Twenty-eight years ago, in 1993, I was in the first Peace Corps group to go into Kazakhstan, one of the former republics of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had fallen a mere 18 months before I stepped foot in Kazakhstan, so it is no exaggeration to say that my time in the Peace Corps was spent in the ruins of the Soviet Union. And indeed, everything in Kazakhstan still had a distinct Soviet feel to it: statues of Lenin, they were still on the Russian ruble (with Lenin’s face on the money), dilapidated school buildings with no proper plumbing in the bathrooms, packed trams in the winter, grocery stores with empty shelves—in short, pretty grim and very Soviet.
During my time in Kazakhstan, I was able to collect a number of Soviet-era souvenirs: old Soviet money (even a few really old bank notes from Czarist Russia), coins, Soviet war medals, etc. One of the things I picked up was a thin 100-page book written in English entitled, Soviet Democracy: Principles and Practice. I never bothered to read it at the time—I mean, why bother? It was pretty clear that Communism was the absolute worst and most homicidal system of government in the history of mankind—so “Soviet Democracy”? Ha, right!
Fast forward to today. Over the past five years, there has been quite a political and social upheaval in the United States. Ever since Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, it seems that “Democratic Socialism” has been making a big push. Not surprisingly, the standard reaction to it by conservatives is that it is fundamentally Marxist, and oftentimes they call politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “Communist.” And, not surprisingly, she, as well as many other self-described Democratic Socialists, insist they aren’t Communist, and that Communism and Democratic Socialism are two totally different things.
But then they go ahead and propose quite a lot of things that seem, well, pretty Marxist and Communist. I’m not an expert in 20th century Communism, but I’m fairly well-read on it, and over the past few years I’ve found myself thinking, “Wait a second, that sounds pretty Marxist.” And it isn’t confined to solely political proposals. There has been so much rapid social change across a wide range of issues, that it has been really hard to process. Over the summer, I did a book analysis series on three books associated with Critical Race Theory, and my conclusion was, yes, at its core, most of the proposals and social commentary of CRT (and CRT-related books like White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist) is absolutely Marxist.
In any case, a few weeks ago, I was chatting with a Canadian friend of mine about the current social climate both here in the United States and in Canada, when I remembered that I had bought that book Soviet Democracy back in Kazakhstan back in 1993-1994. And so, I dug it out and decided to give it a read. To the point, I was struck by just how much of what was in Soviet Democracy, a book written and published in the former Soviet Union that extoled the virtues of Communism, echoed many of the claims and values of the Democratic Socialists and the growing “Woke culture” in the United States today. It was so striking to me that I decided to take the time to write two posts on it. This post, obviously, is the first one.
Now, it goes without saying that Soviet Democracy is pure Communist propaganda. That is just a given. But when it comes to the actual context of the book, it really can be categorized in one of two ways: (A) Some of the content is simply laughingly preposterous lies—anyone who knows anything about the USSR will do “spit takes” if drinking anything while reading this book; and (B) Some of the content reveals what the actual values, arguments, and “worldview” of Communism really is—and in that regard, I will tell you right now, it is straight up identical to the values, arguments, and “worldview” of modern-day Democratic Socialists in our Woke culture. I’ll address the latter in my next post. In this post, though, go get something to drink while you continue reading and see if you do any “spit takes.”
Soviet Socialist Democracy…and why it is Just so Darn Awesome!
Just so you know, the book Soviet Democracy was published in 1977, smack dab in the middle of the Leonid Brezhnev era. The book’s aim is not simply to describe the “principles and practice” of USSR communism, but to positively celebrate it and to tell its readers in the Soviet Union just how much better life in the Soviet Union was than in bourgeois, capitalist countries like England, France, or the United States of America. Therefore, the book begins with a brief look back at the “glorious revolution” of 1918, when “landlords, factory owners, tsarist officialdom and all other oppressors were ousted, and power was placed where it belonged—in the hands of the working man.” And obviously, the ones who did that were the Communists, led by Vladimir Lenin.
When describing the establishment of the USSR, the book makes it clear that the Communist party (which the book also routinely calls the Socialist Democrat party) did not actually “seize power.” In fact, they were willing to share power with other socialist groups, but when those groups ended up walking out during the formation of the new government, they proved themselves to be counter-revolutionaries who were not willing to co-operate with the Communists to enact the social reforms the Communists knew needed to be done. Not surprisingly, the book doesn’t mention brutal treatment of the Mensheviks by Lenin’s Bolsheviks in order to, yes, seize complete power.
The book also notes that the “…the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties were not ‘dissolved.’ They had to step down from the political scene after they had sided with the counter-revolution and totally discredited themselves in the eyes of the people.” So, you see, the Communists really weren’t trying to seize complete power. The problem was that the other political groups in Russia simply didn’t agree with them, and they knew what was best for the working man. Therefore, to be against the Communists was to be against the working man, and the Communists weren’t going to stand for that!
Voter Turnout and the Glories of Industrialization!
