>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/10/00 05:29PM >>>
I wrote:
>I don't think the issue of democracy should be separated from the class
>nature of the state. At least as I understand Marx, he believed that the
>proletariat would be a different kind of ruling class than previous ruling
>classes, that its rule would have to be democratic.
Charles Brown replies:
>CB: I agree that Marx considered the rule of the proletariat as
>democratic. For in _The Manifesto_ , Engels and Marx refer to the
>democracy as the working class as the ruling class. But let us look a
>little more closely at what democracy is in Marxism.. Lenin's _The State
>and Revolution_ is the best precis of these issues.
I think that Hal Draper's KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION is the best on
this (along with his little book on the "dictatorship of the proletariat),
but of course it's not a precis.
___________
CB: Somehow I was thinking you might say that :>).
________
BTW, a friend (an expert on Soviet agriculture and politics) who spent a
year in the USSR in 1977 or so reported that Soviet academics were expected
to quote from Lenin in all articles (including articles on soil chemistry).
But they weren't supposed to quote from THE STATE AND REVOLUTION, seemingly
because it was seen as anarchistic.
__________
CB: Do you think the "freedom" of U.S. academics from this disciplined Leninism
results in better or worse intellectual products as compared with the SU ? Is
"freedom" from the principles that Lenin championed in the best interest of the
proletariat, the overwhelming masses of the population ?
________
>As Lenin points out, Marx proudly claimed that he had discovered the
>"dictatorship of the proletariat". He also assumed that socialism would
>still have a state, and that a state is an apparatus for oppression of one
>class by another. So, "democracy" in socialism doesn't mean that the
>bourgeosie who remain have the right to contest for state power, whether
>through votes or any of the other mechanisms set out in the American
>model. In other words , the democracy of socialism may encompass
>repression of some Bill of Rights type rights for some in order to retain
>a proletarian dictatorship.
Right, but the issue between Louis and myself was not about this issue.
Rather, it was about who was running the state: was it the proletariat or
some small minority of CP members? so was it a dictatorship _by_ the
proletariat or a dictatorship _in the name of_ the proletariat? or a
dictatorship _over_ the proletariat? or the Stalinist dictatorship
_exploiting_ the proletariat?
_________
CB: Yes, but deciding the issue between Louis and you is impacted by these more
general aspects of the Marxist conception of democracy.
More directly to your point, which has to do with the republican principle vs. direct
democracy, Marx and Engels clearly advocated a republican form of government for
socialism, not direct democracy ( New England town meeting) of the tens of millions.
So, the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Marxist conception IS some
minority ruling as the representatives of the overwhelming majority as in all
republics. Engels and Marx also advocated a centralized instead of a federal ( as in
the U.S.) form for the national government.
Then to be historically concrete and realistic, the imperialist imposition of a
permanent state of war or threat of war against the SU necessitated a militarization
of the form of rule. All democracies in real history have disgarded many democratic
forms in conditions of war siege. For example, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during
the U.S. Civil War.
As I said, you and Lou are correct in noting that the SU in the period of Stalin also
violated Marxist principles of democracy. Khrushchev details these in the 20th
Congress report. But the Soviet state in the period of Stalin also did many things
that were not only in the name of the proletariat, but in the best interests of the
proletariat. This fact is significantly absent from your measure of the success of
proletarian democracy in the SU at that time. Stalinist illegal violence was more
against party members than the proletarian masses.
So, the SU form was as close to the dictatorship in the interests of the proletariat
as most actualizations of an idea for social forms have been in human history, with
successes and failures in matching the idea.
__________
>Furthermore, Lenin points out that in the Marxist conception DEMOCRACY
>itself is always a form of state, i.e. has an repressive apparatus. So, in
>communism (after socialism) there is no democracy either. In other words,
>democracy is not the highest form of organization or self-governance in
>the Marxist conception.
In the highest form, the distinction between the state and society goes
away (as the state "withers away"). I can't see how that can't involve
democracy (unless we're talking about total and utter domination of society
by the state).
_________
CB: If you want a full discussion of this , see _The State and Revolution_. In brief,
no we are not talking about total and utter domination of society by the state,
because, as you say, we are talking about a point at which the state has whithered
away. But that will not be democracy, in the Marxist conception. Democracy , a form
of state, will have whithered away.
____________
>What I say here doesn't contradict Lou and Jim's criticisms and comments
>about the failures of democracy and true proletarian class rule in the
>first efforts to build socialism. But in measuring those first socialisms
>against a Marxist standard of democracy, it is necessary to take into
>account the above which distinguishes the Marxist conception of democracy
>which is significantly different from some of the conceptions we might
>hold through our location in American culture and history.
I wasn't measuring modern socialisms against some "Marxist standard of
democracy." Instead, I was asking who had power.
_________
CB: When you say:
> >I don't think the issue of democracy should be separated from the class
> >nature of the state. At least as I understand Marx, he believed that the
> >proletariat would be a different kind of ruling class than previous ruling
> >classes, that its rule would have to be democratic.
You seem to be putting forth Marx's standard of demcracy as something to measure
modern socialisms performance against in what follows of what you say. Otherwise, why
do you mention that Marx believed that the rule of the proletariat would be democratic
, unlike previous ruling classes ?
Of course, a discussion of democracy and politics is always a discussion of who has
power.
CB
