Brief Thoughts on Marxist-Leninist Democracy

Introduction

As often expressed by many different socialists democracy is a core part of their ideology which I & many other socialists would agree is a good thing & should be default if not required for socialists. & on a base level it makes sense, socialism is about workers controlling the means of production & democracy is how a collective excercises control.

Now, noted (supposed) strong proponenets of democracy would be the Marxist-Leninists. But in my opinion Marxist-Leninists “democracies” tend to be more shams to cover up the way the Marxist-Leninist party leads the country around instead of the people actually taking control.

the Function of Democracy in Marxist-Leninist States

A feature of this model in practice is that votes can serve not for voters to choose the leaders & decisions of the country but to gauge the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the people with what the party is doing.

In Soviet elections there was a single candidate on the ticket, handpicked by the CPSU, you were allowed to vote for them, or for noone, if the candidate got less than 50% support then the party would pick a new candidate, of course the government was ardent about making sure people voted & voted right. Another example, from a man who grew up in Hoxha’s Albania: “100% of the seats with 100% turnout. Elections acted as a kind of periodic confirmation that the people’s will and that of the party were the same. As the official slogan went: “Every vote is a bullet for our imperialist and revisionist enemies.”” Similar systems were also previously found in Vietnam & East Germany.

& when this single-party system doesn’t apply players outside of the party are supressed, like for example in China, because the Marxist-Leninist model of socialism must be the one & only truth, & more cynically because the party like any other government wishes to preserve itself.

Why Does This Happen

Now, it’s important to note that I’m not saying this is what’s in the hearts of every Marxist-Leninist, nor is it the policy of every Marxist-Leninist state, but it is a strong trend within the movement.

The reason for this is somewhat simple, it’s clear in their talking points & actions that Marxist-Leninists are comfortable with imposing their will & especially ideology on a populace. There’s a term for this by the way, Erziehungsdiktatur, being German for “educational dictatorship”.

Like I’ve talked about in this piece that has the problem of not really being democratic. But then of course there are the arguments for how that was an adaption to the conditions in which the ideology developed which further splits into arguments about about where it’s applicable if it is applicable & if these Erziehungsdiktaturen even work but that’s beyond the scope of this piece.

Conclusion

This is, in essence a revisionist view of democracy, & thus, a revisionist view of socialism. This is not my first & not my last criticism of the Marxist-Leninist movement & many of criticisms rest along similar lines so in some ways this is not a separate criticism but rather an angle on wider criticisms. Nonetheless I felt like articulating this idea.