My grandma lived in USSR and she said that on one ocassion (1980s) when there were local elections, she basically said to whoever was calling her to vote "I ain't going until you fix that damn light and cut the tree under my window" and the very next day it was done. Boy they really were ready to do anything to secure high turnout
Well she would have to pay a Contractor these days. In the "Free World" less is best! They will say if you don't vote it shows how content you are with the Bourgeoisie. So no need to ever vote again! Happy?
@@mikefay5698 you have to be joking. The Soviet Union isn't special just because their candidates would increase public maintenance projects in the leadup to the election to secure enough votes to be elected. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and it's used basically anywhere there have ever been elections since ancient Athens
I lived in the USSR as a kid, and seen my grandma vote. Later on I tried to understand why the voting would happen despite the single party and single candidate system. Thank you for explaining, very helpful .
@@ImAHeroOnHiroinHeaven compared to russia nowdays, although that can only be said for the ussr before the 1990s. Just so you can have an idea, tens of millions were put into poverty because of the dissolution of the ussr
@@ImAHeroOnHiroindepends on the time late 50s to early 80s was alright definitely better than say modern Russia it really was only horrible under Stalin for obvious reasons and when Gorbachev was trying to fix the decades of corruption and general terrible governance of the USSR
The most interesting part was the "no turnout" to get rid of representatives that didn't help them locally, that's a very interesting twist on the system; though it seems like it was just them making the best of a less than ideal situation.
@@soasertsus Thank you! Communism has been demonised so heavily by the west thag almost everyone's perception of it is so strongly warped and inacurate it's laughable. I appreciate everyone bringing light into this situation.
@@soasertsus There was no open discussion, there was no change of policy possible. Just a matter of appointing the governors that was not utterly repulsive to the populace. There was no "fair and square" about who was appointed.
That's not at all unusual in systems that were technically parliamentary in nature. A vote of confidence is a yes or no vote as to whether to elect a person, but in those votes, it's much safer to vote no as opposed to most of the Soviet history.
It's simple. If you are the only person to vote NO, then you are the traitor. When more people vote NO than you can reasonably kill, then the guy who runs for office is the traitor.
Melon Lord nahh it was local meddling. Huge repressions were on ‘federal’ level, so locally you could easily go to church or read forbidden books in schools.
Not true anymore. In America - the ballot is mailed to you. same as the ballot box coming to you. yeah, it's a way to rig elections; and lower the standards for anti-fraud.
My teacher who was a German Romanian and lived under the communist government told us that when he served in the army there was kind of a competition on which unit would vote the earliest. After that it was kind of a holiday. You got a free day that you could spend with your family and my teacher went out to a picnic everytime.
@@arnold3768 The USSR gov was against religion but not so much against various superstitions. In fact, both Soviets and the Chinese were famous for their various superstitions. And ghosts count as superstitions
@@anonymousbloke1 Y'know I've always found it odd and frankly counterintuitive that an atheistic, Communist state that suppresses and discourages religion would then go around to build 'temples' to their beliefs and glorify their past leaders or prominent party members to the point of borderline cult worship to basically a psuedo-religion. What's even stranger is that many living leaders of many heavily Communist influenced or communist based countries would actively encourage their subordinates and countrymen to develop and enforce cults of personality around themselves that were and are eirly reminiscent of the kind of zealotry you'd find in a extremist, foundementalist branch of any of the abrahamic religions or even other faiths. To me it just seems like either a lack of self-awareness on their part or perhaps it's a sort of; *"they won't need a religion because they have an all knowing state (don't question or criticize it ever) and or a (totally not religious..) 'messianic' leader to follow dogmatically",* kind of thing, as hypocritical as that sounds. (and that's because it is)
So in modern Russia a "soviet" could refer to some innocent things then? I guess it's the same thing as the word fuhrer in German which simply means "leader"
Yes, I remember visiting friends in Hungary in the 70's, and one showed me their ballot paper. There were two council places to be filled, and two names on the ballot, both party members. The twist in Hungary was that you received the ballot paper in the post, and 'voting' was compulsory.
In the USA voting is electronic making it much easier to cheat. Neat huh! Joseph Stalin avered that the most important person in a ballot was the one doing the counting!
@@nil981 Yes, in a democracy. Australia actually has that rule, and it works really well. We should probably all have it - but more parties on the ballot, eh?
You really, really missed an important detail here. That "One candidate" had to have been previously approved at a public assembly in which anyone could put their name forward, and people selected the candidate from there. Following that the election was really a vote to ratify/approve that decision on a larger scale.
yet another hair split. just like when people say "socialism isn't government doing stuff". or democratic socialism and social democracy. or even socialism and communism. they're all fucking close enough and they all end up doing the same shit.
That's not really the case. Deputies were nominated by popular organizations (such as unions), but they had to be approved by party secretaries, and in many cases these were deputies suggested by the party in the first place. The people being elected (deputies) also had no real power. First of all, there were a trillion of them. Second, they did not set policy. At most, their legislative role was just offering advice and keeping the leadership up to speed. All policy decisions were made by the Soviet party leadership. The main role of deputies was to serve as an example of good citizenship and to organize support for the party. In 1961, Howard R. Swearer wrote in "The Functions of Soviet Local Elections," "A deputy's legislative role is largely restricted to that of critic of the local bureaucracy, and even his exercise of this function is severely limited. He is primarily a voluntary unpaid worker for the soviet executive committee, the principal "activist" in his election district. As such he propagandizes and promotes the policies of the party, organizes and directs all types of mass activities, and occasionally acts as an intercessor between his constituents and the local bureaucracy."
For what it's worth, the Supreme Soviet passed only 80 acts _total_ between 1938 and 1990. And since the president had absolute veto power, their legislative powers were essentially meaningless.
I have a video request. Can you please do a video on the Referendum of Vorarlberg, where an Austrian Region tried to secede and join Switzerland after WWI ?
Well, yes and no. True that until perestroika in the final elections, only one person stood. But, before that,there were also elections on who is gonna be the candidate. There would be meetings in collective farms, factories etc in which everyone could be a candidate..all such candidates would make a paper about their qualifications , and make a speech to their colleagues... then it would be elections,and if you won a majority, you would be on the ballot and go through what it was described in the video. If not, re-election would happen with the one coming last dropping out. That would continue until someone gets a majority,and then the process during video would happen.
@@Sh4dxwxz We know the state of the USSR. We know the state of post-USSR Russia. The housing from the old days was so bad that you have two old people willingly living in the nuclear radiation.
The true nature of Soviet elections was a lot more complex then this. The high level elections that you see in liberal democracies didn't really play a huge role. Instead, what was really at stake was the local level elections. I'll explain how this worked. First of all, your local region would need to set up its own soviet, which was basically a council of workers, philosophers, political figures, etc. Basically anyone could join these soviets. On election day, members of the local soviet would vote to select their representative to go to their regional soviet, who were obliged to vote as their people elected them to. These representatives would carry out a similar process to the process in the lower level soviets. The representatives would vote, as they were elected to do so, and select their representative for the supreme soviet, which would basically run the country. The general secretary was basically the leader of the supreme soviet and his job was to get the supreme soviet to form a cohesive goal. This practice of the general secretary was called democratic centralism.
Democratic centralism/Centralised Democracy makes a lot of sense to be honest. At least in theory it should make the elected officials accountable for ensuring that the people of their local Soviet that elected them help pass policy that improves the overall standard of living.
@@DedMan516 Frankly, Lenin got some good theoretical ideas. Trying to get communists to agree on anything is like herding cats, and vanguardism and dem-centr. funneled political activity into one place. But funneling people into one party, with decisions that must be followed no matter what, is a recipe for inevitable dictatorship and corruption.
