My man, I am operating on 18 hours of sleep in a 96 hour period thanks to terrible insomnia. I'm not even sure what is real half the time.
Reds fanfic
- Thread starter E. Burke
- Start date
I don't think anyone is opposed to @WotanArgead continuing to post here. It's interesting to see a variety of perspectives in the thread, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. That said, discretion is oftentimes the better part of valor, and in an inherently politicized thread it's unfortunate but sometimes treading water is necessary.
You're not alone, actually! I'm working on a horror game set in a commune and trying to make it exciting (harder than it sounds: the main point of the game is how well you can notice changes in people and a need to keep track of notes you'd write about them). The greatest strength a vampire has is that no one believes in them.
Oh, and Tom Waits will be voicing the main character.
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Redshank Galloglass
Banned
Yeah, I agree. It kinda seems like Wotan self-exiled himself.
And that's very interesting! I think that that will be a good read. I'm doing my RPG Sci Fi game in the style of the Witcher. Let's just say I'm taking andromeda as a bit of a inspiration.
I have 5 hours of continuous sleep, because I have class at 10 in the morning.
Fuck! I can not keep my word !!! 
And the first matter on the forum. Not anymore.
A word if you need information on Soviet SF - opened. It's not so bad seems to Red Star, although still ambiguous.
And the first matter on the forum. Not anymore.A word if you need information on Soviet SF - opened. It's not so bad seems to Red Star, although still ambiguous.
Fuck! I can not keep my word !!!
A word if you need information on Soviet SF - opened. It's not so bad seems to Red Star, although still ambiguous.
@WotanArgead
Don't scare us like that! We thought you exiled yourself to Siberia or somewhere because of what happened.
We are not angry or anything. It just so happens that disagreements showed up and then we ended up just advising you to pick up your battles.
I'm not sure if you know what I mean, but I think you do.
We all have our differences anyway but just like how we do it, I advise you to tread carefully. That's all it is.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Very good idea for a movie. The plot reminds me of the Sunshine Boys.
There also seems to be some kind of allegory in the movie. Shatner's character is a guy who hasn't adapted to cultural shifts that have taken place in Canada. Him trying to stick the "wholesomeness" of the past, and because of that, he's been cosigned to the dump of history.
Nielsen's character, meanwhile represents someone who could adapt to the change in culture and media, and thrives because of it.
However, its because of the "wholesomeness" of their nostalgic past, that lead to their bitter fall from grace.
Only through adaptation and change, and through accepting themselves in the open, that they were able to thrive.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I have a few questions about the economic system of the UASR.
Let's say I wanted to start a business, like a restaurant or a store. I am guessing that there places where I can receive credit. But if I want credit, am I required to run my business along anarcho-syndicalist lines? Do I have to give my subordinates equal say in the operation of the business.
And let's say I have my business, but it requires resources like food and fuel. Is it possible to purchase that stuff freely, or do I have to have to go some state-owned business to obtain resources, and there is a limit to how much I get?
And also, let's just say that my business is really, really successful. Can I build chains, or am I limited to operating within my community? One of socialism's opponents are megacorporations that take control of entire industries. So does the government ITTL limit how big a private business can become to prevent the rise of monopolies?
I ask these questions after reading about OTL paladares, small private Cuban restaurants that are allowed to operate. Because of the state run nature of the Cuban economy OTL, there are many obstacles they face to their existence: limits on size and growth, the purchase of resources, and strict employment requirements.
Are these OTL problems faced by Socalist Americans and other Comintern nations in the ITTL present day?
Let's say I wanted to start a business, like a restaurant or a store. I am guessing that there places where I can receive credit. But if I want credit, am I required to run my business along anarcho-syndicalist lines? Do I have to give my subordinates equal say in the operation of the business.
And let's say I have my business, but it requires resources like food and fuel. Is it possible to purchase that stuff freely, or do I have to have to go some state-owned business to obtain resources, and there is a limit to how much I get?
And also, let's just say that my business is really, really successful. Can I build chains, or am I limited to operating within my community? One of socialism's opponents are megacorporations that take control of entire industries. So does the government ITTL limit how big a private business can become to prevent the rise of monopolies?
I ask these questions after reading about OTL paladares, small private Cuban restaurants that are allowed to operate. Because of the state run nature of the Cuban economy OTL, there are many obstacles they face to their existence: limits on size and growth, the purchase of resources, and strict employment requirements.
Are these OTL problems faced by Socalist Americans and other Comintern nations in the ITTL present day?
