Yea, no, elections were a joke in the soviet union. Pretty much everyone knew your vote counted for nothing and they started offering people food so they would show up to vote to give it some legitimacy. Unlike current Russia the soviet propaganda was mostly a laughing stock at the time.
Also the party members were basically picked by nepotism alone. Sure, you could have internal elections but the winner was always the one with most friends in the party. That’s kinda like saying north Korea is democratic because there are some internal elections while in practise it’s pretty much a monarchy.
How are contracts like this enforceable in the US? Like here you could have a clause like that but the moment you try to sue someone for working at a competitor the judge would just laugh at you and throw your ass out of court. You can’t have just anything in a contract, just like if a contract breaks employment laws then it’s not valid.