Centralized elections are kinda neat: you elect people to do the elections, they elect people to do the grand final elections. This is kinda like cybersport with tournament brackets, which kinda works goods, as since it lets people decide who’s better, and the overall process is open and entertaining for everyone else. I’d like to see a county running elections like that. This doesn’t explain one thing though: how come Soviet had only one candidate to chose from? (And was it really the case? This sounds illogical. Do we have evidence it’s true?)
One candidate remains at the END of the election process, because before that there was a candidate selection process that went through several stages, passing through factories, factories, and so on. It was, in fact, a very complicated process.
Actually, the original plan for Sovier Democracy (drawn by Trotsky) was to abolish political parties and have actually free elections for representatives of the workers
@@obiwankenobi4252 I'd also add that Trotsky defied a ban on factions within the CPSU, although it wasn't the clear about whether the ban on factions was meant to be long term or not when it was put in place by Lenin, although it was the pretext as to how Trotsky got kicked out.
In Eastern Germany, people would write complaints on the ballot (usually practical things, shortcomings in government services like housing, water supply) and these things then tended to jump upwards on the priority list.
"People of the USSR, I would like to announce that we will now have a two party system!" "The 'We Love Stalin Party' and the 'Stalin is Perfect Party'"
This is a good explanation, but leaves out important context. On a local level, at meetings in community centers before the elections (which every Soviet neighborhood or commune had), the citizens of that locality would nominate someone from the community as their local delegate. This was done through a drawn-out, democratic process. That representative would then go to a soviet (council) on the regional level, and they'd elect a representative for their region, which people would verify. Then the national soviets would elect the heads of state. If done correctly, this process, called council democracy (as opposed to liberal democracy) can be quite democratic.
@@mr.goldenproductions_0143mostly because the soviet union is commanded not by councils, but by the party. the council's political power used to be huge, until it got stripped out bit by bit by the party. read "Kronstadt Rebellion" if you want to know more the conflict between the party and the councils, spoiler: it got violent.
Nice video but it glosses over the fact that elections for local candidates were run only to CONFIRM their appointment. There was a process whereby citizens would be able to nominate candidates in their local soviets (councils) and then vote for them. The winner of the election in the soviet would then be subjected to an approval vote in the way described in the video
Man, I LOVE your content. You keep making nice short videos on historical topics I didn't even know I wanted. I really like the 3-4 minute format. Keep it up, you're doing great work.
@@michaelherscheid9709 U mean plutocracy instead of autocracy but the current system is much worse bcoz u cannot throw the rulers out of their power unlike autocracy
@@michaelherscheid9709 i prefer 2 party system than hundred of party system Because it is so confusing and every candidate in my country just say " i will make everything better " and never say their politic agenda which is stupid
You briefly mentioned turnout, but from a citizen perspective. From the party perspective, it showed the candidates ability to mobilize his area. So low turnout, not just getting 50%+1, was bad news for the candidate. Turnout out votes is hard work and there are many ways to go about it. So it's like a performance review, but not how the citizen's view the candidate (that's irrelevant), but how the party assesses the candidate's ability to mobilize the populace (that's very important from communist perspective!).
I like how someone being 'unwell' is represented by someone with an eyepatch. Not in bed with a cold or a broken bone, just a small case of Missing An Eye.
It's sort of like that in some states in the US. Granted, the only person on the ballot can't lose, but still plenty of state elections where there is only ever one candidate. Mine's like that, doesn't matter how bad the person is, they still get enthusiastically voted in. For example, one got drunk and blatantly murdered a woman, still was overwhelmingly voted for.
Rehan Zainul Abdeen There’s a quote about American democracy thats by an African communist. “America is a 1 party dictatorship, but in typical American extravagance there’s 2 parties.” Actual quote Julius Nyerere was known to have said, "The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them").
true, while in soviet union the communist has to approve a new candidate... in the USA the corporate overlords are the one that approves candidates in both parties.
@@CF4959 *That doesn't change that third parties are pathetic, considering one of the few parties that got even close wanted to remove Drivers Licences.*
It’s just recently that I discovered this channel. The only thing I can say: excellent! To make a point in a few minutes is quite something and it triggers me to know more about certain subjects
*obligatory "they had more input than we do nowadays" comment
5 ปีที่แล้ว +5
@transylvanian You're a drone. None of what your vomiting means anything, people were enslaved, murdered on mass, encouraged to spy on eachother, etc. You're the one parroting propaganda, as unlike capitalist countries it's the communist hellholes that need armies of freaks to cover up the body count. The strongest nations in the world, vs places that brag about there only being 100,000 people that starved to death this year.
@transylvanian thank you someone who did their research. There are so much falsehood and demonization against the council union just for being a different economic system than them.
@transylvanian if that's true then why do so many people try to immigrate to the US, instead of Cuba or Venezuela? Why did East Germany shoot anyone trying to cross into west berlin or even build a wall in the first place? You remind me of those people who say Hitler was just "misunderstood" and "we should just try to understand where he was coming from."
Spaghetti Bird yeah, the way soviet elections worked was waaaaaay more localized, and then worked upwards, this vid really does a disservice to soviet style democracy.
Kind of effective if you think about it. Wouldn't want to lose your position and be on the 'out' with party higher ups so more incentive to make the changes on the local level that your electorate wants.
@@Oneeye_snaps Well are there really two options? There are right wing corporatist republicans and slightly less right wing corporatist democrats. Sounds like a one party with two faces.
The reason for this is because in the USSR elections were really just formalities and in most cases, the candidates had already been picked out by the people in the districts they were representing. They usually had meetings where people would nominate others for the position, and then spend hours scrutinizing them over every little detail of their lives, until the room decided on one candidate to run in elections, at which point there would be one candidate on the ballot.
Also note: that those local elections were Party elections (primaries) and the people voting in them could only choose someone who was a member of the party in good standing and ideologically aligned with the leadership to avoid punishment from the higher levels for picking an "unacceptable" candidate. It's not like they could elect an actual opposition candidate.
@@SpaceBearEngineer The Communist Party was meant to represent the interests of the entire working class and advocate for them. It's kinda like in Britain where both Labour and Conservative, the two parties that dominate Westminster, are both representing the interests of different capitalists- essentially it's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, as Marx would call it. The USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat, where only workers were able to have political power
That's more of a people problem though. People don't want to vote for a side that doesn't look like it's going to win. So they only swing between the 2 most popular parties.
@@cattysplat Because so many of the elections are "winner takes all" the two main parties don't want independent parties that can end up spoiling the election and causing it to go to one side. It's widely felt that in 1992 Ross Perot split largely the Republican vote (due to a lot of dissatisfaction among Republican voters regarding George Bush) and that's how Bill Clinton won. Especially when it's expected to be a close race the two main parties absolutely don't want a third party causing the other party to win.
The twist: those two political parties which the two candidates are a part of are owned by the same group of plutocrats who get their way no matter who wins office. The illusion of choice.
@@trago034 Not really, it happened extremely rare, only when a candidate was particularly unliked even among many fellow communists, and even then it usually caused great confusion and iritation in a committe responsible for elections, the next candidate you'd get had the same policy and ideology anyway, but he just potentially could have a better personality. It's also worth noting that elections were usually rigged (which wasn't hard, you just had to put more remaining cards to the ballot box, when the voting was over). Because of that, the candidate getting "unelected" was more often an effect of internal struggles among local elites, than some actual popular unrest (it was genuine sometimes, but those are exceptions)
BritTrot They really aren’t, they’re near polar opposites in everything. Like taxes, military spending, gun control, climate change, wearing masks, etc. Like they agree on very little!
