Electing officials is mostly complex in capitalism, where the interests of the poor majority are in direct contradiction with the interests of a wealthy elite.

Cause the Uyghurs, amongst other ethnic groups, have something to say to that

What do they have to say? Have you seen polls in Xinjiang or Tibet of degree of satisfaction with the government? I guarantee you they’re much higher than in Catalonia, Quebec, Scotland or any of the Chinatowns/Chicagos of the US.

You mean, only the ones they care about?

Come on, tell me the economic growth in Xinjiang compared to the rest of the country, and now do the same for Scotland. Give me the actual data, and then tell me, to my face, that the Chinese government doesn’t care about its ethnicities more than western governments. For fuck’s sake, have you seen the rate of incarceration of black people in the USA? About one in four black men in the USA go through the prison system in their lives.

let’s not forget that they also repress like hell

That’s your perspective as a westerner. My country, Spain, has political prisoners such as Carles Puigdemont, a so-called “Ley Mordaza” (mouthgag law) has been implemented for 15 years against protestors, and if you go to the USA they have masked agents kidnapping people, putting them in unmarked vans and deporting them. I seriously don’t think china is significantly more repressive than that. Unless you’re willing to concede that Spain and the USA are fascist, why would you say that for China?

only allow one party

Then why are there multiple parties in the National People’s Congress and its standing body the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress?

jail political opponents

Again, a strategy used all over the west.

Now let’s imagine the opposite in Berlin: what if, instead of a group of old men wearing weird wigs, it was actual representatives of the people chosen through democratic centralism? It’s not like there’s no way to know what people wanted, there was literally a referendum. Why would I want separation of power if all power in my country should be democratic? Separation of powers is a tacit admission that the powers aren’t democratic, hence needing different people to create “checks and balances”.

The thing is, how much of a hurdle has the separation of powers been for fascists? I’d say not a whole lot. In my opinion, it’s been much more of a hurdle to pass progressive policy instead, e.g. the rather recent case of the Berlin rent cap repeal. The democratic will of the people of Berlin, via direct referendum, was repealed because a group of old men in a tribunal said that it’s illegal. American politics, as an outsider, are essentially like that: democrats making progressive promises in campaign, and then “we didn’t get to do it because we didn’t have a supermajority :(”, whereas characters like Trump will just get there and say “yeah, no, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want”.

Sure buddy, China has a lot of fascist traits, such as being extremely sensitive towards different ethnical groups in the country (go to a history museum in China and you’ll see that they have specific signs discussing the different ethnicities at the period), lifting a billion people from poverty, land redistribution, quality social services and no use of militarism for the past half century. But I guess that, for you, not getting to vote once every 4 years for the lesser evil who will regardless defund the social services and pursue austerity policy is the highest expression of anti-fascism.

In which historical occasion has a fascist risen to legislative power, and the rest of powers were like “nah get outta here” and just kicked them out?

In what world do you think that not separating powers can have a more democratic outcome?

Would you agree that China doesn’t have a fascist problem? Would you agree that China has separation of powers?

If democracy patently doesn’t work under the separation of powers, what compells you to believe it’s an essential principle to maintain democratic institutions?

You’re right, it’s so well-implemented in the rest of the world, such as in my home country of Spain where the supreme court is trying to enjail Catalonian politicians against international law. Surely the idea that law should be ultimately judged by a group of old people who select each other is the best way possible for law to work!

My point wasn’t that separation of powers is the cause of undemocratic institutions, my point is that it’s a terrible tool for that purpose.

Huh, who would’a thunk that “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” were just tools to simultaneously prevent progressive policy from being passed, and to give a semblance of democracy from a capitalist empire

The downfall of democracy is the existence of the US. The downfall of the US is the birth of democracy elsewhere.

1931 is full-on collectivisation period. Only by 1929 the Soviet economy recovered from the brutal civil war in which it was invaded by 17 countries.

In 1929 it was a feudal country starting the fastest process of industrialisation humanity had ever seen. In 1929 5% of the budget was military, by 1939 it was 40+%. The USSR was preparing for the inevitable invasion that it would suffer as a consequence of opposing capitalism and fascism, which came in 1941. 27 million people died in 1941-1945 as a consequence of the war. Hadn’t it been for the preparation for war, the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been genocided in a similar but worse fashion than Poland.

