That still happens,there are places even to this day where none of the above is an option, and you could vote the post vacant

Brian Tse most unlucky person

If the US required absolute majority no one would get elected :D

🤣 🤣 🤣

*Mikhale Gorbachev intensifies.

Well she would have to pay a Contractor these days. In the "Free World" less is best! They will say if you don't vote it shows how content you are with the Bourgeoisie. So no need to ever vote again! Happy?

Was this before or after 1986?

​@@mikefay5698 And the USSR during that time still was negligent enough to cause Chernobyl. In the "Free World" not even Japan was that bad

​@@mikefay5698 you have to be joking. The Soviet Union isn't special just because their candidates would increase public maintenance projects in the leadup to the election to secure enough votes to be elected. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and it's used basically anywhere there have ever been elections since ancient Athens

@@Hypogean7Fukushima my guy

Tell that to Nevada in the last presidential election, or NC in the 2016 gubernatorial election (1000 vote margin) But muh vote don’t matter meme

@@looinrims The hell has New Caledonia have to do with this

Did it?

@@RevJamesCostello no

@@looinrims That’s what I thought, poor bastards.

Kind of nice when you think about it

You still need to go to ballot box unless you have a serious illness in USSR. Indonesia is the same, the ballot exist in floors inside hospitals

I live in the US and vote exclusively by mail. The ballot box comes to me here as well.

Not true anymore. In America - the ballot is mailed to you. same as the ballot box coming to you. yeah, it's a way to rig elections; and lower the standards for anti-fraud.

@@Quantum-yz9fc unless you were to move to a state trying to ban it, yes it does

Random guy: YES, i do oppose Stalin: So you have chosen death off to the gulag

Andrzej Macikowski I believe the correct answer would be “communist party”

@@USSAnimeNCC- "you silly man"

"Would you mind voting for communist party?" -Yes, I do not mind -No, I do not nind

I would use the write-in option "Please don't hurt me, comrade."

Hooray!!! Everything is fine again in the UK, except for that other thing that happened...

Sup Panteleimon

He got my vote. He was the only one on the ballot, but still.

always throws me just a tiny bit off when he isn't the first name brought up

Boris won and corbyn’s gone

What was it like in the ussr was it good or bad or average? I’d like to know

@@ImAHeroOnHiroin The youtuber Ushanka might be an excellent resource for you.

@@ImAHeroOnHiroin Russia hasnt changed much. Just look up how they’re doing now

@@ImAHeroOnHiroinHeaven compared to russia nowdays, although that can only be said for the ussr before the 1990s. Just so you can have an idea, tens of millions were put into poverty because of the dissolution of the ussr