Here in Bulgaria (a former socialist country) we had 2 parties - the Communist party and the Agrarian union which was forced to become a Communist party to exist but on the media they called it ,,the opposition". So it was still all Communist parties but 2 of them - technically a choice.
@@mikefay5698 we have a lot of gas, more than enough. And our political system is very diverse. We have many different parties - I believe they are around 120. They have different ideologies but there is total freedom - everyone can start a new party. And it's quite different than countries like the US and the UK because they have only 2-3 parties in the Parliament (in the US only 2) and we have 6 groups in Parliament (which include 3 parties and 3 coalitions of many parties).
This is very interesting and I had no idea not taking part in elections was possible under Stalin. In Czechoslovakia (and I guess elsewhere in the Soviet block too) they later perfected the system, and everybody was basically forced to vote or face repercussions from the secret police. So turnout was always very high.
This absolutely ignores the fact that soviet democracy, as with most socialist governments, happens from the ground up. You elect a local soviet from (usually) among your Workplace or other form of coop, who in turn elect higher up soviets up to the Supreme soviet. Different from the liberal democratic model, but not inherently much less democratic
Finally someone to mention that. Of course there are inherited flaws in this system with only 1 delegate from the workplace, which in the long run allows for utter assholes and partnamonklatura to be elected and continue moving their friends to the top. With the number of candidates increased this flaw could be disregarded. Not to mention Soviet system also allows for the electorate to withdraw their candidate if they were not satisfied with his work. And the delegate choice you would vote would be first formed at the workplace. So basically at those times you would first agree to send your fellow colleague Obama to the local Soviet, of course if gets the majority votes at the office. So in a sense you've already chosen your own representative and there was no need to form another one for the elections. Although that was changed in the 1936 constitution to the territorial elections, that of course changed the whole idea of Soviet.
Kinda, but a major problem in the USSR that undermined this was the way that many bodies elected a subgroup of only a very few which held real power with other meetings held so infrequently as to become useless. And people in elections didn't always go into a private booth or screen to vote, they only did so when they rebelled and that fact could be noted. The CPSU's control over nominations was also far stronger, even as opposed to allowing organized groups other than them or independents to petition for ballot access. Information also wasn't well reported, and so knowing exactly how much support someone had was very hard to know with real understanding and genuine value.
The late 60s Russian film, July Rain, directed by the late, great Marlen Khutsiev, has an interesting depiction of how door-to-door campaigning worked in a Soviet election. I presume the depiction is somewhat realistic, though would be glad for somebody who was there at the time to tell us how realistic it really was.
you forgot to mention that the candidates were elected from production collectives (factories,, collective farms) and were members of these collectives. and most important they could be recalled from the supreme council by decision of these collectives
I'm not sure if this was intentional, but throughout the video, the picture of Stalin looks directly at you except at 1:58 when the volunteer brings the ballot box to the hospital and at 2:23 when the representative tells the people that he'll fix things. It's a nice Easter Egg.
This was an interesting and enlightening video, I never knew how Soviet voting worked or even that they had voting! Also it's rather impressive at how resourceful the citizens of the USSR were at using what little input they had and taking advantage of the little loopholes in the system in order to garner some amount of needed or desired changes. Even if the state or Union as a whole couldn't be changed too much at least for people of smaller, subset regions within could pressure and leverage some regional one-party selected (only one allowed per region..) candidates or their local representatives into promising and even (actually) delivering on certain 'campaign promises'. That is if these politicians and civil-servants wanted to keep their privileged positions or get said offices in the first place, suprisingly bold and brilliant on the Soviet citizens part! *I guess even the tiniest bit of ("not-") democracy is better than none*
We had a lot more input then this video shows. The single candidate was chosen by the people in the first place, local councils of workers voted for a regional representative who went to the supreme council and this was sort of a final approval. It was an interesting was to have both the government and the people approve the candidate.
Spess Sigiswulf I’m fairly certain that this image is a Imperial German so Wehraboo would be incorrect, if you where going to call me something to like try to insult me or something it would be Kaiserboo
Not exactly democratic, sure, but on the other hand every few years I get to vote for a handful of near-identical do-nothings who'll spend the next few years lining their pockets with my money, only two of them have any real chance, and not voting just helps the most awful one. So I don't feel like I can judge.
That's by design for both the USSR and your country The soviets wanted to opress the rich( bourgeoisie) and serve the workers ( prolatariat ) That's why they have one party a vanguard that can't be voted out the communist party ( Dictatorship of the prolatariat ) On the other hand in america for example both major parties don't really serve the workers and instead can be lobbied by major corporations and billionaires that's why workers or members of the prolatariat get their demands met by the parties, because they're not here to serve you they serve the rich.....( A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie)
@@hhyy7177 Little caviot to that. Oppress the rich (who weren't high ranking government officials) and the minorities, and serve the workers (sometimes).
Sitting ducks make easy targets, after all. "They're free votes, comrade! What're they gonna do-ask for a privacy box to be built around them? Say no?"
@@PrezVeto How do liberals keep twisting obvious acts of good faith into ones of bad faith when it’s an economic system that doesn’t appeal to their class interests? Oops, I already answered it.
my mother told me a story of her and her grandmother going to vote... she got in the booth and her grandmother allowed her to choose... she looked at the paper and said "why is there only one option?"
The entire point is to prevent deadlock, hence democratic centralism. That said, you could vote out your representative (their equivalent to congressperson) any time before the general election. Atleast that's what another gentlemen wrote on this comments thread.
Fun fact: if you were unwell, you absolutely had to tell this to the local hospital before elections, ao the ballot could be brought to your home. Failure to do so, meant that you had trouble at work, your kids at school, and you would lose some of your influence in the party, which you absolutely needed to have a somewhat decent life and a soviet republic apart of Russia, because life in Russia was generally better than, say, Latvia or Moldova
I funny how similar USSR "Communism" is to western "Capitalism" it almost as if both system consoldate wealth and a small group of people that then rule over you like a dictator.
Kinda reminds me of the concept of ancient Mongolian Kuraltais where aspiring mongol leaders would host a big sort of party and if a clan leader attended it meant they favoured you while a leaders absence with no other representation (A son or something attending if his father was ill) was a vote against the the leader.
If we combined this with elections with more than 1 candidate we'd be sure to get politicians who'd actually get things done! For Example: ロ Vote Hillary ロ Vote Trump (But, if neither gets at least 50%, neither gets elected and both parties have to put forth new candidates. And there is a new election!)
Or just the Soviet system w/ just 1 candidate _at a time_ . You can vote YES or NO, *and* everyone is allowed to participate. Then you just wait till someone gets a 50%+1 approval.
@@carlcarlington7317 What? Are you crazy! Bob with a fake beard is clearly much better. And then there’s bob with fake glasses over there, he’d never win.
It realy wasnt deep. In fact he failed to mention some very important parts. This one person election was a formality because the candidate was chosen by the locals in the first place. This was a sort of official confirmation that both the people and the government approved the candidate. USSR was a lot more democratic the westerners were taught, you can read "Human rights in the soviet union", its a good book on how the system worked.
Well in Italy Mussolini wasn’t elected. When the economy was down the toilet after WW1 everyone was blaming everything on the King which of course he didn’t like the idea especially from the socialists. So the King hired Mussolini to be the Prime minister to run the country for him and be the one everyone would point there fingers at if things went to shit. Which it did once the Allies finally started invading mainland Italy in WW2.
