Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: What is socialism? (Dictatorship of the Proletariat) Message-ID: <334@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 14:28:44 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.334 Posted: Tue Feb 12 14:28:44 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:14:57 EST References: <325@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <21248@lanl.ARPA> <> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 40 J. Giles writes: >> Actually, Marx thought that socialism could not work without a totalitarian >> form of government. I will look for the exact reference, but I returned >> all the Marx writings I ever read to libraries long ago. I agree with Jeff Myers' response to this, except that it was actually Marx who first used the term "dictatorship of the proletariat," in a letter written in 1852. However, Marx never explained exactly what he meant by it, and he only used it a few times in his writings. Most likely he was thinking of the dictatorship in the Roman Republic, a constitutional office held for a limited time. One can get an idea of what he had in mind from his pamphlet *The Civil War in France* on the Paris Commune of 1871; in fact Engels later claimed that the Commune was an example of the DotP. The significance of the Paris Commune for Marx was that, in contrast to all previous revolutions, it had begun to dismantle the state apparatus and given power to the people. Marx saw it as an attempt to give power to the working class and to create a regime as close to DIRECT DEMOCRACY as possible. Thus, by the "DotP" Marx meant not only a form of REGIME, in which the working class would have the power hitherto possessed by the bourgeoisie, but also a form of GOVERNMENT, with the working class actually governing and taking over some of the functions hitherto performed by the state. Lenin adopted this concept in *State and Revolution*, but he did not address the question of the role of the party -- clearly, there is a big difference between the "DotP" and the "DotP under the guidance of the Party." Lenin also interpreted the DotP to mean the ruthless suppression by the proletariat of its enemies: "The revolutionary DotP is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, power that is unrestricted by any laws." Thus Marx's fundamentally democratic concept of the DotP came to be employed by the followers of Lenin as a rationale for state repression. Small wonder the concept has acquired a bad name, even in many communist parties. I am anxiously awaiting J. Giles' quotation showing that Marx believed that totalitarianism was necessary for socialism, since I thought I had a better understanding of Marx's political thought than this would imply. Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes