It is said that when Che Guevara first met Fidel Castro they had a conversation lasting a great many hours. It went on far into the night. This was long before they liberated the people of Cuba from the corrupt Batista regime favored by America.
One of the subjects in this meeting of minds was democracy. Che had recently lived in a South American nation in which the president had decided to make democratic reforms. He wished to teach Fidel a salutary lesson concerning this. Far from bringing the benefits the president had hoped for these reforms instead brought his demise. The United States was quick to seize on the opportunity to arrange candidates for the positions made available and finance them to a degree others could not compete with. In time a coup was easily arranged and the president removed from office, replaced by someone more amenable to U.S. interests.
Che’s message to Fidel then was this, whatever political system you decide on once the goal of freeing Cuba from America’s grip has been accomplished, you must never contemplate democracy as its system of governance as this will only lead to its being taken over once again by its far larger neighbor.
This is the true reason western elites promote democracy as one of their key “idealistic” tenets. It provides a pathway to power for them. But it is far from the only danger of democracy in a world where hyper-aggressive capitalism seeks endless markets to infiltrate, permeate and turn traditional cultures into mirror images of those in the West and in particular to those of the USA.
It has become the standard view that communism was an evil system of oppression, abuse of human rights, denial of freedoms and most of all denial if purported inalienable democratic rights. But is this view truly correct and unquestionably accurate? Due to a multi-decade campaign of completely one-sided series of narratives about the so-called communist system of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union this has been left as the indelible impression in most minds. What then might the other side of the story be?
First of all in these lands the word used to describe their systems of governance was socialism, not communism. Communism was to come at a later, far more advanced stage. Socialism is what they prized, and with good reason.
The other side of the story then, is this:
After centuries of a small aristocratic elite being in power across Europe where a finite number of families ruled almost every aspect of the lives of their essentially slave populations a new idea formed in several minds. What if, instead of virtually everyone working for the benefit of these few, held that way as their property, the people were freed to work communally for themselves and share the bounty of their lands equitably among themselves? Were not those who slaved to produce the wealth of their nations more entitled to share it than those who had merely inherited it from their earliest ancestors who had essentially stolen the resources to generate that wealth?
This was of course a revolutionary concept. And as we all know it succeeded in its goal to wrest wealth and power from the few and began to distribute it to the people as a whole though maintaining throughout that it was for no one person to say they had any exclusive rights of perpetual ownership. The project to ensure the entire population rose as one and was no longer kept disadvantaged and held down began. The workers who created the wealth were now to share it among themselves without any of them demanding ownership of the means of producing that wealth. That was to be held communally, their common heritage and birthright free from the elites who had previously held them in servitude.
What need was there for democracy where the ultimate goal had been agreed? There was no counter argument to that of freedom from slavery for all those who had been in bondage along with access to a commonly held wealth generated by their very own labor. What need was there for any point of view which would deny this historic return of liberty and communal access to improved life chances long denied the vast majority of the population?
Democracy, views in conflict regarding systems of governance and policies of social justice and economic progress were completely unnecessary. The road ahead was clear. And everyone would take it together to improve life for each one of them, not as before only for the few.
The ethos above was idealistic and bold, founded on compassion for all and backed by a resolve to banish all previous and insidious slavery of the many by the aristocratic, intellectual or political few. Naturally there were inconsistencies, tragedies, inequities, outrages and oppressive tendencies during the following years. Not everyone was persuaded to be as idealistic as required, others could not contain their own personal ambitions, and sociopaths, present in every society determined as ever to gain power over others. It was a rocky road... but it was founded on an extremely idealistic principle, that we will work together for the common good and we will all rise as one, together.
The system of the West works much as the system erased in these eastern lands worked, the few still rule over the vast majority and a tiny elite have almost all the wealth and do all they can to retain it. If you are lucky by way of birth having been born into privilege, or you have or can develop a particularly needed or admired skill you can have access to what can be called 'the good life’. If not, then you must make do in life,accepting that you are dependent on one of those who have gained access to power and wealth accepting you as one of their workers. You are there at their whim. You can be made redundant at any time if the wealth generated from your labor is found to be no longer adequate and no longer meeting the requirements of the elites above you. If you are unlucky in this way you may have to take some lesser and more humbling position just to make ends meet as the society is set up to always favor the elites of your society rather than those they employ. Once in a time you will be asked to vote to keep one of generally two dictatorial powers in power in order for them to generate the rules you must then live by.
