Government and Politics

Why was communism always imposed on countries and never voted for democratically?

Every government imposed on a country has been authoritarian.

Marx’s vision for communism has never been implemented and was never realistically possible to implement in the manner he envisioned.

His view was that socialism (which he often used interchangeably with communism) was an intermediary step to communism. For the people to own the means of production implies a democratic form of ownership, which has never been the case with socialist systems in an authoritarian framework.

His definition of communism was based on the principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” — it is, by definition, a meritocracy (which, in itself, is problematic). The problem, however, is that no system is possible — at least at this stage of human development — without some hierarchy of authority.

Every implementation of what has been popularly viewed as communism has never been communism as Marx envisioned it (while he accurately predicted the flaws in Capitalism would lead to the situation we are suffering from today) and failed precisely because they have been authoritarian systems based upon a centralized authority.

Today’s capitalism can be argued to be an authoritarian system imposed upon the people, entirely consistent with the historical failures of the implementations/impositions of pseudo-communism. (Particularly since the U.S. is on the brink of transforming into a fully-fledged fascist state stripped of its last vestige of Democracy by Drumpf’s promise to end elections. The state of corporatocracy that the U.S. has today has arguably been imposed upon a people without their knowledge or consent. A corporate infrastructure is a totalitarian style of monarchic rule as an operating system of administration… and precisely why corporations are anachronistic holdovers from a medieval era that cannot help but evolve into a threat to democratic governments.)

Marx’s vision of communism can be argued that it was intended to be an organically evolved system, which, by today’s measure, means a form of advanced direct democracy.

To contradict the presumption in this question, Lenin did not impose his brand of communism on the country. He won the support of a majority of the people against the Provisional Government in place at the time. The people who endorsed his program supported his confiscation of land to nationalize it and divide it among the peasants.

This is eerily much like where the U.S. is at with the potential installation of an Orange Nazi Turd who should be rotting behind bars like every other convicted felon instead of roaming about free to campaign on a platform of destroying 243 years of American democracy.

The real problem we have is dialectical and a propensity for oversimplification.

Even authoritative sources like Britannica fail to offer clarity in defining governmental systems. As far as that source is concerned, there are five countries it identifies communism as an “official form of government”: China, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, descriptions of each nation contradict that statement:

Vietnam — The politics of Vietnam is dominated by a single party under an authoritarian system, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).

North Korea — A totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Kim family.

Laos — Lao People’s Democratic Republic (commonly known as Laos) takes place in the framework of a one-party parliamentary socialist republic.

Cuba — Cuba has had a socialist political system since 1961 based on the “one state — one party” principle. Cuba is constitutionally defined as a single-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republic with semi-presidential powers.

China — The Chinese constitution describes China’s system of government as a people’s democratic dictatorship. The CCP has also used other terms to officially describe China’s system of government, including “socialist consultative democracy”, and whole-process people’s democracy.

(This post was an answer to a Question posed on Quora — where all my posts on Medium have originated; hence the personal response indicated within this article. — https://www.quora.com/profile/Antonio-Amaral-1/ )

Which political system could replace democracy with fewer flaws?

The original format of the question this post answers was written as follows: “Which possible political system could replace modern democracy and have less flaws than democracy and still benefit the many?”

This question makes it seem as if how we manage our affairs and have a dialogue over how best to peacefully coexist in productive societies that encourage us all to achieve our best potential as individuals and as a society is just a matter of a change of clothing.

That’s now how this works.

Societies do not succeed or fail based on the system we use to govern ourselves.

Societies fail because we fail to govern ourselves as individuals.

Societies fail because human corruption leads us to failure.

Societies don’t fail because we pick the wrong system.

Systems fail because we fail to raise humanity from the muck of our primitive urges as individuals.

Haitians in Springfield are not living in fear today because democracy has failed them but because corrupt human beings have chosen hatred over understanding.

The only system that will ever work is the system that cures us of horrifying statistics such as one in five of us is a mentally unstable individual or 70%-80% of families are dysfunctional, or the primary cause of people leaving their jobs is because of abusive leadership in their place of work.

The only system that will work is the system of people who refuse to tolerate monsters corrupting human society, and that extends far beyond simple politics and well into every other aspect of human life and what we colloquially refer to as “civilization.”

The only system that can ever have a hope of working is the system that focuses on developing human potential, which means education, healthcare, and the ability to succeed on one’s merits in a system that encourages and develops our ability to achieve success through self-determination.

We don’t need to be ruled. We should know better how horribly wrong every other system has turned out to be. It doesn’t matter how messy democracy is because that’s not a problem with the system of democracy. That’s a problem with human beings.

We need to fix ourselves as humans and as a species sharing this mudball with billions of other species if we want any system to be stable over time.

Democracy as a concept is not “flawed.” It’s the best idea we have ever had. The problem is us. We must focus on being better individuals before we can better organize ourselves within any system.

We need to stop pointing the finger of blame at anything and everything that is not us and start taking some responsibility for who we are and what we are. If we can’t manage to do that, then we deserve to send ourselves over the brink and into oblivion.