Why do communist countries call themselves 'democratic republics'?

Factual Questions
1

Both East Germany & North Korea are (or were) called this. Is it for nothing more than political posturing? Or a ridiculously ironic joke? I mean, in all seriousness, those believing in true communism don’t consider it to be democracy or a republic, do they?

They refer to us, the enemy, as ‘capitalist’ (accurate) or ‘imperialist’ (not accurate) but not ‘democratic’. So is there some odd way in which a state that admittedly:
[ul][li]does not hold free elections[/li][li]the citizens in no way control their own government[/li][li]the good of the state outweights the individual[/li][li]there is no free speech or press etc.[/ul][/li]could consider itself a democratic republic?

2

Kinda like McDonald’s calling their stores “restaurants”.

3

McDonald’s is a restaurant.

They called themselves democratic republic basically as a PR move, as it sounds better than the Brutal Dictatorship of Korea. And, to be fair, many of those countries did have elections, they just didn’t offer a whole lot of choice.

4

They could have just meant it as a joke but my guess is that marxist revolutionaries don’t have the most finely honed senses of humour.

They could have done it to boost popular support after the revolutions/communisation of the country.

Option three… I reckon that they genuinely belived that, however imperfectly, their countries had achieved systems of government closer to rule by the people than those where most money and opportunity is held by relatively few people. They would probably say that free elections don’t automatically make a democracy.

P.S. Could just be me but does this sound suspiciously like a Great Debate?

5

For the same reason that the brutal tyrants that run them often call themselves “Benevolent leader” or “Beloved Father”, or some other grossly inappropriate moniker.

Basically, it’s the big lie.

6

They don’t call themselves a “democratic republic.” They were a People’s democratic republic. There was and is a big difference, and no one was ever fooled.

The rationale is that a people’s republic is one run by the common people through communism and that communism was, by definition, democratic. (Note: please don’t argue with me about that; it was their rationale, not mine.)

Most communist governments called themselves “People’s Democratic Republic.” It was a label, nothing more.

7

Their theoretical analysis did not (and does not) pay a bit of attention to political oppression. Marxism is materialism reductio ad absurdum: if the material goodies are fairly distributed, democracy is a fact. (That the distribution is accomplished through a police state, or that power over other people might be desired for its own sake, or freedom from it even more so, are all factors that don’t even make a blip on the Marxist conceptual radar screen).

8

Slight off-topic:
Having worked there (and made the same wrong assertion as the OP), the German Democratic Republic was socialist, not communist.

9

Um, no.

The German Democratic Republic was communist, not socialist. The only difference was that the main party name was the Socialist Party, instead of the Communist Party. But it was still communist.

10

Like Iraq, Commnunist countries have elections, and the voters “can” vote for whomever they want but YOU “SHOULD” VOTE FOR THE LEADER (otherwise, bad things happen).

11

AHunter2:

That makes sense. I mean, it makes sense that they would see it that way, even though its completely wrong!

12

My take is that the dictators are contemptious of those they rule - a pretty safe statement. However, it could extend to the point where the dictator feels that he or she or they would be freely elected, and given all this power, if only those damn people would come to their senses! Fools! Don’t they know they are interfering with history? So it really is a democratic free people’s republic, except for those evil, ignorant bastards foolishly rejecting the truth of the dialectic, in the pay of the corrupt bourgeoise western powers, and those who don’t appreciate Big Brother or Kind Leader or whoever. It also makes the lie more believable for the kids in school - who would want to fight for an evil tyrant? Ah, but Fidel has saved our country! The Glorious Leader (or is it Beloved Leader in Korea now?) has saved us from those who tried to invade us. Hitler’s most fanatical die hard troops were not the thirty something men who had seen Germany before him, but the Hitler Youth who knew only his propaganda.

13

The word “democratic” you use is either not an accurate translation, or the English language has

another meaning for the exact translation of the term. It depends on which country you are referring to.

The DDR (Deutsche Democratische Republic) f.e. uses the word although “Democratie” has already

had a different meaning in German. The Koreans have probably a very different term for it.

The real meaning of the word dates back to Stalin. In 1936 he announced by decree that the

transitional phase into communism was over in the USSR and that they had entered the ultimate stage

of communism, meaning that there were no more proletarians and bourgeois, but the citizens had

been homogenised into a classless mass, the “people”. So the “dictatorship of the proletariat” - the

“worker’s republic” was replaced by a “populocratic republic” or “democratic republic” where power

was held by the entirety of the population and not only by the workers. Thus a new constitution was

written. The reason behind this was that since the nation supposedly had no internal enemies any

more, any dissident was now denounced not as bourgeois, but as an agent of the foreign imperialist

powers. This provided for an excuse for the 1936 purges. Of course this has wider implications than

just the purges. It means that the regime’s primary polemic becomes anti-imperialist rather than

anti-capitalist and the whole struggle is held between the foreign imperialists and the "people’s

republic" and no questions are asked about how well the republic itself is functioning and if it is really

communist or not. At that point more and more capitalism reappears internally and the regime

becomes, viewed from the inside, more like “state-capitalism” than like “bureaucratic socialism”.

This is the essence of Stalinism and this train of thought has found mimics all over the world in

communist states. The most hardcore stalinists among them, have put “populocracy” smack on top of

their name. They have used the idology exactly in the same way as Stalin: to purge dissidents as

“traitors” and to divert attention from the internal to the international scene. This has come handy to

stalinist parties that existed in capitalist countries like France, Spain and Italy: the “Popular Front”, a

coalition of workers and petty-bourgeois, usually under Social-Democrat governments, aimed to

defend Democracy against Fascism, was based on the concept of “Populocracy”, interpreted not

literally (as in the supposedly classless Soviet society) but politically as a policy for the tactics of the

party (i.e. Stalin chooses to reconcile himself with the bourgeois elements in the USSR, thus the

French CP has to ally with the Socialist Party). Internal struggle against capitalism is dropped in favor

of serving the interests of the USSR and obstructing those of it’s foes. That suited thes eparties well,

since it helped them win seats in the parliament e.t.c.

14

“Democracy” does not infer that the people vote for diddly directly. America is a “Democracy” where the people don’t vote for the President. “Democracy” infers that the people vote for representatives who vote on everything else.

So, yes, these nations do have elections. An uncreative dictator just ignores the actual vote and says whatever he wants, but a more sly one would manipulate the electorate.

Key difference. A Democracy needs just keep appearances. Look at Soviet rule - The Party was quite different from the government, but filled the government positions. A one-party nation is not necessarily a dictatorship, but not in reality a democracy. So yes, it is mostly PR. Being a state of the people it isn’t terribly surprising to see them duct tape the term “People” to their official title.