In most references to places like the Soviet Union, and modern Vietnam and China, usually only a small fraction of the population decides to join the Communist Party.
However I also see that not only is the party the only game in town, but party officals get benefits like special stores.
I remember some 60 minutes special showing long bread lines for regular Russians but special western-style stores (and hospitals) for Party officials.
Ok, I’m sure there are some barriers to doing it, but even so, why didn’t more people join the communist party in the Soviet Union? And why not more in today’s China & Vietnam? I’m aware some people have ideological objections, but still I would think the overall proportion would be higher.
I don’t think most people anywhere join political parties. The US seems to be an exception where a lot of folks identify themselves as Republican or Democrat (though I’ve never been clear on whether that simply means a general approval of such, or actual membership of such - perhaps someone from America could clarify for me?)
If memory serves, membership in the parties is generally a privilege, not a right. There are membership dues, and one also has to apply. Applications from the relations of current Party members would be viewed more favorably, as would applications from those who could point to a long history of Party activism - think youth organizations and the like.
AFAIK, “party membership” for most Americans simply means what you identify your party as when you register to vote. In some states, this determines who you can vote for in preliminary elections (e.g., [del]only registered Democrats can[/del] registered Republicans cannot vote in Democratic primaries in North Carolina).
According to a graph on this page (scroll down a little), the percentage of Americans who identify as either Republican or Democrat has been steady at around 60-65% for the 20 years or so that it covers.
Most polls consider someone a R/D if they tell the poll taker that they are. Official registration is not needed in the US. Voting in the general election is open to all registered voters because there is one ballot. During the primaries, you can usually only vote in one primary. In some states, it is exclusive, so Republicans cannot vote in Democratic primaries, but Independents, Libertarians, etc. can. In other states, you might need to be actually registered in the party you’re voting for. You can often change registration on the day of the election in some states, so it isn’t a hard restriction.
For the OP, probably because people don’t want to put up the bureaucracy of going to meetings etc., even if they do agree with the ideology.
tlh
Registered Independent/Decline to State, which is the same as Unaffiliated (but different from American Independent, yeah it’s confusing).
Years ago in China I was listening to a student friend go on and on about how he hated the party and the party officials and what assholes they all are and how all Chinese hate the party and their officials blah blah blah and I asked him “So no one wants to join the party?” and he said “Oh no, everyone wants to join the party! There are so many benefits!” I think it’s a difficult clique to join.
Other countries had different systems though. A Romanian friend of mine told me about when he first applied for residency in the U.S. and the immigration officials asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. He replied with a scoff “Of course. Everyone belongs to the party, unless you don’t want to go to college or ever have a decent job.” So the barriers to entry and benefits of membership are different according to the country.
I don’t think that membership of poltical parties is any less prevalent in the UK. Over here (in the UK) people join poltical parties for varities of reasons and it’s those that are members get to vote on who it is to lead the party (though the process, depending on the party, is often adjusted so that the candidates are decided on by the parlimentary party). Both Labour and the Conservatives have in the region of 200,000 members each.
It was only briefly mentioned, but the plain fact is that most people simply can’t join the Communist Party. They quite probably would do so if they could. However, remember that the Communist Party in these various countries didn’t want more people joining. Oh, they wanted to maintain themselves, but they’ve no interest in more voters, donors or political supporters. They compel votes, money and support. They didn’t need lots of Party members, and Party members obviously wanted something in the deal, so there was less left for those ranks above them.
Add in that every Communist nation which I can think of placed every human being into a category, such as “Poor Peasant” or “Capitalist.” Naturally, the “evil” ranks became labels of hatred. Often the former-capitalists (who had been busily making money and increasing the living standard) became actual farmworkers, while peasants became rich Communist tyrants keeping any increase in living standards from ocurring. Naturally, anyone with a bad class background wasn’t permitted to join except in very unusual circumstances.
And then quite often even when there was a process by which you could join, it was kept well away from ordinary people. In China it was almost impossible to join unless your parents were in the party or you were in the military, and even then the latter was no guarrantee.