This preparation literally SAVED Europe from Nazism. There were problems in the process, such as during collectivisation, but if you deny that the Soviet preparation and economy SAVED Europe from fascism, you’re falling into Nazi apologia. You really, really can’t see why the USSR had to prepare thoroughly for the impending war that they successfully predicted? You really can’t see why 1930s weren’t a peaceful period, but actually a process of class war against landlords and former nobility, and a preparation to defeat fascism?

these things were not because of some economic power disadvantage or even connected to it

Ok, the conversation is over then, you’re just denying political and economical concepts such as colonialism or industrial development. Can’t have a serious conversation with someone who denies reality.

90% of your comment boils down to “there were better material conditions in a 200-year-old industrial power that leveraged its political, economic and military power to exploit billions of people from the global south and extract their wealth, than in a 50-years-ago-industrialised self-sufficient country without exploitation of the global south”.

Yes, it is hard to buy certain things when your economy doesn’t rely on exploiting 5 south american / African / southeast Asian workers for every person in your country. What do you prefer for the world as a whole? Do you not understand, or do you not care about the billions exploited outside the US in this equation?

Literally the three examples you brought are wartime extreme measures, either in a war that took the lives of 27 million soviet citizens (WW2) or in a war against absolutism and tsarism in which 17 western countries invaded the RSFSR for the sin of being communist. Funny how you can’t find examples after the situation normalised in the Soviet Union and it stopped being under immediate threat of genocide at the hands of Nazis?

the US currently has 1.8 million incarcerated people. In 1931, there were 2 million in gulags

Sorry, my numbers were off by 10%. Still, we’re comparing the eve of WW2 and the process of collectivisation of land, to a period of relative quiet and global power by the US. Not relevant?

Idk what the AI used as source, but most western sources on the Soviet Union are intentionally biased against it.

In the Soviet Union, the union membership rates were astronomically high, higher than essentially anywhere else at the time. Unions provided training after work for workers who wanted a basic education. For workers who wanted higher education while working, the concept of “night degrees” was conceived, in which workers could attend special classes at night in university, with reduced number of lessons to be given a certain title. This is still a thing in post-soviet states like Russia.

I can confirm all of this. Sources: Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”, A. Zverev’s “Lo que percibe el trabajador soviético además de su salario”, and personal accounts from Russian and Ukrainian acquaintances.

Sorry I brought facts to the conversation

Sorry to reply late.

You were distributed to a place by the state after finishing your education

Only really true for higher education. It was seen as a sort of “social payment” in exchange for the free education. Better than tuition loans IMO.

labor book (USSR had such a document)

Uhhh… Do you think that doesn’t exist in the west right now? What do you think the SCHUFA does in Germany? Do you seriously think high tech companies don’t have a gray-legal-area history of your employment? At least back then it was a thing you could check…

you could get such a “flattering” characteristic by a superior not liking you

…as opposed to capitalism, where you’ll be left unemployed and without a wage if your boss doesn’t like you. What do you prefer?

Being unemployed for too long was literally, seriously, illegal in the USSR

Housewives existed, what are you talking about?

The only way to obtain an income in the Soviet Union was throughout work or throughout a pension (think widows, disabled, or retired people). This was by design, and it’s in my opinion a moral good. You don’t have any capitalist owner exploiting the profits generated by their workers. You have a system in which everyone contributes to the society. How is that not positive?

German after the war, being Jewish in a wrong period of time) had problems finding a place that would accept them

Colour me surprised: there were racist people in the mid-20th century?! I’m sure that’s exclusive to the Soviet Union!

conditions very bad by US measure

Tell that to the millions of unemployed and homeless in the USA.

The average material conditions in the Soviet Union, a country that begun to industrialize in 1929, were worse than in the USA, the literal core of world colonialism and imperialism which relies on exploited labour all over the global south, which industrialised in the 19th century. Hmmm, I wonder why that was…

it took one google search

“It took one google search to find unsourced claims against the greatest geopolitical enemy of my country”

centralized labour programs

What exactly are you talking about?

liquidation of foreign ethnic groups

Nothingburger made up by the west. The greatest possible claim against any ethnic group is the relocation of some minority in Crimea (I think Tatars) in the context of WW2 as a result of the paranoia against nazis, nothing compared to the Japanese concentration camps in the US dedicated to one specific ethnicity.

and militarization of labour

Again, what do you mean?

This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags

At the height of the GULAG system, there were fewer prisoners than currently in the USA. Forced labour was a bad thing, I agree, but it was nothing compared to that of modern western countries such as the USA.

The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren’t forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.

Please, what’s your source on your claim?