Right To Vote
According to communist ideologists, the Soviet political system was a true democracy, where workers' councils ("soviets") represented the will of the working class. In particular, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed direct universal suffrage with the secret ballot. However, before the June 1987 elections, all candidates had been selected by Communist Party organizations. Historian Robert Conquest described this system as "a set of phantom institutions and arrangements which put a human face on the hideous realities: a model constitution adopted in a worst period of terror and guaranteeing human rights, elections in which there was only one candidate, and in which 99 percent voted; a parliament at which no hand was ever raised in opposition or abstention."
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In The Soviet Union
Famous quotes containing the words right to and/or vote:
“What does it matter whether I am shown to be right! I am right too much!—And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“While I shall not vote for the prohibition amendment, I would like to see a good, wholesome expression of temperance sentiment.... Personally I do not resort to force—not even the force of law—to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example—of fashion.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)