assimilation in China?
Yea, there are some that look like yours, some look like this:
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Obviously, most, especially tourist, will only be allowed to see your example.
You don't think there is a caste of elite politicians running the country, as established itself in the Soviet Union and its bloc, and instead the average Chinese worker is actually in control of these politicians?
I'd like to see a Chinese migrant worker telling Xi that he's wrong. Should be possible since the worker is actually in control and Xi only the executing tool, right? That Xi abolished the limitations on being reelected in 2018, something China deliberately nested into its state framework to prevent a single person to accumulate too much power and become corrupted by that power, as is nature of any human, and since then holds the state in an ever tighter personal grip, can be seen with cautious scepticism.
In the former Warsaw Pact? Where?
I am not aware of any, how do you believe China forces cultures to assimilate? Maybe I'm not recognizing it because I'm looking for ways America and European countries are currently doing so, for example they don't ban their languages in schools, I see obvious capital investment in their communities, their traditions aren't only merely tolerated, they have the government supporting them.
I can't see what you're linking, I think feddit is down or doesn't like talking to vietnamese ISPs.
Yes and no, the actions of the government tell me it's more democratic than literally any bourgeois democracy, since when's the last time a western country executed a billionaire (Epstein doesn't count), but some people I've spoken to believe the government is incompetent/corrupt/lazy. Sometimes it's just the local government they have issues with, other times it's the federal government, other times they don't differentiate.
Remember the covid protests? What is that except a bunch of chinese telling the government it's wrong? (even if the only thing the government did wrong was not cracking down on Shanghai after it's lack of adherence caused the 20th outbreak in the rest of China)
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By destroying most of the 6,000 monasteries in Tibet. Today, there are less than ten intact. By imprisoning hundred of thousands or even more than a million Uyghurs in "re-education camps" without courts or rule of law. By controlling every little detail of all its citizens, especially those from other cultures, so every aspect in the life of one of those minorities is controlled and approved by the Han central government. By having a de-facto Han caste of elite rulers, keeping minorities in check and from power. Doesn't sound very equal to me.
Let's see if you may see any of that:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/54/Xinjiang_Re-education_Camp_Lop_County.jpg
https://news.files.bbci.co.uk/include/shorthand/42264/media/02_china_2018_v4_2560_x_1440-mr_hauqhha.jpg
Do you think actual control by the working class is shown by billionaires being executed? Besides: our rule of law forbids us from executing even those that fall out of favour, while totalitarian states have absolutely no problems with their elites amassing a lot of wealth as long as they keep in line. The problem with the then executed hence wasn't that they were billionaires, but rather that they did something the ruling clique did no longer agree with, or even merely personal reasons. You find similar mechanisms in any mafia-like organisation. Doesn't make those an epitome of working class rule, either. On the contrary, the few powerful at the top decide for the rest. We in our system at least have the opportunity to vote those people in and out.
Yea, and I clearly remember the central government facing the people and admitting that they did a mistake and asking for apology.. oh wait. Or did they increase their grip even further and only upped the suppression of the people to get them back in line?
The story about Yeltsin, as can be read in the magazine you provided the cover of, wasn't "the US interfering", but Yeltsin's daughter, who he only trusted, asking a couple of political advisors from the US for help as she didn't have the experience needed.
It all comes down to, do you believe that it's possible to mislead people? And relatedly, can you deceive a whole population? I have seen so much evidence that propaganda works, living in our shared capitalist hellscape. I cannot see a >90% agreement, on pretty much any question ever formulated, without a loooot of programming. Nothing is ever that popular naturally. These are not populations that are routinely exposed to differing opinions. Totalitarianism, in all it's forms, has these same indicators: screwy election numbers, cults of personality, government enforced and socially enforced orthopraxis and orthodoxy, etc. It is not a system where you have anything resembling agency.
You can't imagine anything that 90+% of people would agree on?
Because I sure can.
People need to be fed, have a place to sleep and hide from nature.
And what agency do we have now in the west? Can we stop the climate catastrophy? PFAS and microplastics from entering our bloodstream? The US couldn't even stop a fascist takeover.
I very much dislike people who try to paint politics as an opinions game, while foregoing the basic function of state as caring for its citizens.
I very much dislike people who don't realize that agency and democracy are the foundational human right, the one from which all other rights stem. Without the ability to play the "opinions game", as you call it, whether or not you go hungry is up to the leadership, not you. If you don't have a right to your own opinion, you do not have any control. It's pretty fucking simple. You can't make things better without agency. Nothing will ever get better by just passing the buck to totalitarian leaders and hoping they fix everything for you.
Again: what agency do you have now?
Capitalism leads to fascism, how does that make you feel?
I'll take that's a slip of the tongue and I'll answer the question whether democracy leads to fascism, given that I've clearly stated I'm a socialist.
I think it's kinda bullshit to say that democracy hasn't done amazing things for the human condition. In any given region, democracy will come and go, nothing lasts forever. But where and when it exists, science, human rights, new ideas, and new culture, will always follow. The fact that things might get worse if we give people agency, as in, they might choose 'wrongly' and give up their democracy, that is not a reason to stop trying, or to try to take that agency away from everyone, yourself included.
If you're replying to your own things instead of me, I'm out.
Why the fuck did you expect me to defend capitalism? I answered the best I can.