Francisco Franco too held referendums every now and then to ask people if they thought he should stay in power. Would you believe he always won with 95% of the vote?
Convenient that you forgot the selection process for the candidates in question, the part with the actual democratic process in it whereas the elections were more of a popular affirmation of the earlier selection.
@@γιουργια there's also the fact that higher levels of governance were essentially subjected to the same effect as the american electoral college system, in which elected officials in turn elect other officials, who elect others, in turn practically cementing party power, at least in the higher levels.
My grandma lived in USSR and she said that on one ocassion (1980s) when there were local elections, she basically said to whoever was calling her to vote "I ain't going until you fix that damn light and cut the tree under my window" and the very next day it was done. Boy they really were ready to do anything to secure high turnout
Well she would have to pay a Contractor these days. In the "Free World" less is best! They will say if you don't vote it shows how content you are with the Bourgeoisie. So no need to ever vote again! Happy?
Was this before or after 1986?
@@mikefay5698 And the USSR during that time still was negligent enough to cause Chernobyl.
In the "Free World" not even Japan was that bad
@@mikefay5698 you have to be joking. The Soviet Union isn't special just because their candidates would increase public maintenance projects in the leadup to the election to secure enough votes to be elected. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and it's used basically anywhere there have ever been elections since ancient Athens
@@Hypogean7Fukushima my guy
Imagine being the only candidate on a ballot and still losing.
That still happens,there are places even to this day where none of the above is an option, and you could vote the post vacant
Brian Tse most unlucky person
If the US required absolute majority no one would get elected :D
🤣 🤣 🤣
*Mikhale Gorbachev intensifies.
Elections in USSR:
"Do you not oppose the current government?
- Yes, I do not oppose
- No, i do not oppose"
Random guy: YES, i do oppose
Stalin: So you have chosen death off to the gulag
Andrzej Macikowski
I believe the correct answer would be
“communist party”
@@USSAnimeNCC- "you silly man"
"Would you mind voting for communist party?"
-Yes, I do not mind
-No, I do not nind
I would use the write-in option "Please don't hurt me, comrade."
I lived in the USSR as a kid, and seen my grandma vote. Later on I tried to understand why the voting would happen despite the single party and single candidate system. Thank you for explaining, very helpful .
What was it like in the ussr was it good or bad or average? I’d like to know
@@ImAHeroOnHiroin The youtuber Ushanka might be an excellent resource for you.
@@ImAHeroOnHiroin Russia hasnt changed much. Just look up how they’re doing now
@@ImAHeroOnHiroinHeaven compared to russia nowdays, although that can only be said for the ussr before the 1990s.
Just so you can have an idea, tens of millions were put into poverty because of the dissolution of the ussr
@@ImAHeroOnHiroindepends on the time late 50s to early 80s was alright definitely better than say modern Russia it really was only horrible under Stalin for obvious reasons and when Gorbachev was trying to fix the decades of corruption and general terrible governance of the USSR
The Soviet Union. The only place where “I’m not voting” actually did something.
Tell that to Nevada in the last presidential election, or NC in the 2016 gubernatorial election (1000 vote margin)
But muh vote don’t matter meme
@@looinrims The hell has New Caledonia have to do with this
Did it?
@@RevJamesCostello no
@@looinrims That’s what I thought, poor bastards.
Finally, James Bisenette is first again! Glorious!
Hooray!!! Everything is fine again in the UK, except for that other thing that happened...
Sup Panteleimon
He got my vote. He was the only one on the ballot, but still.
always throws me just a tiny bit off when he isn't the first name brought up
Boris won and corbyn’s gone
The most interesting part was the "no turnout" to get rid of representatives that didn't help them locally, that's a very interesting twist on the system; though it seems like it was just them making the best of a less than ideal situation.
@@soasertsus from where you got this text? or you really wrote it by yourself?
@@soasertsus ha~ finally someone sane. Not doing all commies are bad... americans dont know shit but still talk shit as if they know shit
@@soasertsus Thank you! Communism has been demonised so heavily by the west thag almost everyone's perception of it is so strongly warped and inacurate it's laughable. I appreciate everyone bringing light into this situation.
@@LODmann Terror-famines are bad for communism's PR
@@soasertsus There was no open discussion, there was no change of policy possible.
Just a matter of appointing the governors that was not utterly repulsive to the populace.
There was no "fair and square" about who was appointed.
That moment when you're running alone and you still manage to lose hahaha
That's not at all unusual in systems that were technically parliamentary in nature. A vote of confidence is a yes or no vote as to whether to elect a person, but in those votes, it's much safer to vote no as opposed to most of the Soviet history.
It's simple. If you are the only person to vote NO, then you are the traitor. When more people vote NO than you can reasonably kill, then the guy who runs for office is the traitor.
Melon Lord nahh it was local meddling. Huge repressions were on ‘federal’ level, so locally you could easily go to church or read forbidden books in schools.
@@melonlord1414 Ah, just Stalinist things
In America: You go to ballot box.
In Soviet Russia: Ballot box comes to you!
Kind of nice when you think about it
You still need to go to ballot box unless you have a serious illness in USSR. Indonesia is the same, the ballot exist in floors inside hospitals
I live in the US and vote exclusively by mail. The ballot box comes to me here as well.
Not true anymore.
In America - the ballot is mailed to you. same as the ballot box coming to you.
yeah, it's a way to rig elections; and lower the standards for anti-fraud.
@@Quantum-yz9fc unless you were to move to a state trying to ban it, yes it does
My teacher who was a German Romanian and lived under the communist government told us that when he served in the army there was kind of a competition on which unit would vote the earliest. After that it was kind of a holiday. You got a free day that you could spend with your family and my teacher went out to a picnic everytime.
"Vote for me or I swear on Lenin's ghost I'll end you"
Classic
Except communists don't believe in ghosts.
@@arnold3768 The USSR gov was against religion but not so much against various superstitions. In fact, both Soviets and the Chinese were famous for their various superstitions. And ghosts count as superstitions
Hey, at least that was a campaign promise you knew he'd deliver on...
@@anonymousbloke1
Y'know I've always found it odd and frankly counterintuitive that an atheistic, Communist state that suppresses and discourages religion would then go around to build 'temples' to their beliefs and glorify their past leaders or prominent party members to the point of borderline cult worship to basically a psuedo-religion. What's even stranger is that many living leaders of many heavily Communist influenced or communist based countries would actively encourage their subordinates and countrymen to develop and enforce cults of personality around themselves that were and are eirly reminiscent of the kind of zealotry you'd find in a extremist, foundementalist branch of any of the abrahamic religions or even other faiths.
To me it just seems like either a lack of self-awareness on their part or perhaps it's a sort of; *"they won't need a religion because they have an all knowing state (don't question or criticize it ever) and or a (totally not religious..) 'messianic' leader to follow dogmatically",* kind of thing, as hypocritical as that sounds. (and that's because it is)
Well, if they wouldnt believe in superstitions, Stalin wouldn't portray himself as demigod :P
You should have explain that "Soviet" meant "Council"
Council Union
A shame they weren't actually council communists or another variant of left communism. They're the most tolerable of the statist Marxists.
I thought that it means advice too.
So in modern Russia a "soviet" could refer to some innocent things then?
I guess it's the same thing as the word fuhrer in German which simply means "leader"
@@P7777-u7r yep council in bulgarian is also called съвет/suvet/soviet
Can we vote?
Soviet Union: Well yes, but actually no.
