I am somewhat reluctant to ask this; my methodological training has long informed me against relying on anecdote and small samples. That being said, this set up could be better compared to a focus group than a survey. So I will go ahead and ask.

I was wondering what peoples' attitudes towards electoral democracy are? As you all know, within Communism there appears to be a sharp divide between those who believe in working within the existing liberal democratic system (a la the French Communist Party, Syriza, and the Democratic Party of Italy -- which is technically an electoral alliance between Communists and the Christian left, but close enough) and those who wish to abolish the whole system and start over.

4268365 I guess we would work with what we have got, until we are stable enough to remove it

4268370 but won't removing it be a waste?

4268365
Well... We have seen that a classical party striving for electoral victory within a bourgeois democratic system always ends up as reformist at best. We have also seen that simply abandoning an existing political system can cause chaos which most probably results in dictatorship and even more repressive regimes of production. Marx, in the Critique of the Gotha Program, proposed to work both within and without the existing political systems at the same time. I think this is the only way this can go. Of course, it depends very much on informed and critical support from the population itself, usually in the form of a mass movement. But this is always a requirement of successful revolution anyway.

4268377 Hmm true, but to be honest I hate politicians all together, they never do what they promise and only look out for themselves

4268383 that is why politics are seen by me as the greatest evil we ever made.

4268428 So that's why I say get rid of it all once we have stabilised the country and got them use to communist ways. Give the power to the people and make sure it stays that way

4268365
..Don't most of the people in this group live in republics? (Yes, there is a difference between a republic and a democracy.)

I favor a Federal Republic with a communistic, or at least highly socialistic, economy. Since, as you know, communism isn't a form of government.

4268432 Sort of a follow up then, would not such a system be effectively an electoral democracy?

4268450 Hmm no I would think it would be more like a cooperative type thing, you work for the good of the people and the money and labour is given back to the people as well, no politicians no greedy business men, just men and women working for the common good

4268365 The communists in my country have a joke that, if voting changed anything, they would have done away with it already.

Best example is our federal government, the PT - Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker's Party). Used to call themselves communists, then once the military dictatorship ended in '85, they became "socialists". Once elected in the early 2000s, they struck any references to communism or socialism at all from their charts and became neoliberals through and through. They claim is the only way the Congress will let them get anything done (not truly a lie, since our congress is composed by oligarchs and large land owners), but they lack the courage to take a risk and wrestle control from the current stablishment (presuming what they said about changing ideals were 100% true), even when, under the Lula administration, people liked them so much that the Federal Government be allowed to do anything that the people would support it.

4268365 Why does one have to remove democracy in a Communist society? It's an ancient system with a great track record, and is really the only way a nation should conduct themselves, in my opinion.

4268517 One does not need to. As I think was suggested above, many Communists support democracy; I was asking because some do not.

I also feel that I must note that I am not a Communist or a Marxist, in case that was not clear.

4268545 Well, I'm not either. I just don't see how anyone can be against democracy at this point.

4268377 Kind of. It has some good aspects and some bad aspects. I'd personally keep democracy and make it stronger, but make resources more available and the employment process less shaky (globally). I personally think the best results are acheived if we go slow, so we can properly see the consequences of every choice we make and base our next choices off of that.

Okay, the whole problem here is the way you define "democracy", as if it is a singlar, very specific term that means one particular thing.

What we're actually against is Bourgeois Democracy. Which... let's just face it: Is not actually democracy. It's a facade of democracy. It's not even representative (unless you freely admit that the only one getting repesented at all is the Bourgeoisie. In which case I say: no shit.)

Why are we against bourgeois democracy? To make a long explaination incredibly simple: it doesn't work. Well, not quite true: It does work... for the capitalist class. For the working class? Not so much.

I could go into a long tirade about it, but these explain it far better than I could.

I know ancraps and lolbertaridiots love to throw out the phrase "democracy is a pack of wolves and a lamb deciding what to eat". Well here's one for you:

Bourgeois Democracy is where a bunch of rapists get together, pick two among them, and let you decide which one of them will let the others fuck you over.

4277003 Thank you for the answer; your opinion is very informative.