Russia is not particularly democratic or rule of law based, but it’s also not particularly Communist.
IMO China is no longer Communist in any particularly logical meaning of the term. Their present system actually has a lot more in common with their 3000 year history of government by mandarins, with the Party members as the new mandarins.
And it’s just silly to call European social democracy “totalitarian.” I’m no fan of the system, and I don’t think its sustainable, but it isn’t totalitarian.
Not every undesirable form of government is Communist.
“Russia is not particularly democratic or rule of law based, but it’s also not particularly Communist.”
True that. however, it’s still probably at least somewhat statist.
“IMO China is no longer Communist in any particularly logical meaning of the term. Their present system actually has a lot more in common with their 3000 year history of government by mandarins, with the Party members as the new mandarins.”
IMO, maybe the Chinese system is basically a hybrid of Communism and Mandarinism. who can say?
“And it’s just silly to call European social democracy “totalitarian.” I’m no fan of the system, and I don’t think its sustainable, but it isn’t totalitarian.”
Maybe Olog meant political correctness, which is a bit on the totalitarian side.
I did not say that Russia was reverting to communism; if it were, then Putin would have supported his old CPR. No, it’s turning into something else, while unlike in many ways, is going to be alike in all the bad ways. The USSR was, after all, the old Russian Empire with a different political/economic system, and Putin supporters both within and outside Russia are saying that it is “natural” for Russia to have an empire.
You don’t remember when Khrushchev mentioned “different paths” to either socialism or communism? China is following that same way of thinking. Unless the CPC has relinquished political control, never mind completely reversing its stance on religion(s), China is still communist. The CPC considers itself the vanguard for world socialism. They are highly involved in foreign businesses that invest in their country and have the final say on their activities. (The concept of “state capital” is right out of the Manifesto too.)
And if you think that it is silly to call social democracy “totalitarian”, then perhaps your tenure on FR is wasted? because WADR, that is not a very conservative (or even libertarian for that matter) outlook. All it takes is looking at the constitutions of social democracies and comparing with the USSR’s constitution. The EU is currently the largest expression of social democracy transforming into pure socialism—their central government is a pseudodemocracy with no separation of powers at the legislative level, where the unelected European Commission (nominally an executive body) has sole legislative initiative plus power to make those bills they create into law, and the elected (formerly unelected) European Parliament is merely a rubber stamp.