I feel like this is more of a: No, but actually yes, but actually no, but actually a bit
Yes you can´t
United States: **nervous whistling**
More like, yes, but you have just one choice, what should make it pointless, but it is not because you can force a new candidate by not showing up.
Makiya Muhammad How?
Yes, I remember visiting friends in Hungary in the 70's, and one showed me their ballot paper. There were two council places to be filled, and two names on the ballot, both party members. The twist in Hungary was that you received the ballot paper in the post, and 'voting' was compulsory.
In the USA voting is electronic making it much easier to cheat. Neat huh! Joseph Stalin avered that the most important person in a ballot was the one doing the counting!
Voting being compulsory sounds like a good way to enforce democracy.
@@nil981 Yes, in a democracy. Australia actually has that rule, and it works really well. We should probably all have it - but more parties on the ballot, eh?
You really, really missed an important detail here. That "One candidate" had to have been previously approved at a public assembly in which anyone could put their name forward, and people selected the candidate from there. Following that the election was really a vote to ratify/approve that decision on a larger scale.
Thank you
yet another hair split.
just like when people say "socialism isn't government doing stuff".
or democratic socialism and social democracy.
or even socialism and communism.
they're all fucking close enough and they all end up doing the same shit.
Any source for that?
That's not really the case. Deputies were nominated by popular organizations (such as unions), but they had to be approved by party secretaries, and in many cases these were deputies suggested by the party in the first place. The people being elected (deputies) also had no real power. First of all, there were a trillion of them. Second, they did not set policy. At most, their legislative role was just offering advice and keeping the leadership up to speed. All policy decisions were made by the Soviet party leadership. The main role of deputies was to serve as an example of good citizenship and to organize support for the party. In 1961, Howard R. Swearer wrote in "The Functions of Soviet Local Elections,"
"A deputy's legislative role is largely restricted to that of critic of the local bureaucracy, and even his exercise of this function is severely limited. He is primarily a voluntary unpaid worker for the soviet executive committee, the principal "activist" in his election district. As such he propagandizes and promotes the policies of the party, organizes and directs all types of mass activities, and occasionally acts as an intercessor between his constituents and the local bureaucracy."
For what it's worth, the Supreme Soviet passed only 80 acts _total_ between 1938 and 1990. And since the president had absolute veto power, their legislative powers were essentially meaningless.
So HOI4 wasn't exactly accurate when it says "no elections"... Very interesting.
HOI4 elections and Soviet elections are the same, except for some countries.
Because HOI is shit.
Especially since some democracies have no elections lol
Same with the fascist countries.
More democracy than this also, you voted on PROFESSION.
not by geography.
Kind of like guilds.
SAMET what did you say?
The word "communist" is said so many times in this video it doesn't sound like a word to me anymore.
That’s called “semantic satiation”, when I word is repeated so many times it loses its meaning even within the correct context of its usage.
@@buttersurge8047 oh yeah
Feels more like a bald and bankrupt video
*communinst* : 7 times
*soviet* : 6 times
Communist communist comunist cummunist commumist comnunist communist...
I have a video request. Can you please do a video on the Referendum of Vorarlberg, where an Austrian Region tried to secede and join Switzerland after WWI ?
Panteleimon Ponomarenko boost this weirdly specific request
I'm game for this suggestion too!
I'd also like to pitch a request for the PRC equivalent of the current video, under Mao and the CCP.
I'd like to also request a similar thing between Savoie/Savoy and Switzerland.
Why do you have a hoi4 portrait?
@Door _ It did, look up on the history tab of Vorarlberg on wikipedia
Well, yes and no.
True that until perestroika in the final elections, only one person stood.
But, before that,there were also elections on who is gonna be the candidate.
There would be meetings in collective farms, factories etc in which everyone could be a candidate..all such candidates would make a paper about their qualifications , and make a speech to their colleagues... then it would be elections,and if you won a majority, you would be on the ballot and go through what it was described in the video. If not, re-election would happen with the one coming last dropping out. That would continue until someone gets a majority,and then the process during video would happen.
@@jmerinen except not really because if you didn't agree with the communist party then you would be deemed to have dangerous ideas
It's surprising they didn't just have a bait party to where if voted for them you would get gulag.
Wow so this election system was actually significantly better than the united states.
Everyone thinks Russia was so horrible because they were taught it by Russia's enemy the united States. Yet non of them even question it.
@@Sh4dxwxz We know the state of the USSR. We know the state of post-USSR Russia. The housing from the old days was so bad that you have two old people willingly living in the nuclear radiation.
Soviet Voting system
Good new : you are the only candidate
Bad new : you can still lose if the citizen hate you
Best voting system:))
Soviet Ballots: Let me introduce you to *your preferred candidate*
This sounds a lot like the dnc ._.
@@lewism1995 Iowa caucuses: _Let me introduce you to_ *the winning candidate*
"If you don't like him, just ignore me."
OUR preferred candidate.
This is funnier because of your profile picture XD
2:00 Ah yes,in Soviet Russia,ballot box comes to you!
Simeon Dimchev that’s actually quite nice of them
@@Bonservisjohnny I kinda wish they'd do that now, at least if they gave the option to vote for other candidates without getting killed obviously.
They still do.
This aged well
I kinda of wish it did in America, all these people complaining about their candidates when they didn't even vote in the primaries.
The soviets were interesting. Managing to chose a different candidate in an one candidate election.
Imagine being the only candidate and losing anyways
@@comissar8953 you must be hated
@@bigbrain2178 l3l
@@bigbrain2178 cope
you look like a younger whiter obama
The true nature of Soviet elections was a lot more complex then this. The high level elections that you see in liberal democracies didn't really play a huge role. Instead, what was really at stake was the local level elections. I'll explain how this worked.
First of all, your local region would need to set up its own soviet, which was basically a council of workers, philosophers, political figures, etc. Basically anyone could join these soviets.
On election day, members of the local soviet would vote to select their representative to go to their regional soviet, who were obliged to vote as their people elected them to.
These representatives would carry out a similar process to the process in the lower level soviets. The representatives would vote, as they were elected to do so, and select their representative for the supreme soviet, which would basically run the country.
The general secretary was basically the leader of the supreme soviet and his job was to get the supreme soviet to form a cohesive goal. This practice of the general secretary was called democratic centralism.
Democratic centralism/Centralised Democracy makes a lot of sense to be honest. At least in theory it should make the elected officials accountable for ensuring that the people of their local Soviet that elected them help pass policy that improves the overall standard of living.
@@DedMan516 Frankly, Lenin got some good theoretical ideas.
Trying to get communists to agree on anything is like herding cats, and vanguardism and dem-centr. funneled political activity into one place.
But funneling people into one party, with decisions that must be followed no matter what, is a recipe for inevitable dictatorship and corruption.
Centralized elections are kinda neat: you elect people to do the elections, they elect people to do the grand final elections.
This is kinda like cybersport with tournament brackets, which kinda works goods, as since it lets people decide who’s better, and the overall process is open and entertaining for everyone else. I’d like to see a county running elections like that.
This doesn’t explain one thing though: how come Soviet had only one candidate to chose from? (And was it really the case? This sounds illogical. Do we have evidence it’s true?)
so... electoral college
@@testla3383 no not really at all similar if im being honest
One candidate remains at the END of the election process, because before that there was a candidate selection process that went through several stages, passing through factories, factories, and so on.
It was, in fact, a very complicated process.
"You receive a ballot with your chosen candidate on it"
That one sentence says so much about Soviet Democracy 😂😂
In Soviet Russia, the candidate choose you
Actually, the original plan for Sovier Democracy (drawn by Trotsky) was to abolish political parties and have actually free elections for representatives of the workers
@@obiwankenobi4252 So much for Trotskyism...
