Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to ask in a community Marxists regularly participate in, to get multiple perspectives? By asking on Lemmy.world, the answers are going to skew Liberal heavily. The impact of that is that there are numerous takes that heavily misinterpret and misframe Marxism, particularly with refetence to the State, which I outlined in my top level comment here.
It just seems to me that if you want to understand something, you must investigate it from every direction to find a correct answer. This doesn't mean the answer is a mix of everything, or a balance of it all, but that by shutting out the instances with the highest concentrations of Marxists on Lemmy, you end up with constant errors from liberals trying to interpret history based on views of Marxism gathered from Wikipedia articles.
One Party democratic systems are not dictatorships. I don't know how else to explain this in clearer and more simple terms, moreover the Bolsheviks were made up of the Proletariat, and countless workers joined their ranks.
Further, the economic system of the USSR was based on Public Ownership and Central Planning, not agrarian feudalism. You keep using words that have specific meanings to elicit an emotional response despite having no actual bearing in reality.
Finally, the Bolsheviks were the majority, that's what the name "Bolshevik" stems from. Why is it that you rely on the muddy results of a vestigial illegitimate government that had already been abandoned by the Workers, and not the Soviet Government that existed alongside it and had already elected Lenin and the Bolsheviks prior to the disbanding of the Constituent Assembly? You are calling liberal dictatorships of the bourgeoisie "free and fair elections," this is the level you stoop to in order to piss on Marx's grave one last time.
Additionally, it was a revolution, not a coup, as the majority of people supported the Soviet Government over the liberal Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks enjoyed the power they had because they were real representatives of the Working Class, even Kropotkin recognized this.
Your idea of "Marxism" doesn't follow any strain of Marxism historically, it's so confused and self-contradictory that you end up praising liberalism and calling Socialism "feudalism." Again, read Marx.
You're conflsting Communism, which refers in 99% of cases to Marxism, with Socialism, which is more broad.
It isn't an "interesting reading of history," it's what literally happened. The fact that you're placing such importance on the vestigial Provisional Government's election when the Workers had already embraced the Soviet Government and used it for all intents and purposes as their only government is liberalism, and anti-revolutionary.
Secondly, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as envisioned by Marx is fully compatible with a One-Party system. Multi-party systems are not more democratic, just more divided. Within the Soviet system, there was more democratic control than in the liberal Provisional Government system.
Finally, the idea that a mass worker party can be a dictatorship, as in the modern, single-person autocracy, is absurd. Vanguard Parties, moreover, are a proven method to establish Socialism. They aren't unaccountable cabals, but large worker parties made up of the most politically experienced of the Proletariat, which has been successfully replicated in countries like Cuba and the PRC in establishing Socialism.
You seriously need to read Marx, it's desparately obvious that you are working off of Wikipedia articles and not actual Marxist theory. I suggest my intro to Marxism list.
No, Communism is centralization. It isn't less decentralized than pre-revolution government, but more. That's the point, to fold the entire private sector eventually into the Public, with Central Planning. You keep saying "decentralization is essential for Communism" but that's Anarchism. AES are examples of Socialist States trying to work towards Communism.
Where on Earth are you getting your ideas? It certainly isn't Marx.
Communism is centralized. Central Planning and Public Ownership are the core foundations of the economy in Communism. You're talking about Anarchism as though Marxists were trying to achieve that, and you're calling Anarchism "Communism."
In 1917, there were 2 governments, the Worker and Peasant supported Soviet Government, and the Bourgeoisie and Petite Bourgeoisie supported liberal Provisional Government. Lenin was elected via the Soviet system, and the Socialist Revolutionaries were elected in the bourgeois controlled Provisional Government. After the election, the Soviet Government disbanded the Provisional Government via revolution, the same measures proposed by Marx the entire time.
Secondly, Lenin never once wrote about how dictators are essential to Communism. Lenin fully believed in Soviet Democracy, ie workers councils, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a term coined by Karl Marx to describe a Socialist State that had not fully absorbed all Capital into the Public Sector, and thus had to suppress the still existing Bourgeoisie. The reason for this is that Capital can only be wrested by the degree to which it develops! Per Engels:
Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
Dictators are indeed antithetical to Communism, but you've entirely misframed Marx, Lenin, the USSR, and the October Revolution. The Soviet Republic in control of a largely Publicly Owned, Centrally Planned economy is in no way comparable to feudalism, but is actually existing Socialism.
Funilly enough, Lenin described exactly what you're now doing in The State and Revolution:
What is now happening to Marx's teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this "doctoring" of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now "Marxists" (don't laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the "national-German" Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers' unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!
It's funny that you describe Communism as a "dream," it accurately depicts your idealistic understanding of it, along with your "reminder."
This is extremely wrong on several accounts, to the point of absurdity in several parts.
