So the part I don't get is how a lot of these countries end up with the same leaders for life? You think if they were so democratic that they'd change out occasionally. I know the USSR changed leaders a few times after Stalin and not sure what's happening with Cuba now, I think they just put in term limits, but before that there was Stalin for decades, Fidel Castro for decades, Mao, now Xi Jinping, etc. Keeping one leader for that long gives an opportunity for them to centralize power.

The structure of the system generally results in a meritocratic (actually serious) result. Everyone in the system has started at the lowest council level, and then at each council they have been voted up based on actual ability to produce results to represent that council at the next tier. This process of each council selecting someone to represent the council at the next tier up continues all the way to the supreme congress.

Think of it this way... If you put a thousand extremely competent highly skilled carpenters in a room together and ask them to select the best person among them for the job, they're going to select someone who is an incredible master. Now wait 4 years and ask yourself whether they're going to select a different person, is someone else going to magically be a better master carpenter? Not likely. Quantity of experience plays a large role in ability, and the person with the highest quantity of that experience is still that master.

Stalin, was one of the most effective administrators of any government in history. This is just a simple fact, as leader he took a country without industry, a feudal backwater with no technology that was still doing horse-and-cart agriculture let alone any kind of industrial production, and in his time they defeated the nazis and literally went to space... in under 40 years. Mao? Mao was a hero revolutionary, the leader that freed the country. The average life expectancy was 33 when he started the revolution, and it was 60 when he died. This man has been villified to an absolutely ridiculous degree when literally any metric of comparison (before/after the revolution) you use demonstrates why he was kept. Were there dumb mistakes? Yes. But even with some mistakes things like ending the practice of foot-binding which affected near 50% of all working class women and 100% of all rich women is all-by-itself justification for Mao, without anything else. Castro falls into a similar boat, he was a hero revolutionary, brought incredible levels of improvement to his people, and not only was he seen as a hero but he was charismatic as fuck, watch any video of him and he's immediately likeable, even when he aged the man's earnestness and softness shines through.

As for Xi. He's only in a third term and his total time in the role is only at 10 years lmao. That's not even notable. The last Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel was in her role for 16 years. Tony fucking Blair was PM of the UK for 12 years. I can't take Americans seriously when they talk about this shit when he's not even past well known leaders of my own country.

I also worry that so many representative layers dilutes the people's will from the bottom to the top, but to be honest, I have no idea of that's true or just a gut feeling. I'd have to see some study, like the one that showed that popular will doesn't seem to affect whether something happens in the US unless rich people are also for it lol.

There is a 3rd party Harvard study worth a read here on the Chinese system, it's the longest study of its kind (30 years long), independent, and can't be regarded as biased in favour of China (the opposite actually). It finds that 95% of the population support the government, it finds that they support the government because it has consistently improved their lives, and it finds that it's not because of "widespread propaganda" but because of real actual changes in their material lives.

The Chinese system produces results that reflect what the people actually want, partially because of one single policy - any constituency can remove its representative with a simple majority vote. I want you to consider what absolute fucking mayhem that policy would enable if it existed in your own country. How often would the local politician be getting campaigns to remove them for doing things the people don't want/like? If that policy existed right now in most western countries we could be getting rid of 90% of the politicians for their support for Israel and genocide. The very existence of this policy enforces an enormous pressure upon the representatives to actually represent the people - or else.

Contrast this study with studies you've seen of western democracies all having less than 50% support.

Don't get me wrong about this, I have criticisms too. I don't particularly like how slow the system is at bringing about cultural change, lgbt issues have moved slow as fuck toward improvement (improving more than the US which is going backwards right now) because old people are a bunch of homophobic bastards that slow the process of change down. Cuba is an exception to this because Mariela Castro, one of Fidel's family, took it upon herself to change things including changing the views of Fidel who later regretted and apologised for the mistakes of early homophobia in the country. I think it's likely that without the involvement of Castro himself the movement would have stalled or been slow there. Right now Cuba is the most progressive country in the world, with the most progressive laws for lgbt people as a result of their reforming of the family law in recent years. For reference, I am lgbt myself.