No chance, I usually don’t care about American politics but I’m not gonna miss the chance to watch 2 geriatric fucks attempt to debate one another.

It was so much worse than I envisioned it to be though. Like one guy seemed to make up literally everything with insane claims that were delivered with confidence only rivaled by how stupid they were and the other sounded like his brain turned to soup if he spoke for more than 5 seconds and when not speaking he looked like a frog seeing a very tasty fly on the wall.

I really hope Europe can get our collective shit together and supply Ukraine once the US shits the bed there.

Jägerbombs do that. I have a vague memory of having those for the first time with some friends and because they are quite tasty and the energy drink keeps you going you don’t really notice when you had too much. So my memories of it are basically drinking the 7th one, then (probably hours later) stumbling from tree to tree to keep me steady and then waking up in my bathtub.

No it doesn’t, I read it too. If this has degraded to you just going nuhuh we can call it a day, that’s no longer fun.

I guess you missed the link I provided: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union

During those elections you were voting for local party picks that all had the same instructions from the party. Who won had no effect on how things were run. The high ups in the party controlled how the means of production were used, not the workers. As you may recall from your own link factions in the party were banned meaning dissent got you ousted.

Elections that don’t give workers any control over the means of production are meaningless and not socialism. How many times do I have to repeat this?

Are you being purposely optuse or bad faith? The elections were symbolic with no effect on production as I already said and provided sources for. It’s not socialism if workers have no control over the means of production.

The Wikipedia article you started with had this info. The party was more interested with remaining in power and benefitting it’s members than the working class after Lenin. They banned any dissenting voice and cracked down on the working class. They became closer to a royal family in a monarchy with Stalin. And I do repeat that the workers had no control of the means of production after 1924, potentially even after 1921.

Are you saying that if the bolshevik party had 1% workers in it it would count as socialist even though the party had different class interests to the workers and workers had no control over the means of production? If the party was controlled by the workers there would be no need to violently put down mass worker protests.

The assumption was made based on how insufferable some of your ad hominems were and contact with other people who talk like that. Work in effective local politics groups tends to mellow people like this out and makes them less pedantic.

What I wrote was that workers did not control the means of production, the party did. Having symbolic elections does not give workers any control.

You should find a local political group that actually takes part in local politics, that actually has a chance of bringing about socialist policy. Political book clubs are largely useless and only good for mutual mental masturbation.

You know the anarchist group I’m part of had people like you join from time to time that seem more interested in reading, purity testing and just calling other members “bad lefties” instead of taking part in local politics which is our main goal. Calling me unserious while complaining about definitions takes the cake though.

You seem to have misread it more. Yes, parties were banned but so were factions in the bolshevik party, elected city soviets and pretty much all groups outside the party. Meaningful elections happened only inside the party, the elections everyone took part in were for show, they gave no control to the workers. It’s all in that source.

If you are interested in how elections were run in the USSR this is pretty much how I remember: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union From what I remember the candidates you could actually vote for were party picks that would do the same thing anyways so your vote was merely symbolic. Over time people cought on to that and voter turnout crashed so hard the party started handing out exotic fruit to people who show up, I got my first orange that way.

If you want to know what happened to the worker councils in the USSR read it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_council

Pat Sloan probably took part in an election before Stalin, as I previously said, the election process after Lenin was very different. So, yea one dissenting historian.

You provided one source which also lists the Thurston and Sloan quotes as a dissenting opinions to the rest of the article. The Wikipedia article itself states that worker councils lost both their power and ability to vote followed by protests by workers which were violently put down.

Why do I need to provide more sources when the one you provided almost fully agrees with my statement with the exception of one dissenting historian?

As I have said I have read enough Marx in my youth and usage of one word does not change a single part of my argument or any point which was that post Lenin in the USSR workers did not own the means of production.

Also you earlier said that your opinion is supported by historians and I missed that comment then so let me address that: It’s supported by one dissenting opinion on the Wikipedia article. The rest of the article agrees with my statement.

I’m old, I’m not going to reread all of the things I read in my youth. The usage of bourgeoisie has changed colloquially and I don’t really care either, it’s irrelevant to the USSR having worker control after Lenin.

I already checked the book where the quote is from and it doesn’t say when he participated in the election. At least I didn’t find it but I can only assume it was before 1921.

I guess bourgeoisie does technically refer to a ruling class in a capitalist society but it’s so commonly used to refer to just a ruling class or just who owns the means of production in general conversation that my usage is more colloquial. Like I would also refer to a monarch and the royal family as the bourgeoisie while the society isn’t capitalist.

I did but that section definitely does not reflect what life was for a worker in the USSR after Stalin so I’m curious when he participated in that election.

I did not say that capitalists were in power what I said was that the party was in power. There aren’t just 2 options, a monarchy for example is commonly neither capitalist nor socialist.

If you read your own source you will find that soviet democracy pretty much fell in 1921 and with the death of Lenin it was gone. Which was my original statement that with Stalin any hope for socialism was gone. So my point of it being bourgeoisie rule stands.

I never said a direct democracy is needed but worker control of the means of production is, in the USSR workers did not have that. Pretty much all meaningful elections in the USSR were held within the party by the party, not by the workers. The party was a bourgeoisie ruling class with vastly different class interests which is why the USSR was not socialist.

Planned by the party, not the workers. Workers lacked any voice in the party, it was no different than any other authoritarian rule in that aspect.

I grew up in the USSR, nearby farms were controlled by a kolhoos which was headed by someone important in the party, the farmers had no say in what was to be produced or to who their produce goes to, only the party decided that. The same control existed for every other industry, party gave the orders with no input from a single worker, commonly even going against workers in their orders.

I would love a system where workers actually controlled the means of production but the USSR was not that.

Workers had no control over the means of production. Those were owned by the party which was just another form of bourgeoisie rule. A good example of that was the insane amount of nepotism in the party leading to appointment of friends and relatives with no competency who went against the wishes of the workers. Trofim Lysenko for example was appointed by Stalin and his policies forced farmers to basically kill their crops leading to mass famines in the USSR and those that didn’t were declared fascists, traitors or something along those lines.

It’s not socialist if the workers lack any control.

While yes, a socialist country would have other priorities but let’s also not forget that the USSR wasn’t socialist. Before Stalin it had the potential to be sometime in the future but that got sidelined at best.

It already is, finding a parking spot and then walking through a parking lot is a lot less convenient than walking from the tram stop to the store and it’s roughly the same distance. I sold my car after moving to the city because public transit is so much more convenient.