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At least during the soviet occupation they gave you fruit to show up and vote for the one choice. I got my first orange that way.
The Soviet Union’s greatest error was not allying itself with the PRC. Not only would the PRC provide a massive labour market and an ideologically-aligned ally, but the agricultural output of the PRC in terms of high-value foodstuffs (fruit, seafood, etc.) is immense. In fact, the PRC’s main agricultural limitation is it’s insufficient ability to produce basics (rice, soybean, corn, wheat, etc.), which is the singular thing that the Soviet Union can produce extremely well.
They made a lot of errors but the greatest was probably appointing a guy in charge of agriculture who knew less than nothing about it. Forcing farmers to plant crops way too densely because “communist plants won’t compete for resources” causing several huge famines was probably worse.
An election where the candidates for election are selected by the elites is obviously unfree and unfair.
An election where the candidates for election are selected by the elites, but there’s TWO GROUPS of elites is obviously free and fair.
At what point can we just admit that this whole notion of a representative democracy is a sham?