Responding to this ancient comment just to add some more historical context for anyone reading in the future because no one has explained it yet. The government system used in the USSR was unique and a lot more democratic than it was portrayed in the west, just different in a confusing way from our perspective, and this step of asking for approval from the people was an intentional feature, not people trying to make the best of it. They ran things with a process called "democratic centralism" and it's the same way the international Comintern meetings were run too. Basically the point is to portray unity outwardly, but there was INTENSE internal debate and campaigning and bitter speeches and disagreements prior to that yes or no vote, and that final vote was basically the Soviet version of the US process of certifying election results to say that everyone agrees that the outcome is fair even if they'd have preferred a different outcome. Politics was just very local and mainly done through bodies called "Soviets" or workers councils (where the name Soviet Union comes from) who would debate and elect a representative from among themselves with a more traditional democratic election, and the winner from from that process would be put forward to the people as the single candidate decided by the Soviet for a simple "yes or no" vote to make sure it was acceptable. If the local Soviet or the specific candidate was seen as corrupt or not representing the people for some reason, they could reject the candidate and make the Soviet go back to the start and vote to put forward a different one. Want to run yourself or join in the process of debate or feel strongly about local politics? Great, then join your local Soviet/workers council. Don't really have much of a stake in politics or strong opinions either way? Then you can just evaluate the one candidate the Soviet elects and decide if they are acceptable or not. Then those local elected representatives would repeat the same process amongst themselves to elect representatives to the regional government bodies, and those regional governments to the national body, who would finally elect the leader (Stalin, etc). So it's not like the Soviet people got a ballot that said "Stalin, yes or abstain" like he makes it seem in the video, they vote primarily at the local level and Stalin was selected similar to the way a lot of European countries select their heads of state indirectly from the parliament. And just because there was only one party and most of the votes came back 99% yes in the end, didn't mean there weren't intense disagreements and factions and debate *within* the party. They were just all under the broader banner of the "communist party." And the 99% final vote was a vote not on the specific issue, but on the fact that a debate on the issue was had and we accept the outcome of that process as legitimate and our official decision. A lot of the people voting in that 99% disagreed with the solution reached but are voting that they accept that their side lost fairly. Just like 99% of US representatives voting to confirm Joe Biden as president doesn't mean 99% of them are voting FOR Joe Biden or like the outcome. It was the same with Stalin, he wasn't a completely unaccountable dictator like the west makes it seem, there was a lot of internal politics within the party and the local and regional Soviets that he had to deal with, but the final decision being a 99% yes makes it look that way from an outside eye, especially for americans who are used to directly voting for their head of state.

@@soasertsus from where you got this text? or you really wrote it by yourself?

@@soasertsus ha~ finally someone sane. Not doing all commies are bad... americans dont know shit but still talk shit as if they know shit

@@soasertsus Thank you! Communism has been demonised so heavily by the west thag almost everyone's perception of it is so strongly warped and inacurate it's laughable. I appreciate everyone bringing light into this situation.

@@LODmann Terror-famines are bad for communism's PR

I feel like this is more of a: No, but actually yes, but actually no, but actually a bit

Yes you can´t

United States: **nervous whistling**

More like, yes, but you have just one choice, what should make it pointless, but it is not because you can force a new candidate by not showing up.

Makiya Muhammad How?

That's not at all unusual in systems that were technically parliamentary in nature. A vote of confidence is a yes or no vote as to whether to elect a person, but in those votes, it's much safer to vote no as opposed to most of the Soviet history.

It's simple. If you are the only person to vote NO, then you are the traitor. When more people vote NO than you can reasonably kill, then the guy who runs for office is the traitor.

Melon Lord nahh it was local meddling. Huge repressions were on ‘federal’ level, so locally you could easily go to church or read forbidden books in schools.

@@melonlord1414 Ah, just Stalinist things

In the USA voting is electronic making it much easier to cheat. Neat huh! Joseph Stalin avered that the most important person in a ballot was the one doing the counting!

Voting being compulsory sounds like a good way to enforce democracy.

@@nil981 Yes, in a democracy. Australia actually has that rule, and it works really well. We should probably all have it - but more parties on the ballot, eh?

Except communists don't believe in ghosts.

@@arnold3768 The USSR gov was against religion but not so much against various superstitions. In fact, both Soviets and the Chinese were famous for their various superstitions. And ghosts count as superstitions

Hey, at least that was a campaign promise you knew he'd deliver on...

@@anonymousbloke1 Y'know I've always found it odd and frankly counterintuitive that an atheistic, Communist state that suppresses and discourages religion would then go around to build 'temples' to their beliefs and glorify their past leaders or prominent party members to the point of borderline cult worship to basically a psuedo-religion. What's even stranger is that many living leaders of many heavily Communist influenced or communist based countries would actively encourage their subordinates and countrymen to develop and enforce cults of personality around themselves that were and are eirly reminiscent of the kind of zealotry you'd find in a extremist, foundementalist branch of any of the abrahamic religions or even other faiths. To me it just seems like either a lack of self-awareness on their part or perhaps it's a sort of; *"they won't need a religion because they have an all knowing state (don't question or criticize it ever) and or a (totally not religious..) 'messianic' leader to follow dogmatically",* kind of thing, as hypocritical as that sounds. (and that's because it is)

Well, if they wouldnt believe in superstitions, Stalin wouldn't portray himself as demigod :P

HOI4 elections and Soviet elections are the same, except for some countries.

