Charles,
I'm not looking at you as an enemy. The enemy in this case
is ignorance; and I would hope it is your enemy as well and that you (and
others) would check out the reference I provided to Marxmyths before talking
more about the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. I'm sure you agree with
Marx that 'Ignorance never helped nor did anybody any good.'
best wishes,
michael
^^^^^
Michael,
You seem to imply that I've said something ignorant about the d.o.p. But I
haven't. Nor has anything you've produced demonstrated my ignorance. So, I'd
say there's more of a problem of arrogance here.
Draper's essay produces lots of text from Marx and Engels, but Draper
doesn't seem to be able to draw the logical conclusion from his own
research. Thus, we get quite a bit of overinterpretation so he can
substitute his understanding for that of Marx's.
For one thing, he seems to think that Weydemeyer doesn't understand what
Marx meant by the d.o.p. What that means is that Draper doesn't agree with
Weydemeyer about the meaning of the d.o.p. Thus, note below (Locus 4) ,
Draper's convuluted and unsuccessful attempt to show that W. didn't know
that Marx was talking about. " If the reader substitutes " this, and "There
is nothing whatever in this passage to indicate that Marx thought" that.
Quite a bit of explaining away what's right there before us, Hal. No, it is
not obvious that W. "didn't grasp the concept of class dictatorship", as
Draper wishes. In the process, Draper tries to dismiss as not special Marx's
own words in his letter to Weydemeyer, the one's famously quoted by Lenin in
_The State and Revolution_. Draper even tries to get us to substitute "rule
of the proletariat" for Marx's words "dictatorship of the proletariat" ! Why
? Because, Weydemeyer had used "d.o.p.", and so that might indicate that
Marx meant what Weydeymeyer meant. That sounds like he thinks Marx doesn't
understand how Marx is using d.o.p., and oh genius Draper is just trying to
help old whiskers out. Well, sorry Michael and Hal, us ignoramuses are going
with Marx , not you.
I put Lenin and Weydeymeyer's understanding on this up against that of you
and Draper any time, and readily call you two the ignorant ones.
Draper also, "laments" another instance (see below) of the way Marx
expressed himself. That's because the way Marx said it doesn't quite jibe
with the way Draper wanted him to say it.
Seems more like Draper is creating a Marxmyth than exposing one.
Finally, we find the weird origin of Draper's notorious "from above and
below" in a archaic , Spanish conservative's political analysis, with the
signs reversed. Kinda analyitically suspicious that.
Comradely,
Charles
http://marxmyths.org/hal-draper/article2.htm
Locus 4. Lünings associate editor and brother-in-law was a good friend and
comrade of Marxs, Joseph Weydemeyer. In 1851 Weydemeyer had to flee
government harassment in Germany, and finally decided to emigrate to the
United States. Soon after his arrival in November, he began writing for the
radical German-American press, while corresponding with Marx. His first
article appeared in the New York Turn-Zeitung for January 1, 1852, an issue
which also offered the first installment of Engels Peasant War in Germany
as well as Weydemeyers announcement of his own forthcoming weekly.[42]
The title of Weydemeyers article was Die Diktatur des Proletariats (The
Dictatorship of the Proletariat). The article was solely concerned with the
subject of the rule of the working class as expounded in the Communist
Manifesto, which is the source of the contents of the piece. The term in the
title is not even repeated in the body of the article until the last
passage, which speaks of the need for any revolution to have a dictatorship
at its head, and then presents the idea of the dictatorship of the
proletariat which is concentrated in the big cities, not the proletariat
tout court. Obviously Weydemeyer did not grasp the idea of a class
dictatorship, however many times Marx had underlined that term.