I believe that this is something that Jello can answer but i assume that private businesses are severely limited in hiring wage labor by trade union regulations and by the collective bargaining agreement. There's no chance that you can severely rich out of private entrepreneurship.
Well, from the revisions thread, this seems to be the state of things in the years after the revolution but before the Second World War:
Emphasis mine
I don't imagine this arrangement is the one current in the UASR in the modern day, but it might give an idea of how things could be, until we get further information. These days there's probably a lot more participatory planning going on.
I think these days you can only really go about starting up a new cooperative, with at least three (I think) people pitching in.
Emphasis mine
I don't imagine this arrangement is the one current in the UASR in the modern day, but it might give an idea of how things could be, until we get further information. These days there's probably a lot more participatory planning going on.
I think these days you can only really go about starting up a new cooperative, with at least three (I think) people pitching in.
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Bulldoggus
Banned
@Jello_Biafra would it be way out of line for me to create a Politiyank thread for the election in one UASR state/republic in a week or two, when I find the time?
You know, these two kind of go together. I just finished watching the film Miracle (which I enjoyed, though that might just be because I like Kurt Russell.), and I do see sort of a parallel film. The underdog FBU hockey team (or British team or French team, I'm still confused as to how the FBU is represented in the Olympics) go against the odds to beat the vaunted American team.
Bookmark1995
Banned
This contribution came to me after re-reading my Black Easter post. It made me imagine how ITTL an independent press would evolve in the USSR. I believe a scandal like this would a major turning point in the history of Soviet media.
So here's what I got
***
Black Easter and the Birth of Independent Soviet Media
Moscow Times
March 18, 2015
The Cultural Leap, during the 1980s, brought great cultural and intellectual freedom to many in the Soviet Union. However, journalism and mass media was relatively slow to catch up to the new open environment. By 1991, almost 90 percent of Soviet media was still under state control. And much of was still under the editing board of the Glavlit [1], the infamous Soviet censorship board.
But all that changed with the Black Easter Massacre, which exposed the weakness of Soviet media, and marked the end of government monopolies on news.
Free press and uncensored media was almost non-existent in Rossiya until the 1990s. The imperialist tsars had long suppressed dissent and political openness. The exchange of socialist ideals could occur either underground or in the bourgeois democracies of Western Europe.
The February Revolution marked the brief termination of censorship, as the weakened capitalist Provisional Government was unable to stamp out the spread of ideas spread by Lenin and the early Soviets.
The October Revolution and the brutal Rossiyan Civil War marked the end of this brief period of light, as the elimination of class enemies and revolutionary opponents meant the return of the suppression of the tsarist years.
In 1922, Glavlit, the Soviet censorship board was established, and with it, all media and culture was virtually controlled by the whim of the Moscow government. Glavit boards were known to cut apart entire journalistic articles, replacing them with extremist dogma.
For decades, the only way for Soviet citizens to get uncensored news was through the samizdat, an underground publication system of self-publication and distribution. The risk of running a samizdat was incredibly high as it could result in incarceration (as had been the fate of Leonid Adamchuck) or institutionalization in a mental hospital, and circulation was limited on average to 200,000 copies.
By the 1980s, Glavlit's power began to bend, as foreign news and new media began to defy old censorship laws. Movies and games were no longer under censorship, and people began to enjoy media from the Blue Side of Europe.
But the 1980s and early 1990s remained a transitional period for Soviet news and media, and national level, there were few substantial changes to journalism and press. The first independent news and media outlets, like the samizdat (in fact, first independent Soviet journalists were often samizdat writers), were confined to small, local markets and stuck to local events.
By 1991, there were 98 independent media outlets (newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations) but few with any national reach. In the days before the Internet, as in most Comintern nations, state run media remained the major source of news.
But then Black Easter came, and the Soviet media sunk into the whitewashing of the past. Glavit bureaucrats continued to write the words that Pravda published, and the words that CT USSR [2] anchormen read off teleprompters. But this was no longer the period of closed political discussion. Local start up newspapers and radio stations carried sensationalist news of the disaster. And news organization from around the world would soon educate Soviet people (from Moscow to Vladivostok) of the violence rather than their own government.
Black Easter was known for exposing the antisemitism tried to hide, but it also revealed how moribund national news organizations had become in the USSR.
By 1993, the government realized its error, that news could no longer be used to serve an ideological goal. At the Politburo, Glavlit was abolished, and Pravda, CT USSR and other national news organization were stripped from party control, and were reincarnated as BBC-style organizations. Journalists no longer required censor boards, and were only limited in their journalism by national security requirements.
But by then, the damage had already been done, and few Soviet people would ever rely on national media ever again. Media cooperatives and licenses for radio stations grew rapidly to fill the growing market for free information.
By 1995, Soviet state media declined to 70 percent of all media, and by 2002, it dropped to 47 percent, as new independent media cooperatives stepped into to provide real news to a public that had endured instead decades of political pap.
The Black Easter incident exposed the need for strong independent in the USSR, but also the struggle of any people to obtain the truth. A struggle that continues to this day.
[1] Stands for "General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press"
[2] Soviet Central Television
So here's what I got
***
Black Easter and the Birth of Independent Soviet Media
Moscow Times
March 18, 2015
The Cultural Leap, during the 1980s, brought great cultural and intellectual freedom to many in the Soviet Union. However, journalism and mass media was relatively slow to catch up to the new open environment. By 1991, almost 90 percent of Soviet media was still under state control. And much of was still under the editing board of the Glavlit [1], the infamous Soviet censorship board.
But all that changed with the Black Easter Massacre, which exposed the weakness of Soviet media, and marked the end of government monopolies on news.
Free press and uncensored media was almost non-existent in Rossiya until the 1990s. The imperialist tsars had long suppressed dissent and political openness. The exchange of socialist ideals could occur either underground or in the bourgeois democracies of Western Europe.
The February Revolution marked the brief termination of censorship, as the weakened capitalist Provisional Government was unable to stamp out the spread of ideas spread by Lenin and the early Soviets.
The October Revolution and the brutal Rossiyan Civil War marked the end of this brief period of light, as the elimination of class enemies and revolutionary opponents meant the return of the suppression of the tsarist years.
In 1922, Glavlit, the Soviet censorship board was established, and with it, all media and culture was virtually controlled by the whim of the Moscow government. Glavit boards were known to cut apart entire journalistic articles, replacing them with extremist dogma.
For decades, the only way for Soviet citizens to get uncensored news was through the samizdat, an underground publication system of self-publication and distribution. The risk of running a samizdat was incredibly high as it could result in incarceration (as had been the fate of Leonid Adamchuck) or institutionalization in a mental hospital, and circulation was limited on average to 200,000 copies.
By the 1980s, Glavlit's power began to bend, as foreign news and new media began to defy old censorship laws. Movies and games were no longer under censorship, and people began to enjoy media from the Blue Side of Europe.
But the 1980s and early 1990s remained a transitional period for Soviet news and media, and national level, there were few substantial changes to journalism and press. The first independent news and media outlets, like the samizdat (in fact, first independent Soviet journalists were often samizdat writers), were confined to small, local markets and stuck to local events.
By 1991, there were 98 independent media outlets (newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations) but few with any national reach. In the days before the Internet, as in most Comintern nations, state run media remained the major source of news.
But then Black Easter came, and the Soviet media sunk into the whitewashing of the past. Glavit bureaucrats continued to write the words that Pravda published, and the words that CT USSR [2] anchormen read off teleprompters. But this was no longer the period of closed political discussion. Local start up newspapers and radio stations carried sensationalist news of the disaster. And news organization from around the world would soon educate Soviet people (from Moscow to Vladivostok) of the violence rather than their own government.
Black Easter was known for exposing the antisemitism tried to hide, but it also revealed how moribund national news organizations had become in the USSR.
By 1993, the government realized its error, that news could no longer be used to serve an ideological goal. At the Politburo, Glavlit was abolished, and Pravda, CT USSR and other national news organization were stripped from party control, and were reincarnated as BBC-style organizations. Journalists no longer required censor boards, and were only limited in their journalism by national security requirements.
But by then, the damage had already been done, and few Soviet people would ever rely on national media ever again. Media cooperatives and licenses for radio stations grew rapidly to fill the growing market for free information.
By 1995, Soviet state media declined to 70 percent of all media, and by 2002, it dropped to 47 percent, as new independent media cooperatives stepped into to provide real news to a public that had endured instead decades of political pap.
The Black Easter incident exposed the need for strong independent in the USSR, but also the struggle of any people to obtain the truth. A struggle that continues to this day.
[1] Stands for "General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press"
[2] Soviet Central Television
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The liberalization period in the Soviet Union starts more in the 1970s if not earlier. The politically correct term ITTL for the Russian Civil War is also the Soviet Revolutionary War as far as I know. It also gave emphasis on the Bolshevik Revolution's success and place in history. I also expect a more gradual sense of opening up of Soviet society after World War II and especially the de-Stalinization process, which is also going to be less of OTL, because High Stalinism did not came into being ITTL.