The elites of the western world were completely antithetical to the concept of those below them (as they saw it) taking power. Therefore the revolution which took place in Russia was seen as the greatest threat to their power and wealth imaginable. And so, in time, came the Cold War. In the West it was imbued with all the most noble motivations, to free the people held in bondage in the east, to bring them the inestimable benefits of capitalism and, most importantly of all, democracy. In the East they saw much more clearly what the true ambitions of the western elites were, to reimpose control by those elites over their populations and essentially reinstall the system of total manipulation and ownership by those elites of the vast majority... the system that they had after many long centuries through enormous sacrifice, ended.
Every means possible was used by the western elites to infiltrate and subvert the socialist systems of these target states, to interfere whenever and wherever possible, to undermine, slander, subvert, deceive and destroy. Vast wealth was expended to hire and train specialists in intelligence and psychological operations, more was used to corrupt and criminalize those amenable to becoming the disaffected and dissidents in order to sow chaos at every level achievable within all target nations. Eventually the numbers of those working to crush the most idealistic experiment in providing a decent life for all ever seen grew to hundreds of thousands worldwide. Every moment of their day was spent seeking the means to demonize or destroy elements within these societies and using every possible means at their disposal backed by unlimited funds to do so.
Eventually, due partly to the consistently enormous pressures applied from both outside by the intelligence agencies and within by the disaffected, self-interested, artistically or intellectually inhibited and by the downright criminal, the socialist systems of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed, exhausted and undermined from both without and within.
Access to these nations due to their proximity to those wishing to subvert and undermine them was crucial. This is why Russia is vulnerable to their attack today also. Especially so as under Yeltsin and Putin a great many democratic reforms have been made.
You will have kept in mind Che’s admonishment to Fidel I presume?
Russia is a prime target for regime change due to this vulnerability. Putin has not been speaking as a western asset is expected to. It was thought at first that he could be molded to be a sober version of Yeltsin. He was treated as this all the way from the year 2000 when first elected Russian president to February of 2007 when an address at a Munich Security Conference disabused them of this idea. Since then democracy itself has been used as a weapon against Russia by western elites determined to have their way, the same historic way all elites have behaved since time immemorial.
China is the ultimate target however. But China presents western elites with a far greater problem. The almost complete lack of their gateway to subversion, democracy. (There are several small political parties in China believe it or not, however they act as consultative and advisory bodies to the communist party, not as rivals.) China is largely immune to most of the usual tactics of western elites therefore. The lack of democracy keeps her safe. This along with a dedication to improve the lot of all Chinese, not a privileged elite, that is enacted and seen to be enacted in good faith by the Chinese people themselves.
China has no need for the endless destructive disputes among elites that democracy brings with it, no need for the endless warring of egos and ambitions, the belittling struggle for power between men and women responding to and funded by similar but corporate elites and hardly motivated at all by the needs of their people.
China will preserve the most vital elements of the cultural heritage of their native land.
Many countries infected by the West and its hyper-capitalist elitism will see their traditional cultures eroded and replaced by the shallower and easier to manipulate cultures of the West where elite needs are met and those of their populations shaped to suit.
These last dangers of democracy are being experienced now by those ex Warsaw Pact nations who are now encountering the various elite corruptions and erosion of tradition that come from the gaining of the “freedoms” and “democratic rights” resulting from the ending of their previous system. A system that promised an admittedly longer journey toward 'the good life’ while attempting to supply all basic needs along the way.
Faith was needed and a certain dedication to reach the ultimate goal of full communism on a journey where the whole population would travel together, all rising as one.
Democracy could only ever be a distraction, and in fact a fatal danger, to this most idealistic of all goals.
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