Capitalism developed into imperialism in about 1900 according to Lenin. Imperialism was defined interestingly not just as a type of economic model a country can have but as an age, an era. This is why even the first socialist camp didn’t have national elections because under the age of imperialism itself democracy which in its beauty is one person one vote is subverted by capital into becoming one unit money one vote. Democratic centralism / internal party democracy was seen as a way to save democracy from bourgeois subversion actually. As communists we love democracy in its fullest form in principle but where we have limited its scope was out of a concession to reality.

“So you see I was banging a local bourgeoisie at church”