Now as he wrote an article condensing the teachings of the Man (as was
clearly Weydemeyers aim), why did the title term occur to him? The answer,
not very conjectural, is that he had only recently stood close on the
sidelines as his associate Lüning had lifted a lance against the rule, the
dictatorship of the working class.[43]
Marx must have recently received a copy of Weydemeyers article (though
there is no record of this) when on March 5, 1852, in response to his
friends letters, Marx wrote him a lengthy bit of advice on how to deal with
issues in the German-American press. It was in this context that Marx
criticized the refusal by writers like Karl Heinzen to recognize the
existence of classes in society. Marx wrote that no credit was due to him
for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the class
struggle among them.
What I did that was new was (1) to show that the existence of classes is
simply bound up with certain historical phases of the development of
production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the
dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only
constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a
classless society.
If the reader substitutes the usual rule of the proletariat for the
striking phrase here, the content of this statement will be perfectly clear.
There is nothing whatever in this passage to indicate that Marx thought he
was making an unusual pronouncement. Then why did he use dictatorship of
the proletariat instead of his usual term? Well, this is precisely what is
explained by the fact that Weydemeyer himself had just given that term
special visibility. Marxs letter was simply echoing the title of the
article by Weydemeyer, who was himself echoing the recent exchange in the
NDZ between Marx and Lüning. Marx was throwing in a phrase that had special
associations for his correspondent. Writing a personal letter, Marx could
let this be understood. When taken out of this context and held up to view
as if it were an extraordinary statement, its significance is distorted.[44]
tellingly, on passage in his essay shows rather succinctly that Marx didn't
agree with Draper's thesis on what Marx meant by it. Indeed, Marx very clear
discussion quoted by Draper is "lamentable", but not because it's brief. It
is lamentable to Draper because it significantly undermines Draper's whole
argument.
The question comes up, then: what transformation will the state undergo in a
communist society? In other words, what societal functions will remain there
that are analogous to the present state functions?
Draper: His answer was lamentably brief:
Marx: Between the capitalist and the communist society lies the period of
the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. To this there
corresponds a political transition period whose state can be nothing but the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Draper: The one thing this short statement makes clear is that Marx did not
think in terms of more or less dictatorial forms of the transitional period
represented by the workers state....
CB: Another thing it makes clear is that Marx didn't think of the d.o.p. as
some short of temporary measure as in old Rome ( as some have said here.
CB; On another point, Also, in this essay we find the source of Draper's
famous "from above or below" idea. Interestingly, he gets his basic analysis
on that from some archaic Spanish conservative,and then he just takes the
opposite side of the Spanish conservative. How strange. Gives a lot of new
meaning to "revolution from above and below"
Early in the same year, a Spanish conservative became famous all over Europe
for a speech made in Spains parliament that said bluntly and even crudely
what few others dared to put into words so frankly. Juan Donoso Cortés had
been one of the Spanish political leaders who had helped put General Narvaez
into power as a virtual dictator even before the European revolution had
broken out. In his Speech on Dictatorship, Donoso had no compunction about
asserting that power belonged in the hands of the propertied bourgeoisie by
right of intelligence and by right of the saber. As for legality: When
legality suffices to save society, then legality. When it does not suffice,
dictatorship. Yes, he admitted, the word dictatorship is a fearful
word, but the word revolution is the most fearful of all.
It was only a question of what kind of dictatorship you favored: it is a
question of choosing between the dictatorship of the insurrection and the
dictatorship of the [present] government, and he chose the latter. Then
came his high point:
It is a question of choosing between the dictatorship from below and the
dictatorship from above: I choose the dictatorship from above, since it
comes from a purer and loftier realm. It is a question of choosing, finally,
between the dictatorship of the dagger and the dictatorship of the saber: I
choose the dictatorship of the saber, since it is nobler.
The greatest dictatorship of all existed in England; for (mark this!) the
British Parliament could do anything it wanted: Who, gentlemen, has ever
seen so colossal a dictatorship? asked the Spanish reactionary
triumphantly. It was something of an anticlimax for Donoso to reveal that
God is a dictator also. This speech was quickly translated into many
languages and published all over the world.[15]