@@obiwankenobi4252 he also wanted free press..... free left wing press.. but free press
@@obiwankenobi4252 I'd also add that Trotsky defied a ban on factions within the CPSU, although it wasn't the clear about whether the ban on factions was meant to be long term or not when it was put in place by Lenin, although it was the pretext as to how Trotsky got kicked out.
In Eastern Germany, people would write complaints on the ballot (usually practical things, shortcomings in government services like housing, water supply) and these things then tended to jump upwards on the priority list.
How did Soviet Elections Work?
Stalin: "It just works."
"Comrades, do you see that mountain over there? You can climb it!"
Is that a Fallout reference? I hope it's a Fallout reference, lol.
@Gabriel Sáenz Indeed it is
Sixteen times the popularity.
@ricojes You made my day, thanks.
"People of the USSR, I would like to announce that we will now have a two party system!"
"The 'We Love Stalin Party' and the 'Stalin is Perfect Party'"
They would end up accusing eachother of being troskyists somehow.
The "We Love Stalin" Party would be purged, since its name indicates Stalin isn't perfect.
@@moretaraverage marxist-leninist, can't expect a lot u know
This is a good explanation, but leaves out important context. On a local level, at meetings in community centers before the elections (which every Soviet neighborhood or commune had), the citizens of that locality would nominate someone from the community as their local delegate.
This was done through a drawn-out, democratic process. That representative would then go to a soviet (council) on the regional level, and they'd elect a representative for their region, which people would verify. Then the national soviets would elect the heads of state.
If done correctly, this process, called council democracy (as opposed to liberal democracy) can be quite democratic.
@Mor Dor Do you have any evidence to backup your claims?
Yet it never turns out so....
@@mr.goldenproductions_0143mostly because the soviet union is commanded not by councils, but by the party. the council's political power used to be huge, until it got stripped out bit by bit by the party.
read "Kronstadt Rebellion" if you want to know more the conflict between the party and the councils, spoiler: it got violent.
We have elections but I always get over a hundred percent of the vote
actually no, the workers party only gets like 80% the other 2 o 3 parties get the rest
Kim Jong-un because there is no better leader than you in your country who gives food for people
Weak. Kim ill sung had 900% of the vote.
Well, the other option says "starve in our glorious work camps"
So I guess you don't count the votes for the get executed if you vote for us party
Mom can i have elections?
Mom:no,we already have elections at home
At home: 0:37
Nice video but it glosses over the fact that elections for local candidates were run only to CONFIRM their appointment. There was a process whereby citizens would be able to nominate candidates in their local soviets (councils) and then vote for them. The winner of the election in the soviet would then be subjected to an approval vote in the way described in the video
IT IS still a difference in Reputation and soft Power for the candidate. Power politics etc...
Still Authoritarianism tho, so theyre straight up fascism
Man, I LOVE your content. You keep making nice short videos on historical topics I didn't even know I wanted. I really like the 3-4 minute format. Keep it up, you're doing great work.
America: has Democracy
Soviet Kid: "Mom, can we have democracy ?"
Soviet Mom: We already have democracy at home.
Democracy at home:
Mhh that rly. Cool elections in the US😂
USA has basically one party with the republican and democratic wings
@@michaelherscheid9709 U mean plutocracy instead of autocracy but the current system is much worse bcoz u cannot throw the rulers out of their power unlike autocracy
The U.S. deserves to be the butt of this meme nearly as much as the U.S.S.R.
@@michaelherscheid9709 i prefer 2 party system than hundred of party system
Because it is so confusing and every candidate in my country just say " i will make everything better " and never say their politic agenda which is stupid
You briefly mentioned turnout, but from a citizen perspective. From the party perspective, it showed the candidates ability to mobilize his area. So low turnout, not just getting 50%+1, was bad news for the candidate. Turnout out votes is hard work and there are many ways to go about it. So it's like a performance review, but not how the citizen's view the candidate (that's irrelevant), but how the party assesses the candidate's ability to mobilize the populace (that's very important from communist perspective!).
Figures. Mass mobilisation and energising the people was how the Soviets got power in the first place
Who’s James Bisenette and Rob Waterhouse, I love those names so much.
Diego Andrade well clearly we give special thanks to them
I miss the days James Bisenette was the only name he said at the end of videos.
Elections in the USSR: *Exsist*
Satlin: I love democracy.
Elections in the USA: Exist
Jeff Bezos: I love democracy.
*S A T L I N*
@@hans3000 It souds like a name of some russian spaceship lmao
I like how someone being 'unwell' is represented by someone with an eyepatch. Not in bed with a cold or a broken bone, just a small case of Missing An Eye.
It's sort of like that in some states in the US. Granted, the only person on the ballot can't lose, but still plenty of state elections where there is only ever one candidate. Mine's like that, doesn't matter how bad the person is, they still get enthusiastically voted in. For example, one got drunk and blatantly murdered a woman, still was overwhelmingly voted for.
You: I will not vote for you, better dead than red!
Uncle Joseph: Ok lol
Don't speak for me.
I hate that stupid sentence and I dont like Stalin.
Coffee Succubus What are you? Trotskyist? Then to gulag you go.
My great uncle, One Horse, ran in a Soviet election.
Loves these "morsels"; I watch them at work during coffee break. Keep up the great work!
Difference between Soviet and American democracy: One extra party
Rehan Zainul Abdeen There’s a quote about American democracy thats by an African communist.
“America is a 1 party dictatorship, but in typical American extravagance there’s 2 parties.”
Actual quote
Julius Nyerere was known to have said, "The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them").
true, while in soviet union the communist has to approve a new candidate...
in the USA the corporate overlords are the one that approves candidates in both parties.
*Well you can try voting for the third party. Your just going to be laughed at when actually start counting polls.*
@@josephstahl9119 no one can make it without corporate money. Corporate overlords chose the candidates and the winner.
@@CF4959 *That doesn't change that third parties are pathetic, considering one of the few parties that got even close wanted to remove Drivers Licences.*
It’s just recently that I discovered this channel. The only thing I can say: excellent!
To make a point in a few minutes is quite something and it triggers me to know more about certain subjects
Huh, so in a way the citizens of the Soviet Union had some input even if it was very little.
It wasn't "little" every local Soviets/Councils existed litterally everywhere...
*obligatory "they had more input than we do nowadays" comment
@transylvanian You're a drone. None of what your vomiting means anything, people were enslaved, murdered on mass, encouraged to spy on eachother, etc. You're the one parroting propaganda, as unlike capitalist countries it's the communist hellholes that need armies of freaks to cover up the body count.
The strongest nations in the world, vs places that brag about there only being 100,000 people that starved to death this year.
@transylvanian thank you someone who did their research. There are so much falsehood and demonization against the council union just for being a different economic system than them.
@transylvanian if that's true then why do so many people try to immigrate to the US, instead of Cuba or Venezuela?
Why did East Germany shoot anyone trying to cross into west berlin or even build a wall in the first place?
You remind me of those people who say Hitler was just "misunderstood" and "we should just try to understand where he was coming from."
What are you talking about, every time I think of democracy I think of Joseph Stalin. This channel is so biased /s
IKR it's like when I think of jews positively I immediately think of Hitler and all these biased folks call him anti-Semitic
Same when i think of authoritarianism i think of western countries
"One man, one vote, one time"
Lol
Fake News.
The elections were somewhat real. Some were single candidates, but some were also competitive seats.
