Marx was well aware that the political system of capitalism was a dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, with bourgeois democratic republican forms shaped so much in favor of
the bourgeoisie ( see The U.S. Constitution and _The Federalist Papers_ for some of
the construction of U.S. bourgeois democratic republic), that it was still ultimately
a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie relative to the working masses.
Marx was also well aware that the first socialist nations would be in a world in which
there were still dictatorships of the bourgeosie. The only way socialist nations could
survive in such a political jungle would be with the ability to centralize
sufficiently to defend against the inevitable attacks of the bourgeois state. Thus,
Marx offered the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat as a general form that
would be necessary until all bourgeois state were revolutionized ( from within ) out
of existence.
As with everything else, Marx would assume that this very general guideline would
likely produce a history of practice , trial and error, by masses, communists from
which the actual form of existence of the theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat
would come.
We are today under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which would be a very
important subject to discuss in conjunction with discussion of the d of the P. The D
of P cannot be understood unrelated to the D of B.
CB
>>> Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/17/00 10:38PM >>>
Jim Devine is doing an excellent job explaining this problem. I dealt with
it a bit in my new book, Transforming the Economy. Marx felt that it could
take generations for people to become ready to live in a cooperative society
without ANY outside authority. The word Dictatorship was an ancient practice
-- during times of emergency someone would take the helm for a SHORT time and
then retire with not material benefits. Dictatorship did not imply at the
time military troops going about coercing people. The word used for that
situation was tyranny.
Brad De Long wrote:
> >Not contradictory. As Draper has shown, the Dictatorship of the P. is a
> >temporary waystation to allow the future free development.
> >
> >Brad De Long wrote:
> >
> >> >yea, and why do you stop the citation in the comma? I am well
> >> >aware that there are two Marxes, the one who tends to be
> >> >democratic and the one who tends to be dictatorial.
> >>
> >> A kinder, gentler way to put it is that there are two Marxes, the one
> >> who believes in the free development of each and the one who believes
> >> that when they fight their oppressors the people have one single
> >> general will that the dictatorship of the proletariat expresses...
> >>
> >> Ole Charlie didn't understand much about political organization, or
> >> tyranny of the majority, or bureaucratic process, or separation of
> >> powers, or rights that people should be able to exercise against
> >> every form of state. In many ways Tocqueville thought deeper and saw
> >> further as far as political sociology is concerned...
> >>
> >> Brad DeLong
> >
> >--
> >Michael Perelman
>
> Or, in other words: "Democracy? We don't need no stinkin' democracy!
> We directly express the general will!"
>
> I would think that Cromwell was the first to make this mistake, when
> he dismissed the Long Parliament. Robespierre certainly made it--and
> then executed both Hebert and Danton when it became clear that their
> vision of direct expression of the general will was different from
> his.
>
> Dictatorship is not a temporary waystation but a switchpoint that--as
> Camille Desmoulins, Nikolai Bukharin, Peng Dehuai, and many, many
> others learned--led straight to Hell.
>
> But the point was made a long time ago by Rosa Luxemburg:
>
> "The suppression of political life in the whole of the country must
> bring in its wake a progressive paralysis of life in the Soviets
> themselves. In the absence of universal franchise, of unrestricted
> freedom of press and assembly and of free discussion, life in any
> public body is bound to wither, to become a mere semblance of life in
> which only bureaucracy can remain an active element. This is a law
> from which nobody is exempt. Public life gradually becomes dormant
> while a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustable energy and boundless
> idealism do the ruling and directing; from among these a dozen
> outstanding intellectuals do the real leading while an elite from the
> working class is summoned from time to time to meetings, there to
> applaud the speeches of the leaders and to give unanimous approval to
> the resolutions laid before them - in fact, power in the hands of
> cliques, a dictatorship certainly, but a dictatorship not of the
> proletariats but of a handful of politicians...."
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