Because HOI is shit.

Especially since some democracies have no elections lol

Same with the fascist countries. More democracy than this also, you voted on PROFESSION. not by geography. Kind of like guilds.

SAMET what did you say?

"missed" dude is trying to push an agenda, no shit he'd intentionally leave out shit that would put the USSR in a positive light

Thank you

yet another hair split. just like when people say "socialism isn't government doing stuff". or democratic socialism and social democracy. or even socialism and communism. they're all fucking close enough and they all end up doing the same shit.

Any source for that?

That's not really the case. Deputies were nominated by popular organizations (such as unions), but they had to be approved by party secretaries, and in many cases these were deputies suggested by the party in the first place. The people being elected (deputies) also had no real power. First of all, there were a trillion of them. Second, they did not set policy. At most, their legislative role was just offering advice and keeping the leadership up to speed. All policy decisions were made by the Soviet party leadership. The main role of deputies was to serve as an example of good citizenship and to organize support for the party. In 1961, Howard R. Swearer wrote in "The Functions of Soviet Local Elections," "A deputy's legislative role is largely restricted to that of critic of the local bureaucracy, and even his exercise of this function is severely limited. He is primarily a voluntary unpaid worker for the soviet executive committee, the principal "activist" in his election district. As such he propagandizes and promotes the policies of the party, organizes and directs all types of mass activities, and occasionally acts as an intercessor between his constituents and the local bureaucracy."

@@jmerinen except not really because if you didn't agree with the communist party then you would be deemed to have dangerous ideas

It's surprising they didn't just have a bait party to where if voted for them you would get gulag.

Wow so this election system was actually significantly better than the united states.

Everyone thinks Russia was so horrible because they were taught it by Russia's enemy the united States. Yet non of them even question it.

@@Sh4dxwxz We know the state of the USSR. We know the state of post-USSR Russia. The housing from the old days was so bad that you have two old people willingly living in the nuclear radiation.

Council Union

A shame they weren't actually council communists or another variant of left communism. They're the most tolerable of the statist Marxists.

I thought that it means advice too.

So in modern Russia a "soviet" could refer to some innocent things then? I guess it's the same thing as the word fuhrer in German which simply means "leader"

@@user-xg8yy7yl1d yep council in bulgarian is also called съвет/suvet/soviet

That’s called “semantic satiation”, when I word is repeated so many times it loses its meaning even within the correct context of its usage.

@@buttersurge8047 oh yeah

Feels more like a bald and bankrupt video

*communinst* : 7 times *soviet* : 6 times

Communist communist comunist cummunist commumist comnunist communist...

@Mor Dor Do you have any evidence to backup your claims?

Yet it never turns out so....

@@mr.goldenproductions_0143mostly because the soviet union is commanded not by councils, but by the party. the council's political power used to be huge, until it got stripped out bit by bit by the party. read "Kronstadt Rebellion" if you want to know more the conflict between the party and the councils, spoiler: it got violent.

Democratic centralism/Centralised Democracy makes a lot of sense to be honest. At least in theory it should make the elected officials accountable for ensuring that the people of their local Soviet that elected them help pass policy that improves the overall standard of living.

@@DedMan516 Frankly, Lenin got some good theoretical ideas. Trying to get communists to agree on anything is like herding cats, and vanguardism and dem-centr. funneled political activity into one place. But funneling people into one party, with decisions that must be followed no matter what, is a recipe for inevitable dictatorship and corruption.

