I'll start with Lenin first, then move to Marx. Lenin was an autocrat and a dictator. There's no way around it. He was unelected and created a one-party state. This was due to the fact that the revolution was led by a vanguard, which the members of, once they succeeded in overthrowing the old government, could easily set up a self-serving dictatorship. He's not a Marxist, and he's not a Socialist.
Since Lenin obviously did not in any way uphold the vision of Marx, I'll tackle him separately. A (stateless) communist society does eliminate many hierarchies, but leaves the most coercive systems untouched. Those being: the hierarchy of the collective over the individual and that coercion required of industrialism. In a commune, one's individual vote is negligible, since the outcome is only affected by one person's vote in very rare circumstances. Once the votes are tallied, the individual is expected to conform to the decisions of the majority, and to accept the commune's laws and customs. This leads to the individual becoming feeling helpless and weak.
Secondly, Marxism fails to address the coercion required to make an industrial society function. In order to have products, you must have a payroll of workers to stand where they are told to stand and do what they are told to do and go home and show up to work when they are told to do it. Instead of working towards goals that are immediate, which directly affect one's condition (such as building a house to live in), one must do a task or set of tasks that ultimately has little to do directly with one's own material well-being. Instead, the hyperspecialized work required in an industrial society is made livable indirectly via trade. This leads to a dependence on the industrial system as a whole, which requires a massive amount of cohesion to function.
Humans are no longer permitted to act autonomously since doing so would be a hindrance to the system. Behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed, but all unimportant facets of our life which do not interfere with the functioning of the system are permitted to grow within said limits.
Lenin was elected as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Congress of Soviets a total of nine times before his death. His position was not one elected by the people directly, but rather he was elected by the congressional representatives of the soviets who were themselves elected by the people. You can argue that his position should have been directly elected if you want, but you cannot say he was unelected. Regardless, while the Chairman of the CPC was the head of government of the RSFSR, and later the Soviet Union, the CPC was not a one-person council and the council as a whole was subordinate to the Central Executive Committee, which was in turn subordinate to the Congress of Soviets. Lenin was not an autocrat or a dictator; he did not hold sole legal authority and the Soviet government had numerous checks and balances.
I see no reason to believe a vanguard party or a one-party state is undemocratic. The USSR was a dictatorship, but not a dictatorship of one person. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat, as the bourgeoisie were stripped of the right to vote and to be elected. You can object to this if you like, but I personally don't think that was a bad decision.
You seem to be arguing that Lenin was neither Marxist nor socialist because the nascent Soviet Union was not yet classless or stateless. Yet why should it have been expected to be? Communism is not something that can be achieved overnight, or even in one generation. In the meantime, there must be some mechanism for suppressing and overthrowing the bourgeoisie. No matter how democratic, how horizontal, and how people-oriented that mechanism is, it still constitutes a state insofar as it constitutes an organ for the oppression of one class by another. Unless you are arguing that the rights of the bourgeoisie should be maintained and protected, you cannot escape this fact.
At the point of achieving a stateless, classless communist society, I don't see why decision-making would necessarily be performed through simple majority vote. While it's rather pointless in my mind to be speculating about how a hypothetical communist society of the future might function, I think it's safe to say they'd be far more capable of exploring alternative forms of decision-making than we are now. In any case, the question of how a future communist society might function is entirely separate from questions of past and present systems of government.
You are right to point out that the industrial mode of production requires collective and specialized activity in order to function, but I fail to see what the alternative is. Humans are a social animal, our production has always been collective and we have always benefited from specialization in labor. The advancement in industry has made possible a reduction in socially necessary labor time, not an increase. It is capitalism and the profit motive that has mandated long hours and low autonomy in the workplace, not industry itself.
People are not inherently stupid or self-centered. They can understand very well the relationship between one sector of industry and another. You do not need to be building a house to understand how, for instance, the nails you are manufacturing will be used to build houses and other goods. You do not need to be manufacturing nails to understand how the iron you are mining will be used to make nails and other goods. The idea that it is alienating to be engaged in a task that is socially beneficial rather than merely individually beneficial is absurd.
You talk about social cohesion as if it is impossible or undesirable. But again, what is the alternative? An incoherent, fragmented society? No society at all, and people just fend for themselves as individuals? I fail to see how anything less than social cohesion is desirable.
You say that industrial society is coercive and prevents people from acting autonomously. I say, what does it mean to act autonomously? Humans must satisfy our basic needs before we can think about engaging in autonomous activity. If you are starving, you are compelled to seek food. If you are freezing, you are compelled to seek shelter. Individual freedom is subordinate to our material conditions, and only through improving our material conditions can we satisfy our basic needs and guarantee individual freedom.
If we are to have a society where the individual freedoms of everyone are maximized, then we must have a society which guarantees everyone their basic needs. Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education, transportation, communication, etc. All of these must be secured before a person has full freedom to act autonomously. Improving the quality of these things and the efficiency of their production improves the standard of living and reduces socially necessary labor time, which allows for greater degrees of freedom.
You say behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed. I do not necessarily disagree, but I feel you are intentionally obscuring the nature of such behaviors. What is âthe systemâ here? The system is society. So a behavior not conducive to society is an anti-social behavior, a behavior that impedes or harms other members of society. Why should these behaviors be allowed? Is it maximizing autonomy and freedom to allow someone to steal or rape or murder with impunity? No, it is merely trading someone else's freedom and autonomy for your own.
You can certainly maximize your own freedom and autonomy at the expense of others, but if we are to live in a society where the freedom and autonomy of everyone is to be maximized, then there must be certain limits to individual behavior for the sake of others. Maybe someday humanity will evolve to a state where one can live in their own private world with maximum freedom to do as they please without worrying about impacting others, but until that day we will have to live in a society with other people and the social restrictions that come with that. Personally, I don't think it's such a burden to have to care about other people.
Society as it stands today is indeed imperfect and often oppressive. Socialist states in the past and present have yet to achieve the classlessness and statelessness that marks higher-stage socialism, i.e. communism. They too are imperfect and have restricted people's behavior in various ways, some I would argue are necessary, and some I would argue are unnecessary. However, I believe that socialism offers us the greatest opportunity to improve society as a whole and liberate humanity from oppressive structures. I believe that capitalism remains the central impediment to the advancement of society and the pursuit of human freedom. I believe that a vanguard party and a dictatorship of the proletariat have been the most effective means of combating the bourgeoisie so far. And I believe that the advancement of science and industry has been the most effective means of securing and improving the basic needs of the people as a whole.
My question to you remains: what is the alternative? You can criticize all you want, and thoughtful and rational critique of all things is both important and beneficial, but unless you have an alternative to socialist revolution and industrial society, then you're just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How are we to combat the bourgeoisie without a vanguard or a state? How are we to provide people with their basic needs without industrial production?