I don't see a glasnost and perestroika sense of opening up that's like OTL. It will be there in a way but it's going to be less dramatic than OTL. We made a big deal of Soviet Union's opening IOTL because its so closed a society IOTL and it's also part of Western propaganda machine to emphasize the communist enemy's faults, which can be done so successfully here. It's not going to be the same thing ITTL.
If USSR is going to be more or less Putinist Russia IOTL with the South Korean model of economic coercion before 1990 as Jello said, then we are going to see a semblance of a multiparty system emerging from the postwar era. Technically speaking, the Soviet Union is going to look like the UASR in its constitutional structure, just more coercive. Despite the multiparty system, it doesn't mean that the CPSU is going to allow itself to be out of power and its democratic centralism becoming more democratic than centralist. The conservatives within the system will not allow it, so a rehabilitation of Trotsky might be strangled or its adherents marginalized outside the CPSU. The military-industrial state will not allow full democracy either. Thus, the democratization and liberalization may be more gradual in congruence with America's Second Cultural Revolution. Technically, there will be more political and economic democracy from Stalin's death but the entirety of the system is still going to lean authoritarian. Interestingly, the USSR might borrow the FBU's People's Alliance style of staying in power.
In the UASR, while participatory planning might make great strides by the 1970s, I am no longer sold on its take over of the American economic system or its supposed predominance by 2017 ITTL. I am seeing a more updated form of state socialism, with that participatory sector taking a greater share than before but based on what the latest update on the political system tells me, participatory planning may still be the future of American economy and world communism as of 2017 not the present reality.
Parecon also doesn't seem to establish a full realization of Marxian world communism for me anyway, that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It's still a transitional model because of its distributional mechanisms that still gives favor to those who produce more, if my limited understanding of its theoretical framework IOTL is correct, but even then, it doesn't look like it's going to take over in dominating the socialist economic system realistically. LCP's embrace of militarism that actually strengthens the state is to blame as well as Communist Labor's compromise with state power to finish the Cold War struggle.
Markets and state power is quite intertwined. Markets also create those distributional mechanisms that favor a small group of people over the majority, no matter how tightly controlled it is by the state that's supposed to be representing the popular majority. From that sense, the prevailing model established in the 1930s will remain undisturbed in its fundamental structure, despite participatory planning's advances. Parecon may even appear complementary rather than disruptive of the fundamental structure.
Of course, I am speculating only. I don't know how sold Jello is on parecon but she appears to see a great deal of promise to the model. I see it too but I am not too optimistic.
The DFLP is also mistakenly being put in the center of the political spectrum in-between the two communist parties by some here, but it's actually to the right of the CLP because of its more liberal and individualistic tinted politics, despite the socialism. That's why the LCP and the CLP are willing to form grand coalitions to keep the DFLP at bay.
The DFLP is not a traditional communist party anyway. It's still a pariah though it's less so more than the DRP and especially the True Democrats.
The family cooperative is the smallest economic unit as far as I can remember, which is essentially a private business that's controlled in its expansion by the cooperative law and the trade union's regulatory framework on business hiring of wage labor. It's pragmatic given the circumstances to transform the family cooperative into a more generic cooperative model if you want to get credit. There's no possibility of extreme personal enrichment because the cooperative model doesn't make it possible.
I don't see a glasnost and perestroika sense of opening up that's like OTL. It will be there in a way but it's going to be less dramatic than OTL. We made a big deal of Soviet Union's opening IOTL because its so closed a society IOTL and it's also part of Western propaganda machine to emphasize the communist enemy's faults, which can be done so successfully here. It's not going to be the same thing ITTL.
If USSR is going to be more or less Putinist Russia IOTL with the South Korean model of economic coercion before 1990 as Jello said, then we are going to see a semblance of a multiparty system emerging from the postwar era. Technically speaking, the Soviet Union is going to look like the UASR in its constitutional structure, just more coercive. Despite the multiparty system, it doesn't mean that the CPSU is going to allow itself to be out of power and its democratic centralism becoming more democratic than centralist. The conservatives within the system will not allow it, so a rehabilitation of Trotsky might be strangled or its adherents marginalized outside the CPSU. The military-industrial state will not allow full democracy either. Thus, the democratization and liberalization may be more gradual in congruence with America's Second Cultural Revolution. Technically, there will be more political and economic democracy from Stalin's death but the entirety of the system is still going to lean authoritarian. Interestingly, the USSR might borrow the FBU's People's Alliance style of staying in power.
