The act of revolution is itself an authoritarian act. A bunch of people with guns force everyone else to listen to what they have to say. It was authoritarian when the American founding fathers did it, it was authoritarian when the French did it, it was authoritarian when the Russians did it.
What happens afterward is what counts. Every socialist society that has or currently exists has a democratic process, but capitalist countries point to the methods that various socialists have used to prevent capitalist takeover of their systems and say that those methods invalidate the whole process. Socialists, in turn, point to all of the rampant corruption that is taken for granted in capitalist elections and say that those make the process into a sham.
So the question is, do you believe that bourgeois control of mass media, political action groups, and the direct sponsorship of candidates by the wealthy invalidates capitalist elections? If so, to what extent do you think society should go to prevent those things from interfering in the democratic process? Whatever answer you come to, in order to implement it you will first need to get a bunch of people with guns together to dictate what the new democracy is going to look like.
That depends on if you believe in Stalin's ideas of a vanguard or Trotskys ideas of a vanguard. According to Trotsky the vanguard of the workers should be democratically elected.
Every socialist society that has or currently exists practices democratic elections. If you live in a capitalist country, however, you have been taught from childhood that those democratic practices are illegitimate.
Theoretically, amendments could be passed to alter the Constitution into anything, if they have support from enough states. Then again, if (theoretically) enough people support a radical change that is prevented because of the outsized influence of some states, how is that democratic?
Communism brain rot is trendy nowadays. It’s the last refuge for the tortured mind of the permanently online doomers. It’s almost non existent in real life thankfully
No, if enough people vote for socialist candidates and they pass a law that says all property now belongs to the state, then it'd be enforced just like any other current law.
The transition could be gradual. If we started nationalizing companies that get too big, and do that for a few generations then the state would own 99% of the economy.
If we keep raising property tax, you'd effectively get to the point where people are leasing the land rather than owning it.
that usually ends in disaster. never mind the fact that authoritarian governments like the power and wouldn't want to give it back, which defeats the entire point of socialism...
but even if you have a completely benign dictator (usually just a fantasy but for the sake of argument let's say we had one) people, especially in democracies, don't like the idea of a coup, unless it's them doing it but then it's a revolution. but that could also lead to reactionary sentiment.
we've seen this happen in Iran. democracy gets fucked with by a US coup, people react with a revolution but unfortunately reactionary forces use the anger to their advantage and devolve into a different kind of authoritarian regime anyway.