The Russian Civil War

[JHB]

7. OK, this is a tangent, but part of your post jogged a thought...

Specifically, "Many lower-level positions are actually democratically elected, but they are elected from different contenders in the Communist party,...."

This jogged a thought from my many arguments with conservatives about their retorts of "we're not a democracy, we're a republic." To whit, what is a republic that isn't a democratic republic? Answer: One wherein candidates are voted in to office, but by a controlled and constrained electorate.

My original context was sparring with arguments that corporations were guided "democratically" because their boards were elected, which is bullshit because the electorate is shareholders in proportion to shares owned, or the executives collecting votes by proxy. It also applies to Jim Crow states that eliminated significant chunks of the populace from the electorate.

I suppose I'm contending the the use of "democratically" in the wording of "lower-level positions are actually democratically elected", but this post is mostly a "thoughts going through my head" dump, not actual contention.