Centralized elections are kinda neat: you elect people to do the elections, they elect people to do the grand final elections. This is kinda like cybersport with tournament brackets, which kinda works goods, as since it lets people decide who’s better, and the overall process is open and entertaining for everyone else. I’d like to see a county running elections like that. This doesn’t explain one thing though: how come Soviet had only one candidate to chose from? (And was it really the case? This sounds illogical. Do we have evidence it’s true?)

so... electoral college

@@testla3383 no not really at all similar if im being honest

In Soviet Russia, the candidate choose you

Actually, the original plan for Sovier Democracy (drawn by Trotsky) was to abolish political parties and have actually free elections for representatives of the workers

@@obiwankenobi4252 So much for Trotskyism...

@@obiwankenobi4252 he also wanted free press..... free left wing press.. but free press

@@obiwankenobi4252 I'd also add that Trotsky defied a ban on factions within the CPSU, although it wasn't the clear about whether the ban on factions was meant to be long term or not when it was put in place by Lenin, although it was the pretext as to how Trotsky got kicked out.

Simeon Dimchev that’s actually quite nice of them

@@Bonservisjohnny I kinda wish they'd do that now, at least if they gave the option to vote for other candidates without getting killed obviously.

They still do.

This aged well

I kinda of wish it did in America, all these people complaining about their candidates when they didn't even vote in the primaries.

Panteleimon Ponomarenko boost this weirdly specific request

I'm game for this suggestion too! I'd also like to pitch a request for the PRC equivalent of the current video, under Mao and the CCP.

I'd like to also request a similar thing between Savoie/Savoy and Switzerland.

Why do you have a hoi4 portrait?

@Door _ It did, look up on the history tab of Vorarlberg on wikipedia

This sounds a lot like the dnc ._.

@@lewism1995 Iowa caucuses: _Let me introduce you to_ *the winning candidate*

"If you don't like him, just ignore me."

OUR preferred candidate.

This is funnier because of your profile picture XD

Rehan Zainul Abdeen There’s a quote about American democracy thats by an African communist. “America is a 1 party dictatorship, but in typical American extravagance there’s 2 parties.” Actual quote Julius Nyerere was known to have said, "The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them").

true, while in soviet union the communist has to approve a new candidate... in the USA the corporate overlords are the one that approves candidates in both parties.

*Well you can try voting for the third party. Your just going to be laughed at when actually start counting polls.*

@@josephstahl9119 no one can make it without corporate money. Corporate overlords chose the candidates and the winner.

@@CF4959 *That doesn't change that third parties are pathetic, considering one of the few parties that got even close wanted to remove Drivers Licences.*

"Comrades, do you see that mountain over there? You can climb it!"

Is that a Fallout reference? I hope it's a Fallout reference, lol.

@Gabriel Sáenz Indeed it is

Sixteen times the popularity.

@ricojes You made my day, thanks.

Imagine being the only candidate and losing anyways

@@comissar8953 you must be hated

@@bigbrain2178 l3l

@@bigbrain2178 cope

you look like a younger whiter obama

They would end up accusing eachother of being troskyists somehow.

The "We Love Stalin" Party would be purged, since its name indicates Stalin isn't perfect.

@@moretaraverage marxist-leninist, can't expect a lot u know

actually no, the workers party only gets like 80% the other 2 o 3 parties get the rest

Kim Jong-un because there is no better leader than you in your country who gives food for people

Weak. Kim ill sung had 900% of the vote.

Well, the other option says "starve in our glorious work camps"

So I guess you don't count the votes for the get executed if you vote for us party

IT IS still a difference in Reputation and soft Power for the candidate. Power politics etc...

Now you have Capitalist Partys and no gas!

@@mikefay5698 we have a lot of gas, more than enough. And our political system is very diverse. We have many different parties - I believe they are around 120. They have different ideologies but there is total freedom - everyone can start a new party. And it's quite different than countries like the US and the UK because they have only 2-3 parties in the Parliament (in the US only 2) and we have 6 groups in Parliament (which include 3 parties and 3 coalitions of many parties).