Spaghetti Bird yeah, the way soviet elections worked was waaaaaay more localized, and then worked upwards, this vid really does a disservice to soviet style democracy.
So basically it was like a social media page that sometimes adjusts its content and marketing strategy based on how many likes its posts get.
Its called a census.
Kind of effective if you think about it. Wouldn't want to lose your position and be on the 'out' with party higher ups so more incentive to make the changes on the local level that your electorate wants.
Title:"Elections in Soviet..."
NEVER CLICKED ON A VIDEO SO FAST.
Also left with satisfaction.
Soviet citizens: We are going to have free and fair elections this time around, right?
Stalin: Well yes but actually no
Stalin: What sort of talk is that? To the gulag with you!
I mean it not a lot better than America 2 party systems.
@@kittenmastermind660 No, it really isn’t lmao. Two options is better than none.
@@Oneeye_snaps Well are there really two options? There are right wing corporatist republicans and slightly less right wing corporatist democrats. Sounds like a one party with two faces.
@@Cyborg_Lenin still better than 1 option
a video on how elections in Yugoslavia worked (or still works) could be interesting
The reason for this is because in the USSR elections were really just formalities and in most cases, the candidates had already been picked out by the people in the districts they were representing. They usually had meetings where people would nominate others for the position, and then spend hours scrutinizing them over every little detail of their lives, until the room decided on one candidate to run in elections, at which point there would be one candidate on the ballot.
Also note: that those local elections were Party elections (primaries) and the people voting in them could only choose someone who was a member of the party in good standing and ideologically aligned with the leadership to avoid punishment from the higher levels for picking an "unacceptable" candidate. It's not like they could elect an actual opposition candidate.
@@SpaceBearEngineer The Communist Party was meant to represent the interests of the entire working class and advocate for them. It's kinda like in Britain where both Labour and Conservative, the two parties that dominate Westminster, are both representing the interests of different capitalists- essentially it's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, as Marx would call it. The USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat, where only workers were able to have political power
*Americans* : Just one candidate? That's not a democracy!
*Also Americans* : Have only two candidates
to be fair you can vote for any other candidate and they all each other
That's more of a people problem though. People don't want to vote for a side that doesn't look like it's going to win. So they only swing between the 2 most popular parties.
@@cattysplat Because so many of the elections are "winner takes all" the two main parties don't want independent parties that can end up spoiling the election and causing it to go to one side. It's widely felt that in 1992 Ross Perot split largely the Republican vote (due to a lot of dissatisfaction among Republican voters regarding George Bush) and that's how Bill Clinton won. Especially when it's expected to be a close race the two main parties absolutely don't want a third party causing the other party to win.
I can tell you're not American because there are many candidates at every level
The twist: those two political parties which the two candidates are a part of are owned by the same group of plutocrats who get their way no matter who wins office. The illusion of choice.
I loved the insight on citizens banding together to boycott a vote and get someone 'unelected'. Just shows that humans can eventually game any system.
They don't game the system, that's how the system works
@@trago034 Not really, it happened extremely rare, only when a candidate was particularly unliked even among many fellow communists, and even then it usually caused great confusion and iritation in a committe responsible for elections, the next candidate you'd get had the same policy and ideology anyway, but he just potentially could have a better personality. It's also worth noting that elections were usually rigged (which wasn't hard, you just had to put more remaining cards to the ballot box, when the voting was over). Because of that, the candidate getting "unelected" was more often an effect of internal struggles among local elites, than some actual popular unrest (it was genuine sometimes, but those are exceptions)
USSR: you can vote but just for one candidate.
USA , Europe , Japan and south Korea: you can vote for anyone but nothing will not change.
In Europe it actually changes things
Jack McCalla I mean the Democrats and Republicans are reallyyyyyy different, for better or for worse
@@MacTac141 No.. they're not. They're exactly the same with some cosmetic differences.
BritTrot Yeah, basically same shit but you get to choose the color.
BritTrot They really aren’t, they’re near polar opposites in everything. Like taxes, military spending, gun control, climate change, wearing masks, etc. Like they agree on very little!
"In Soviet Union, the ballot casts you."
From about 2:00 onwards...I knew nothing of this.
So, thank you very much for making this video.
I love your channel keep up the great stuff!!!
Can we already take a minute to appreciate the lego-like figures of people which are so hilarious?
Here in Bulgaria (a former socialist country) we had 2 parties - the Communist party and the Agrarian union which was forced to become a Communist party to exist but on the media they called it ,,the opposition".
So it was still all Communist parties but 2 of them - technically a choice.
Now you have Capitalist Partys and no gas!
@@mikefay5698 we have a lot of gas, more than enough. And our political system is very diverse. We have many different parties - I believe they are around 120. They have different ideologies but there is total freedom - everyone can start a new party. And it's quite different than countries like the US and the UK because they have only 2-3 parties in the Parliament (in the US only 2) and we have 6 groups in Parliament (which include 3 parties and 3 coalitions of many parties).
Sounds a lot like America
0:00 That's exactly what I was thinking lol.
The Animation and Voice really makes these videos.
Very good work in creating this video
This is very interesting and I had no idea not taking part in elections was possible under Stalin. In Czechoslovakia (and I guess elsewhere in the Soviet block too) they later perfected the system, and everybody was basically forced to vote or face repercussions from the secret police. So turnout was always very high.
I can see the future elections being that of Mandator Voting and Uncontested Ballots.
This absolutely ignores the fact that soviet democracy, as with most socialist governments, happens from the ground up. You elect a local soviet from (usually) among your Workplace or other form of coop, who in turn elect higher up soviets up to the Supreme soviet. Different from the liberal democratic model, but not inherently much less democratic
Finally someone to mention that. Of course there are inherited flaws in this system with only 1 delegate from the workplace, which in the long run allows for utter assholes and partnamonklatura to be elected and continue moving their friends to the top. With the number of candidates increased this flaw could be disregarded. Not to mention Soviet system also allows for the electorate to withdraw their candidate if they were not satisfied with his work. And the delegate choice you would vote would be first formed at the workplace. So basically at those times you would first agree to send your fellow colleague Obama to the local Soviet, of course if gets the majority votes at the office. So in a sense you've already chosen your own representative and there was no need to form another one for the elections. Although that was changed in the 1936 constitution to the territorial elections, that of course changed the whole idea of Soviet.
On paper yes but in Stalins USSR we all know that only total handpicked loyalists were in any kind of official position
@@P7777-u7r Every regime does that, no matter how much it says otherwise. Even democratic ones, they just go about it in different ways.
Kinda, but a major problem in the USSR that undermined this was the way that many bodies elected a subgroup of only a very few which held real power with other meetings held so infrequently as to become useless. And people in elections didn't always go into a private booth or screen to vote, they only did so when they rebelled and that fact could be noted. The CPSU's control over nominations was also far stronger, even as opposed to allowing organized groups other than them or independents to petition for ballot access.
Information also wasn't well reported, and so knowing exactly how much support someone had was very hard to know with real understanding and genuine value.
The late 60s Russian film, July Rain, directed by the late, great Marlen Khutsiev, has an interesting depiction of how door-to-door campaigning worked in a Soviet election. I presume the depiction is somewhat realistic, though would be glad for somebody who was there at the time to tell us how realistic it really was.
you forgot to mention that the candidates were elected from production collectives (factories,, collective farms) and were members of these collectives. and most important they could be recalled from the supreme council by decision of these collectives
I'm not sure if this was intentional, but throughout the video, the picture of Stalin looks directly at you except at 1:58 when the volunteer brings the ballot box to the hospital and at 2:23 when the representative tells the people that he'll fix things. It's a nice Easter Egg.
