Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
Keep telling yourself that.
But no, the truth is single party “communism” is just a new form of nobility and peasants. How many millions did Stalin and Mao kill? All because they had totalitarian control.
If Leninism worked, the Soviet Union wouldn’t have fallen. But no, Leninism led directly to Stalinism. There were no guardrails, no protections, because Lenin had already banned opposition, Which is dictator 101.
One Party Communism is the Communism of Marx, Lenin didn’t invent that. Lenin’s contributions to Marxism were more with respect to analysis of Capitalism as it reaches Imperialism, the Soviet method of democracy, the concept of Democratic Centralism, the role of the peasantry in revolution, and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.
Moreover, the collapse of the USSR was multifaceted. If you want an honest critique of the USSR, my reading list includes Blackshirts and Reds in the very first section, and you’d do well to read it. My point isn’t that the USSR was a utopia, but that it was real, and authentically Socialist, and thus the problems it faced are real and need to be learned from for any Socialist movement going forward.
Marxism-Leninism is still the guiding ideology of Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, China, and more, and all have managed to learn from the experiences of the USSR, and its downfall. The fact that you think Marxism-Leninism does not work implies you believe all of these states will inevitably fall for the same reasons the USSR did, despite having entirely different circumstances and learning from it.
Finally, Lenin banned factionalism. Open discussion was allowed, not wrecking or going against the Socialist system entirely. The Soviet system was still democratic.
Do you consider yourself a Marxist?