This theme of “we Communists are sacrificing our lives for the good of the working man” runs throughout the book. Did you know, for example, that Communist party members didn’t enjoy any exclusive status in the USSR? And did you know that “Every Communist has a right to criticize any of his comrades, no matter how high their office”? Pretty amazing! Of course, the book then continues and emphasizes that only Communist party members had that right: “These rights, however, are exercised only within the Party.” That would explain all the political prisoners who suffered and died in the Gulag. But then again, I’m not sure all that really squares with reality. After all, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who was a Communist and a captain in the Red Army during WWII, was sentenced to eight years in the Gulag because he criticized Joseph Stalin in a private letter to a friend.
The book also extols the responsibility and virtues of Soviet citizens, or more precisely, how the Communist party has successfully developed that sense of patriotism, responsibility and virtue among the Soviet citizens. Take, for example, how seriously the Soviets take the responsibility of voting. Typically, in bourgeois countries like the United States, voter turnout hovers around only 50%! Even in our most recent 2020 presidential election, voter turnout was 68%–insanely high by American standards, but not by Soviet standards! Indeed, the book happily points out that in the Soviet elections of 1976, voter turnout was 99.9%! Amazing! And do you know what else is amazing? The Communist candidates all won in a landslide!
The book also hails all the industrialization successes brought about by the Communist party. Sure, it acknowledges that initially things were tough, but that was only because the old social order had left everything in complete ruin, so the Communists had to start from scratch. In any case, in all the subsequent Five-Year Plans that spelled out the many ambitious goals regarding the industrialization of Russia, the Communist party was able to shape and mold the people to achieve truly great accomplishments, particularly in places like…Siberia! Sure, the book says nothing about the Gulag system that sent millions upon millions of innocent people to work in tortuous and inhumane conditions to “achieve” these goals—the important thing to note is that the Communist party brought about the industrialization of Russia in record time!
Oh, the Soviet Freedoms!
The final aspect regarding the Socialist Democracy of the Soviet Union that the book extols is all the rights and freedoms Soviet citizens enjoy. For example, “Every Soviet citizen is guaranteed by the Constitution freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of assembly, meetings and demonstrations, personal immunity and other freedoms.” In addition, “In the Soviet Union public opinion is shaped and voiced by the working people and not by newspaper barons, as is the case in capitalist countries.” And where do the working people give voice? Pravda of course! (If you are unaware, Pravda was the newspaper put out by the Communist party…which speaks for the working people, and which shapes the public opinion of the working people—it’s all very circular!).
In addition, the book points out that even though Soviet citizens have the constitutional right to protest and to demonstrate, the fact is they never do, because they are so happy with the way the Communist party is running things: “Soviet people are sometimes asked why there are no meetings or demonstrations in front of Party or government offices or of the parliament, the way there are in Western countries. But there is hardly any need for a Soviet working man to demonstrate to make his point.” There you have it—the Socialist Democracy of the Soviet Union, guided by Marxist-Leninist teaching is so awesome, that 99.9% of Soviet citizens not only vote, but they all vote for Communist candidates, always. And they realize there is no point to demonstrating or protesting anything the government does, because the Communists do what the working man does, and the working man wants what the Communist party wants—it is a symbiotic circle of Socialist love!
Finally, despite all those bourgeois/capitalistic claims about the 20 million or so Russian Orthodox Christians who were murdered by the Soviets, Soviet Democracy makes it clear that “there is complete freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. This means that every Soviet citizen is free to profess any religion or to profess none at all. This inalienable right is laid down in the Constitution.” In fact, with great pride, the book points out that not only is there a whole three Russian Orthodox seminaries in the entirety of the USSR, but there are two academies as well. Now, there are always going to be capitalists who will try to point out that there used to be hundreds of Russian Orthodox seminaries and schools before the establishment of the USSR, and they’ll try to show you “statistics” and “accounts” that show hundreds of thousands of priests were murdered and millions of Orthodox Christians were brutalized and killed in the Gulag camps, but don’t be fooled! There was complete religious freedom in the USSR!
Conclusion
There you have it. Soviet propaganda at its finest. Although all this will seem obviously ludicrous to anyone who knows the reality of what the USSR did, at the same time, the reality of what the USSR did was truly horrific and diabolical. But it must be clearly pointed out that the propaganda machine in the USSR obviously did not highlight the horrific and diabolical stuff. What is proclaimed was vastly different from the realities of the USSR. So, one might wonder, “How in the world did the Russians ever get duped by the likes of Lenin and Stalin (or how did Germans get duped by the likes of Hitler)?” Nobody wanted the Gulag, the mass-killings, or the state oppression—they wanted the good stuff the Communists were offering. All they had to do was to give the Communists the control to get it all done. They bought the promises and propaganda…and my, how that ended up costing them.
In my next post, I’ll look at the actual claims, values, and worldview espoused in Soviet Democracy. It will sound very familiar to anyone who has paid attention to the news over the past five years.