Sounds a lot like America

Diego Andrade well clearly we give special thanks to them

I miss the days James Bisenette was the only name he said at the end of videos.

Figures. Mass mobilisation and energising the people was how the Soviets got power in the first place

Elections in the USA: Exist Jeff Bezos: I love democracy.

*S A T L I N*

@@hans3000 It souds like a name of some russian spaceship lmao

Don't speak for me. I hate that stupid sentence and I dont like Stalin.

Coffee Succubus What are you? Trotskyist? Then to gulag you go.

Mhh that rly. Cool elections in the US😂

USA has basically one party with the republican and democratic wings

@@michaelherscheid9709 U mean plutocracy instead of autocracy but the current system is much worse bcoz u cannot throw the rulers out of their power unlike autocracy

The U.S. deserves to be the butt of this meme nearly as much as the U.S.S.R.

@@michaelherscheid9709 i prefer 2 party system than hundred of party system Because it is so confusing and every candidate in my country just say " i will make everything better " and never say their politic agenda which is stupid

Also note: that those local elections were Party elections (primaries) and the people voting in them could only choose someone who was a member of the party in good standing and ideologically aligned with the leadership to avoid punishment from the higher levels for picking an "unacceptable" candidate. It's not like they could elect an actual opposition candidate.

@@jgt2598 The Communist Party was meant to represent the interests of the entire working class and advocate for them. It's kinda like in Britain where both Labour and Conservative, the two parties that dominate Westminster, are both representing the interests of different capitalists- essentially it's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, as Marx would call it. The USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat, where only workers were able to have political power

It wasn't "little" every local Soviets/Councils existed litterally everywhere...

*obligatory "they had more input than we do nowadays" comment

@transylvanian thank you someone who did their research. There are so much falsehood and demonization against the council union just for being a different economic system than them.

@transylvanian if that's true then why do so many people try to immigrate to the US, instead of Cuba or Venezuela? Why did East Germany shoot anyone trying to cross into west berlin or even build a wall in the first place? You remind me of those people who say Hitler was just "misunderstood" and "we should just try to understand where he was coming from."

Knightmessenger because we are a first world country. People immigrate to vietnam and cuba too dude. Its very country centric to say that we only get all the immigrants. And you are literally parroting cold war propaganda by showing your bias against anything other than capitalism we as a country have been brainwashed.

Spaghetti Bird yeah, the way soviet elections worked was waaaaaay more localized, and then worked upwards, this vid really does a disservice to soviet style democracy.

Even in india

Its called a census.

IKR it's like when I think of jews positively I immediately think of Hitler and all these biased folks call him anti-Semitic

Same when i think of authoritarianism i think of western countries

"One man, one vote, one time"

Lol

Fake News.

Stalin: What sort of talk is that? To the gulag with you!

I mean it not a lot better than America 2 party systems.

@@kittenmastermind660 No, it really isn’t lmao. Two options is better than none.

@@Oneeye_snaps Well are there really two options? There are right wing corporatist republicans and slightly less right wing corporatist democrats. Sounds like a one party with two faces.

@@Cyborg_Lenin still better than 1 option

to be fair you can vote for any other candidate and they all each other

That's more of a people problem though. People don't want to vote for a side that doesn't look like it's going to win. So they only swing between the 2 most popular parties.

​@@cattysplat Because so many of the elections are "winner takes all" the two main parties don't want independent parties that can end up spoiling the election and causing it to go to one side. It's widely felt that in 1992 Ross Perot split largely the Republican vote (due to a lot of dissatisfaction among Republican voters regarding George Bush) and that's how Bill Clinton won. Especially when it's expected to be a close race the two main parties absolutely don't want a third party causing the other party to win.

I can tell you're not American because there are many candidates at every level

The twist: those two political parties which the two candidates are a part of are owned by the same group of plutocrats who get their way no matter who wins office. The illusion of choice.