First, Lenin did not "betray the revolution." Lenin and the Bolsheviks carried out the revolution. Had they not had the real support of the working class via the Soviet system implemented prior to the establishment of the USSR, they could not have established Socialism to begin with.
Secondly, Lenin did not "implement a new form of feudalism." This is utterly divorced from reality. Feudalism is characterized by agrarian peasantry that live on land owned by a feudal lord, till the land, pay rent to said lord, and manufacture for themselves the bulk of their consumption. The Soviet model was that of a Soviet Republic, characterized by Public Ownership and Central Planning, both of which are key aspects of Marxism as conceived by Marx himself, not Lenin.
Third, the election in the liberal bourgeois government. Russia in 1917 had 2 governments, the Soviet Government supported by the Workers and Peasants, and the Provisional Government supported by the Bourgeoisie and Petite Bourgeoisie. The Socialist Revolutionaries won the election in the Constituent Assembly for the bourgeois government, however faith in the bourgeois government was already gone! The Soviet Government toppled the Provisional Government, solidifying itself as the only legitimate government. Lenin did not throw a "hissy fit," the point of the Constituent Assembly was to show just how detached from the will of the Working Class the bourgeois government was.
Fourth, the notion of the USSR as a "totalitarian dictatorship." This is false on both accounts. The Soviet Democratic model is well documented, such as by Pat Sloan in his book Soviet Democracy. The Soviet Republic extended democracy to economic production, and was a dramatic improvement for workers over the Tsarist regime and the bourgeois Provisional Government. The USSR was also not a dictatorship, the General Secretary was not a position of absolute control, even the CIA didn't believe it to be.
Fifth, Marx himself. This is perhaps your most absurd claim. Marx never once said Communism "rises from Capitist Democracy." Marx was both entirely revolutionary, believing reforming Capitalist society without revolution to be impossible, and similarly did not even believe Capitalism was required for said Communist revolution to take place. Marx believed Markets have a tendency to centralize, laying the foundations for Public Ownership and Central Planning. Even in a Socialist state, markets can and will exist. From Marx:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Marx believed Capitalism makes Communist revolution inevitable by its own mechanisms, but not that Capitalism is required to perform said revolution! We see with real, practical experience that the Proletariat is the true revolutionary class, but even in countries where the Proletariat make up a minority of the population as compared to the peasantry revolution is still possible. Markets cannot be abolished overnight, but that doesn't mean it is not a Socialist system.
I seriously recommend you read theory, or revisit it if you're just rusty. If you want help, I made an introductory Marxist reading list, and I'd love feedback.
Since you said you're trying to rectify that, allow me to hijack and recommend my introductory Marxist reading list. Section 1 is all you need to get the basics and a decent contextualization of AES states, but you can feel free to continue onward. Nearly every work has an audiobook and a text format linked, and the 2 works without an audiobook are short (and there are hopes of getting an audiobook for them, fingers crossed!).
What "Russian propaganda" is being regurgitated?
What is an "oligarchy" in your views, and how does it differ from a "Marxist government?" In my opinion, the USSR, Cuba, PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc proved to be examples of Actually Existing Socialism, and not "oligarchies," as all were/are governed by mass parties and democratically controlled both from inner-party democracy and democracy from the masses. "Oligarchy" implies absolute rule from the few, which is incompatible with the really existing examples of mass parties and democratic institutions. Taking the PRC as an example, the CPC has 96 million members, along with 8 other parties that serve advisory roles, and elections are held openly. In what manner is that an "oligarchy?"
Moreover, how can you simply refuse to elaborate on any of your claims that I critiqued? I didn't critique to silence you, but invite you to actually defend your claims.
Again, vague gesturing and no actual points. What do you mean when you say "Communists love authoritarians?" What does it mean to "stan" a country? This is all terminally online phrasing that divorces itself from practical experience of actual practicing Communists, and not just armchair leftists in the West.
What is the disconnect? Can you elaborate without gesturing vaguely?
I am not "claiming ownership of all Communism," I am accurately stating that Marxism-Leninism is by far the most common form of Marxism, as it is the basis for the vast majority of AES states past and present. It has real, practical foundations and as such has continued popularity internationally. This is less true in the West, where AES states are violently combatted daily.
On what grounds do you say Marxist-Leninists aren't Marxists? The world over, the vast majority of Marxists fall under the umbrella of Marxism-Leninism.
This is an incorrect interpretation of the phrase "withering away of the state," which I elaborated on here.
What's worse on the internet these days is "Marxists" that have never read Marx, or just the Manifesto, yet think themselves an authority on the subject. I made an intro to Marxism reading list to help alleviate that, and try to point out misframings and misunderstandings of Marx when I see it, but it's still a huge issue across Lemmy. Particularly Lemmy.world.