The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
I don’t think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn’t pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That’s not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism
Americans perhaps - they tend to use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can’t seem to explain why they don’t like either. Those of us who’ve grown up with political variety know what socialism is.
The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
I don’t think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
I must ask, how? How can you meaningfully have socialism without democracy?
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn’t pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That’s not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
Americans perhaps - they tend to use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can’t seem to explain why they don’t like either. Those of us who’ve grown up with political variety know what socialism is.