You have a choice Perfect democracy Just like US where you only have 2 options More or less

I vote Gulag. He sounds like a warm and inviting sort of person.

Kosta M. You have more options just no one votes for them because of the mentality

You technically vote for numerous other candidates in the party primaries before the main election. Of course the “democratic” party have superdelegates in there primaries which basically allows the party itself to pick the candidate they preferred in the main election then the people’s choice.

@@caolanfeely4317 Non-proportional voting means you have no choice but to vote tactically, FPTP will always devolve into two opposed parties, two-turns (like in my country) at least allow smaller ones to matter a little bit with some hope to win seats, even if it's only as bargain with a major one in order to pass one or two intentions.

>"Losif"

Spess Sigiswulf Losif is the pronunciation of his name

I'd so expect a wehraboo like you to realize it would be pronounced the same way even with a J

Spess Sigiswulf I’m fairly certain that this image is a Imperial German so Wehraboo would be incorrect, if you where going to call me something to like try to insult me or something it would be Kaiserboo

It could potentially be Weimar, which had the Reichswehr, so I'd still be correct in that case. If it is Imperial, then I'll go with Heeraboo.

The ingenious strategy of not voting for a candidate you don't like

We had a lot more input then this video shows. The single candidate was chosen by the people in the first place, local councils of workers voted for a regional representative who went to the supreme council and this was sort of a final approval. It was an interesting was to have both the government and the people approve the candidate.

They don't game the system, that's how the system works

​​@@trago034 Not really, it happened extremely rare, only when a candidate was particularly unliked even among many fellow communists, and even then it usually caused great confusion and iritation in a committe responsible for elections, the next candidate you'd get had the same policy and ideology anyway, but he just potentially could have a better personality. It's also worth noting that elections were usually rigged (which wasn't hard, you just had to put more remaining cards to the ballot box, when the voting was over). Because of that, the candidate getting "unelected" was more often an effect of internal struggles among local elites, than some actual popular unrest (it was genuine sometimes, but those are exceptions)

It realy wasnt deep. In fact he failed to mention some very important parts. This one person election was a formality because the candidate was chosen by the locals in the first place. This was a sort of official confirmation that both the people and the government approved the candidate. USSR was a lot more democratic the westerners were taught, you can read "Human rights in the soviet union", its a good book on how the system worked.

corporate overlords needs to shake it up a bit! next election I want to be able to choose from red, blue, purple, brown, green, and yellow! cmon bezos!

I funny how similar USSR "Communism" is to western "Capitalism" it almost as if both system consoldate wealth and a small group of people that then rule over you like a dictator.

I don't think Russia had higher standard of living back then compared to Latvia

Sitting ducks make easy targets, after all. "They're free votes, comrade! What're they gonna do-ask for a privacy box to be built around them? Say no?"

@@PrezVeto How do liberals keep twisting obvious acts of good faith into ones of bad faith when it’s an economic system that doesn’t appeal to their class interests? Oops, I already answered it.

That's by design for both the USSR and your country The soviets wanted to opress the rich( bourgeoisie) and serve the workers ( prolatariat ) That's why they have one party a vanguard that can't be voted out the communist party ( Dictatorship of the prolatariat ) On the other hand in america for example both major parties don't really serve the workers and instead can be lobbied by major corporations and billionaires that's why workers or members of the prolatariat get their demands met by the parties, because they're not here to serve you they serve the rich.....( A dictatorship of the bourgeoisie)

@@hhyy7177 Little caviot to that. Oppress the rich (who weren't high ranking government officials) and the minorities, and serve the workers (sometimes).

This isn't true, Bukharin supported a multi party system

What year? It sounds like 1989 or possibly 1990.

Hidden in your dinner plates.

Revolutionary zeal, comrade!

I can see the future elections being that of Mandator Voting and Uncontested Ballots.