"Just to be perfectly clear on this Academic Dave - AT NO TIME AT ALL did communism EVER put ANY power into the hands of the working people"
Just to be perfectly clear
Communism was never more than an aim, as was Socialism - the first thing was to move Russia from Tsarist semi-feudalism, build up an industrial base and feed and house as many people as possible.
This was done by a democratically government consisting of grass-roots representatives - plenty of accounts of how this was done - Sidney and Beatrice Webb's 'Soviet Communism', the Reverend Hewlett Johnson's 'Socialist Sixth of the World'.
For over twenty years, despite the Civil War, The Soviet people had more say in their own affairs than we did in the West - even in the mid 60s, when I visited there, Trades Unions still had representatives to the Russian Parliament
Your ludicrous description of how things were comes straight out of 'Bulldog Drummond.
Jim Carroll