Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?

  • lmmarsano@group.ltEnglish
    42·
    17 days ago

    Feat of mental gymnastics. They consider themselves a looser sense of democratic that isn’t a liberal multiparty democracy with competitive elections. With a twist of idealization, they rationalize that their dictatorship of the proletariat headed by a one-party leader serves the people: their bottom-up hierarchy of councils culminates to their single-party leadership whose final decisions (that close discussion and demand absolute obedience) somehow reflect the collective/people. They might call it democratic centralism or dress it up in more elaborate pseudotheoretical jargon.