1:59
In Soviet Russia polling station goes to you.
Even in india
This was an interesting and enlightening video, I never knew how Soviet voting worked or even that they had voting!
Also it's rather impressive at how resourceful the citizens of the USSR were at using what little input they had and taking advantage of the little loopholes in the system in order to garner some amount of needed or desired changes. Even if the state or Union as a whole couldn't be changed too much at least for people of smaller, subset regions within could pressure and leverage some regional one-party selected (only one allowed per region..) candidates or their local representatives into promising and even (actually) delivering on certain 'campaign promises'. That is if these politicians and civil-servants wanted to keep their privileged positions or get said offices in the first place, suprisingly bold and brilliant on the Soviet citizens part!
*I guess even the tiniest bit of ("not-") democracy is better than none*
The ingenious strategy of not voting for a candidate you don't like
We had a lot more input then this video shows. The single candidate was chosen by the people in the first place, local councils of workers voted for a regional representative who went to the supreme council and this was sort of a final approval. It was an interesting was to have both the government and the people approve the candidate.
James Bisenette is back in his rightful place!
This channel is all about answering questions you didn’t know you needed the answer to.
There were actually two options on voting ballots
Option 1: Joseph Stalin
Option 2: Gulag
“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes” -Losif Stalin
>"Losif"
Spess Sigiswulf Losif is the pronunciation of his name
I'd so expect a wehraboo like you to realize it would be pronounced the same way even with a J
Spess Sigiswulf I’m fairly certain that this image is a Imperial German so Wehraboo would be incorrect, if you where going to call me something to like try to insult me or something it would be Kaiserboo
It could potentially be Weimar, which had the Reichswehr, so I'd still be correct in that case. If it is Imperial, then I'll go with Heeraboo.
Not exactly democratic, sure, but on the other hand every few years I get to vote for a handful of near-identical do-nothings who'll spend the next few years lining their pockets with my money, only two of them have any real chance, and not voting just helps the most awful one. So I don't feel like I can judge.
That's by design for both the USSR and your country
The soviets wanted to opress the rich( bourgeoisie) and serve the workers ( prolatariat )
That's why they have one party a vanguard that can't be voted out the communist party ( Dictatorship of the prolatariat )
On the other hand in america for example both major parties don't really serve the workers and instead can be lobbied by major corporations and billionaires that's why workers or members of the prolatariat get their demands met by the parties, because they're not here to serve you they serve the rich.....( A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie)
@@hhyy7177 Little caviot to that. Oppress the rich (who weren't high ranking government officials) and the minorities, and serve the workers (sometimes).
Interesting coming from a system where you can choose between candidates that get nothing done.
Love this channel
"Vote for me or I swear on Lenin's ghost i'll end you"
Please don't ever change.
That’s nice of them to bring the voting box to the unwell.
Sitting ducks make easy targets, after all. "They're free votes, comrade! What're they gonna do-ask for a privacy box to be built around them? Say no?"
@@PrezVeto How do liberals keep twisting obvious acts of good faith into ones of bad faith when it’s an economic system that doesn’t appeal to their class interests?
Oops, I already answered it.
I thought it said "how did soviet electronics work" ... that'd have been real interesting too
Hidden in your dinner plates.
Revolutionary zeal, comrade!
my mother told me a story of her and her grandmother going to vote... she got in the booth and her grandmother allowed her to choose... she looked at the paper and said "why is there only one option?"
Less of an election, more of a job approval rating poll.
Tbh this sounds better than a deadlocked 2 party congress in a lot of ways.
The entire point is to prevent deadlock, hence democratic centralism.
That said, you could vote out your representative (their equivalent to congressperson) any time before the general election. Atleast that's what another gentlemen wrote on this comments thread.
I can imagine Bald and Bankrupt: "here we are at a Soviet election".
Soviet Elections in a nutshell:
Vote for:
A)Stalin
B)Free ticket to Gulag
And sometimes you'd get a free Option B with your Option A.
Fun fact: if you were unwell, you absolutely had to tell this to the local hospital before elections, ao the ballot could be brought to your home. Failure to do so, meant that you had trouble at work, your kids at school, and you would lose some of your influence in the party, which you absolutely needed to have a somewhat decent life and a soviet republic apart of Russia, because life in Russia was generally better than, say, Latvia or Moldova
I don't think Russia had higher standard of living back then compared to Latvia
Huh, so it's like my country a few years ago. Multiple parties, 80% had the same guy as Candidate
I funny how similar USSR "Communism" is to western "Capitalism" it almost as if both system consoldate wealth and a small group of people that then rule over you like a dictator.
Kinda reminds me of the concept of ancient Mongolian Kuraltais where aspiring mongol leaders would host a big sort of party and if a clan leader attended it meant they favoured you while a leaders absence with no other representation (A son or something attending if
his father was ill) was a vote against the the leader.
1:57-1:59
I'm not gonna lie that is very considerate. They really wanted to keep their system together.
If we combined this with elections with more than 1 candidate we'd be sure to get politicians who'd actually get things done!
For Example:
ロ Vote Hillary
ロ Vote Trump
(But, if neither gets at least 50%, neither gets elected and both parties have to put forth new candidates. And there is a new election!)
Or just the Soviet system w/ just 1 candidate _at a time_ . You can vote YES or NO, *and* everyone is allowed to participate. Then you just wait till someone gets a 50%+1 approval.
@@ArturoSubutex "I see you don't like Bob, have you considered bob with a fake mustache?"
@@carlcarlington7317 What? Are you crazy! Bob with a fake beard is clearly much better.
And then there’s bob with fake glasses over there, he’d never win.
1:58 In Russia, you don't come for the ballot, the ballot comes for you.
Ah James Bisenette back on top. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
"it's not who votes but who counts the votes that matters" Joseph vissorvich jugasvilli
I would appreciate a deep dive on this topic. It's something I never considered but am very fascinated in now.
It realy wasnt deep. In fact he failed to mention some very important parts. This one person election was a formality because the candidate was chosen by the locals in the first place. This was a sort of official confirmation that both the people and the government approved the candidate. USSR was a lot more democratic the westerners were taught, you can read "Human rights in the soviet union", its a good book on how the system worked.
Was this the same in Fascist countries like Germany, Italy or Spain. Or did they have different "Elections" now i'm curious.
they didnt have any elections
Germany had elections, you could just vote for a Nazi or a Nazi approved candidate
Well in Italy Mussolini wasn’t elected. When the economy was down the toilet after WW1 everyone was blaming everything on the King which of course he didn’t like the idea especially from the socialists. So the King hired Mussolini to be the Prime minister to run the country for him and be the one everyone would point there fingers at if things went to shit. Which it did once the Allies finally started invading mainland Italy in WW2.
Hitler used very biased referendums quite often.
Francisco Franco too held referendums every now and then to ask people if they thought he should stay in power. Would you believe he always won with 95% of the vote?
Joseph Stalin himself pushed for alternative voting system, elections with 1 candidate was supported by Bukharin
This isn't true, Bukharin supported a multi party system
Convenient that you forgot the selection process for the candidates in question, the part with the actual democratic process in it whereas the elections were more of a popular affirmation of the earlier selection.
Yes but they were more like primaries,not like parliamentary elections
Still though they were very direct
@@γιουργια there's also the fact that higher levels of governance were essentially subjected to the same effect as the american electoral college system, in which elected officials in turn elect other officials, who elect others, in turn practically cementing party power, at least in the higher levels.
@@pugorod3050I would like a source on this
This was fascinating.
Very well explained!