In the UASR, while participatory planning might make great strides by the 1970s, I am no longer sold on its take over of the American economic system or its supposed predominance by 2017 ITTL. I am seeing a more updated form of state socialism, with that participatory sector taking a greater share than before but based on what the latest update on the political system tells me, participatory planning may still be the future of American economy and world communism as of 2017 not the present reality.
Parecon also doesn't seem to establish a full realization of Marxian world communism for me anyway, that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It's still a transitional model because of its distributional mechanisms that still gives favor to those who produce more, if my limited understanding of its theoretical framework IOTL is correct, but even then, it doesn't look like it's going to take over in dominating the socialist economic system realistically. LCP's embrace of militarism that actually strengthens the state is to blame as well as Communist Labor's compromise with state power to finish the Cold War struggle.
Markets and state power is quite intertwined. Markets also create those distributional mechanisms that favor a small group of people over the majority, no matter how tightly controlled it is by the state that's supposed to be representing the popular majority. From that sense, the prevailing model established in the 1930s will remain undisturbed in its fundamental structure, despite participatory planning's advances. Parecon may even appear complementary rather than disruptive of the fundamental structure.
Of course, I am speculating only. I don't know how sold Jello is on parecon but she appears to see a great deal of promise to the model. I see it too but I am not too optimistic.
The DFLP is also mistakenly being put in the center of the political spectrum in-between the two communist parties by some here, but it's actually to the right of the CLP because of its more liberal and individualistic tinted politics, despite the socialism. That's why the LCP and the CLP are willing to form grand coalitions to keep the DFLP at bay.
The DFLP is not a traditional communist party anyway. It's still a pariah though it's less so more than the DRP and especially the True Democrats.
The family cooperative is the smallest economic unit as far as I can remember, which is essentially a private business that's controlled in its expansion by the cooperative law and the trade union's regulatory framework on business hiring of wage labor. It's pragmatic given the circumstances to transform the family cooperative into a more generic cooperative model if you want to get credit. There's no possibility of extreme personal enrichment because the cooperative model doesn't make it possible.
Where? I've checked, and I haven't found anything like. For what I've read, it looks like it is still a dictatorship in the same way it was OTL until the 1970's, only alleviated by Stalin's early demise, the lack of international isolationism, and higher American cooperation through the Truman Plan.
EDIT: Okay never mind, I found it:
That said, I don't quite see how that indicates a multiparty system.
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So, this piece just kind of.... came to me. If I get any details about the war wrong, please tell me, and I'll change it to the best of my ability.
Deleon-Debs, September 1943
Georgia......
Georgia.....
The Whole Day Through....
"Who's this fellow again?"
"Hoagy Carmichael. Big Jazz bandleader here, all the way back from before the Revolution. Rather enjoyable, for a Commie Yank."
"Oh. You look little like him."
"Really? I don't see it."
"Whatever. So, how're you enjoying your last days among the Reds?"
"It's been interesting. Especially the ladies, as you know very well, but duty calls. Godfrey wants me in Spain. Help out building a intelligence network from Portugal, now that we're fighting there."
"I'd like to go to Spain, too. Shoot down some more fascist planes. You got a light, Ian?"
"Here" (lights up cigarette). "Well, at least you got a published story out of your time in Egypt, shooting down those Italians ."
"True, and I've got another one on the way."
"Oh, really? Another one about life in the air?"
"Somewhat. There's this folktale among the RAF pilots about these creatures called 'Gremlins', who cause those odd accidents that they are never able to explain. It sounded like a good idea for a children's story."
"Children's story? You don't seem like the type to write children's stories."
"Well, my mind wanders sometimes, and this world sort of came to me."
"You know, I've thought of becoming a writer"
"Maybe you ought to write about the sexual encounters you've had among these American girls, all while serving King and Country. The higher-up'll get a kick out of that. "
"Perhaps. The public might enjoy the more... illicit affiars of those serving the Crown. "
(The two laugh)
"Still working with William?"
"Oh, yeah. Still relying intelligence straight from Premier Reed and the CEC's office, over to Intrepid and his cohorts."
"Truly incredible spy. Probably one of the greats from the Commonwealth."
"Yes, and when this war is over, we may need those great spies to fight our former allies."
"Yes, and perhaps, neither of us will be able to come here again. As much as I disdain the Reds ideology, I will miss this."
