American 'leftist' writer covering socialist history: While many people associate socialist states with the totalitarian Soviet model which insisted on building massive walls around their political process for secrecy and control, claiming manipulatively that these walls were built for reasons of "security against Western capitalist subversion of our politics", not all socialist states have been so dictatorial or undemocratic. Consider this example of a socialist party in the Global South that arose after centuries of colonization and imperialism, yet chose to develop in a peaceful way with elections totally open to the benevolent influence of donors and private media, and budgets spent on welfare programs rather than the paranoid military expansion of the warmongering Soviets. This shows us that socialism need not be totalitarian or militant, but can be open, democratic and free :)
Readers in the West may now wonder why they have not heard of this wonderfully democratic socialist party, or why their country is today a state that struggles with immense corruption, wealth inequality, and a politics that caters more to Western markets than local development. Sadly, this is because the democratic and inclusive socialist party was overthrown after less than a decade in power due to a combination of rigged elections, military coups and color revolutions, all of which have been linked to activity by Western intelligence agencies to compromise their democratic process, build distrust and hatred against the socialist parties, and incentivize the upper classes (who had been 'democratically' allowed to participate in the political process) to sabotage the socialist movement. Tragically, this led to the butchering of all socialists and leftists in a massacre that claimed millions of lives, and the establishment of a right-wing government/dictatorship that ruled over the country for decades and turned it into a resource mine and military proxy for Western interests, growing fabulously rich in the process.
The lesson to be learned from these incidents is that the totalitarian Soviet model of government hurts not only its own citizens, but also all socialist states across the world, even the ones that are democratic, civilized and not at all savagely repressive of the upper classes. While the actions of Western intelligence can seem excessive and brutal, the presence of Stalinist regimes that call for military development, political secrecy and total opposition to all forms of 'Western interference' in defense of state socialism will necessarily lead the West to take drastic measures to prevent the rise of totalitarian regimes and Cold War anxieties, allying even with conservative groups and right-wing agents whose politics may go against the cherished ideals of Western democracy.
For socialism to thrive, it must always engage in productive dialogue with the West, keep its elections completely transparent and open to Western observation and influence, and refrain from the political extremism of Stalinism and Maoism against the imagined and manipulative threat of Western imperialist aggression. Though countless socialist states across the Global South have been crushed, we hope that the death of totalitarianism and state socialism in the Soviet Union will usher in a new era of thriving democracy in areas such as Africa, Latin America and the Middle East where the spectre of Stalinism once loomed large :)
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