My wife applied twice to join the Chinese Communist Party and she was rejected both times. They’re choosy. Think of it as akin to applying to an Ivy League university, except more politicized.
I believe that there’s a difference between political affiliation (i.e., “I consider myself to be a Republican / a Democrat”) and actual “card-carrying” party membership.
If you can find something to substantiate that, kenobi 65, I’d like to add it to my reference materials. I know of no meaningful non-mailing-list-related difference between being registered to vote Democrat/Republican/Independent and being a “card carrying” Democrat/Republican/Independent in the US.
Membership in the Soviet Union’s Communist Party was a privilege, the only way to join was to be invited in, and being invited to join meant you were being groomed for higher position at work or in party work. One could refuse to join when invited, but that meant you would hit a ceiling in your career and the refusal would be a black spot on your record.
That, I’m not entirely sure of (and thus, I may well be mistaken). I was digging around on Democrats.org, and found no “Join the Party” sort of option, though you can “join” Democrats.org (I have no idea of what level of commitment that entails).
There is, obviously, a difference between someone who feels “affiliated” with a party, and has “declared” for a party in order to vote in a primary election.
I’ve tried to look this up, becuase in the UK, party membership is clear i.e. your either pay your membership fee and have the right to vote in the leadership election or you don’t (only made slightly less unclear by for example trade union memebership of the Labour party). In the USA it seems much less clear, for example I could find no numbers for the national membership of the Republican or Democratic parties, suggesting that there isn’t a centralised membership.
I don’t buy it. I’ve never seen a membership card for either party, nor anyone who claimed to have one. Plus you can search both party’s websites and not find any options to join or be a member. They want you to volunteer, to donate, to attend their political function and vote for their candidates, but they don’t want you to “join”.
There are, however, all kinds of organizations affilliated with either party that you can join. There are state, city and county organizations, and special interest groups that have more formal membership, dues, officers. On the national level, there are the Democratic and Republican National Committees.
We do have some activists on this board who can perhaps provide better input.
Communist regimes tend to be brutally oppressive and nightmarishly murderous. As examples I would cite the People’s Republic of China, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Laos, the Socialist Vietnam, and that awful Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
We went through this in some other thread. Most states have party registration with voter registration. You have to be registered in the party to participate in party activities. There are local party organizations, districts, and registered members can vote for the party officials. And you usually need to be registered in the party to sign a nomination petition. There are a lot of ‘card-carrying’ Democrats and Republicans in this country. They just don’t have an actual card that they carry.
This is a basic difference between Maoism and Leninism. Lenin held that the Revolution would be of the masses but led by a highly political aware Party. This is an elite “Vanguard” Party.
Mao, faced with few politically aware city-dwellers made a virtue of necessity and called for a party of the masses. As a result, the Soviet Party was made up of college graduates who were very reliable. The Chinese Party also excluded whole classes of people, but admitted a higher percentage of the population.
You see the same sort of debate in many groups. Should the church include only a few very-religous people or should it include those who need help to grow morally? Should a college be for smart people or for people who need them some education?
The way it works is that people of a certain class or status have certain expectations, one of which is being in the Communist party. If you are a member of the urban elite and hold some kind of position in the government then you are definitely a member of the party, no different than being a member of a golf or country club in the west, as I understand (I’ve never been a member of a golf or country club so I assume depictions of them in American television and films are accurate :o). So when you see the Communist party of China has however many millions of members or whatever, basically it’s saying that everyone who is a middle level government employee or manager in a state owned firm, or most private firms, for that matter, are party members. Are they all ideologically motivate vanguards of the revolution? Probably not but they are basically the “ruling class” of the country and in a big country that obviously involves a good number of people. It’s basically a box to check for people who are already part of the oligarchy.
If you were a peasant farmer or a lowly worker, you might be a party member but it doesn’t really matter, since you don’t have anywhere near the social stature or connections to make much use of it anyway. Party membership doesn’t convey any actual benefits of a legitimate nature worth mentioning
A lowly farmer or worker who is a party member might even actually be motivated by ideological devotion, but most people have better things to do.