" I will, as well. Especially if those blokes at the Embassy succeed at getting me transferred to Delhi in the next few month. Well, good luck over there in Spain." (Raises glass)
"Thanks" (clicks glass)
-------------------------------------
Deleon-Debs, September 1943
Georgia......
Georgia.....
The Whole Day Through....
"Who's this fellow again?"
"Hoagy Carmichael. Big Jazz bandleader here, all the way back from before the Revolution. Rather enjoyable, for a Commie Yank."
"Oh. You look little like him."
"Really? I don't see it."
"Whatever. So, how're you enjoying your last days among the Reds?"
"It's been interesting. Especially the ladies, as you know very well, but duty calls. Godfrey wants me in Spain. Help out building a intelligence network from Portugal, now that we're fighting there."
"I'd like to go to Spain, too. Shoot down some more fascist planes. You got a light, Ian?"
"Here" (lights up cigarette). "Well, at least you got a published story out of your time in Egypt, shooting down those Italians ."
"True, and I've got another one on the way."
"Oh, really? Another one about life in the air?"
"Somewhat. There's this folktale among the RAF pilots about these creatures called 'Gremlins', who cause those odd accidents that they are never able to explain. It sounded like a good idea for a children's story."
"Children's story? You don't seem like the type to write children's stories."
"Well, my mind wanders sometimes, and this world sort of came to me."
"You know, I've thought of becoming a writer"
"Maybe you ought to write about the sexual encounters you've had among these American girls, all while serving King and Country. The higher-up'll get a kick out of that. "
"Perhaps. The public might enjoy the more... illicit affiars of those serving the Crown. "
(The two laugh)
"Still working with William?"
"Oh, yeah. Still relying intelligence straight from Premier Reed and the CEC's office, over to Intrepid and his cohorts."
"Truly incredible spy. Probably one of the greats from the Commonwealth."
"Yes, and when this war is over, we may need those great spies to fight our former allies."
"Yes, and perhaps, neither of us will be able to come here again. As much as I disdain the Reds ideology, I will miss this."
" I will, as well. Especially if those blokes at the Embassy succeed at getting me transferred to Delhi in the next few month. Well, good luck over there in Spain." (Raises glass)
"Thanks" (clicks glass)
-------------------------------------
I could be wrong Mr. E.
But I based it on this excerpt. I actually quoted this in the last post in the Great Crusade thread, when I compiled relevant quotes regarding the UASR political system.
At the very least, a sense of CPSU factionalism already developed around Kirov or some other figure by 1934 ITTL already but it's more unofficial, with the Party ban on factions still around I guess. I think I'm right in this, though I'm not sure.
If there is going to be a postwar de-Stalinization, a lift on the ban could be one of the things we will see but it doesn't mean a full-scale political democracy in the USSR until the 1970s. But there will be greater openness. A sham democracy, ok, but it doesn't mean sham elections with only a single candidate selected by the Party to be confirmed by the voter in his/her seat or not.
If there is going to be a multiparty system, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a multiparty democracy. It's multiparty, but authoritarian because the CPSU is the only real party and the designated opposition stands no chance in almost every case.
But I based it on this excerpt. I actually quoted this in the last post in the Great Crusade thread, when I compiled relevant quotes regarding the UASR political system.
At the very least, a sense of CPSU factionalism already developed around Kirov or some other figure by 1934 ITTL already but it's more unofficial, with the Party ban on factions still around I guess. I think I'm right in this, though I'm not sure.
If there is going to be a postwar de-Stalinization, a lift on the ban could be one of the things we will see but it doesn't mean a full-scale political democracy in the USSR until the 1970s. But there will be greater openness. A sham democracy, ok, but it doesn't mean sham elections with only a single candidate selected by the Party to be confirmed by the voter in his/her seat or not.
If there is going to be a multiparty system, it doesn't necessarily mean that there is a multiparty democracy. It's multiparty, but authoritarian because the CPSU is the only real party and the designated opposition stands no chance in almost every case.
Yes. The multiparty system is for show, but the parties are real political parties and they are truly opposed for some reason to the CPSU, if there will be some. If there could be a manufactured opposition to strangle the real opposition, then much better. But they are all just not going to be near the DFLP and DRP or even the True Democrats in their ability to express that opposition either within or outside the UDF. If the WPA is dominant in the UASR, then the CPSU in the USSR will be way even more dominant.
Russia under Putin. It's almost that way. Or the Islamic Republic of Iran's containment of opposition to its established system.