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The phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" used to trip me up. It is the will of the people: a true democracy. As much as we call what we have a "democracy",

The phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" used to trip me up. It is the will of the people: a true democracy. As much as we call what we have a "democracy", we don't live in one; it's an illusion. What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses.

rumanator 6y ago
> What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses. Sounds like you've lost yourself in your wordplay. Where you draw the line between your "masses" and your "bourgeoise"?
- ipnon 6y ago
  And this tended to be the beginnings of violence in communist revolutions. It typically ends when the distinction between proletariat and bourgeoise dissolves into revolutionary and imperialist or party member and non-party member. Take China for example. The country became relatively peaceful internally once it became acceptable to merely not oppose the communist party, compared to the "revolutionary times" of the civil war and cultural revolution. I feel like good research on how and why revolutions arise, communist ones specifically, is lacking. We do not understand their initial conditions. Maybe we must turn to Marxists or communists directly for this understanding.
dr_dshiv 6y ago
While Marx surely thought his program was in the best interests of the proletariat, the dictatorship was a dictatorship not a democracy: "The most effective lever for the achievement of this object is the conquest of political power. With its aid the proletariat can consciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist into a Communist society. To this transformation, there also corresponds a political transition period, the state of which can be nothing else than a revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat." — Marx, Letter to the German Social Democracy, 1875 The Khmer Rouge was that "political transition period" Marx spoke of.
- handol 6y ago
  Marx considered the Paris Commune to be a good example of what he had in mind. "The Commune itself–the government formed by the workers–was made up of representatives of the various wards of Paris, elected by the citizens and recallable from office at any time. The majority of its members were workers or acknowledged representatives of the working class. Rather than a parliamentary body (such as the Congress in the U.S.), the Commune both made decisions and carried them out." — https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-paris-commune.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-paris-commun...
  - dr_dshiv 6y ago
    But then he said this: "...to concentrate as much power as possible in the hands of the State. They need not be misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of the Communes, self-determination, etc.”
    - handol 6y ago
      from: https://archive.org/stream/twospeechesbykar00marx/twospeechesbykar00marx_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/twospeechesbykar00marx/twospeeche... He's saying don't be fooled by people picking up our talking points, a revolution in Germany will be hard pressed to prevent the country from fragmenting. Federalization in Germany, a nation just forged from a patchwork of feudal estates, would invite an immediate return of society to a feudal configuration.
mhh__ 6y ago
"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"
refurb 6y ago
The will of some people. Of course the people that oppose you are against “the will of the people” and over the course of the “revolutionary struggle” it would be a shame if those people dissappeared.

rumanator 6y ago

> What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses. Sounds like you've lost yourself in your wordplay. Where you draw the line between your "masses" and your "bourgeoise"?

ipnon 6y ago
And this tended to be the beginnings of violence in communist revolutions. It typically ends when the distinction between proletariat and bourgeoise dissolves into revolutionary and imperialist or party member and non-party member. Take China for example. The country became relatively peaceful internally once it became acceptable to merely not oppose the communist party, compared to the "revolutionary times" of the civil war and cultural revolution. I feel like good research on how and why revolutions arise, communist ones specifically, is lacking. We do not understand their initial conditions. Maybe we must turn to Marxists or communists directly for this understanding.

dr_dshiv 6y ago

While Marx surely thought his program was in the best interests of the proletariat, the dictatorship was a dictatorship not a democracy: "The most effective lever for the achievement of this object is the conquest of political power. With its aid the proletariat can consciously carry out the transformation of a Capitalist into a Communist society. To this transformation, there also corresponds a political transition period, the state of which can be nothing else than a revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat." — Marx, Letter to the German Social Democracy, 1875 The Khmer Rouge was that "political transition period" Marx spoke of.

handol 6y ago
Marx considered the Paris Commune to be a good example of what he had in mind. "The Commune itself–the government formed by the workers–was made up of representatives of the various wards of Paris, elected by the citizens and recallable from office at any time. The majority of its members were workers or acknowledged representatives of the working class. Rather than a parliamentary body (such as the Congress in the U.S.), the Commune both made decisions and carried them out." — https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-paris-commune.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-5/rcp-paris-commun...
- dr_dshiv 6y ago
  But then he said this: "...to concentrate as much power as possible in the hands of the State. They need not be misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of the Communes, self-determination, etc.”
  - handol 6y ago
    from: https://archive.org/stream/twospeechesbykar00marx/twospeechesbykar00marx_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/twospeechesbykar00marx/twospeeche... He's saying don't be fooled by people picking up our talking points, a revolution in Germany will be hard pressed to prevent the country from fragmenting. Federalization in Germany, a nation just forged from a patchwork of feudal estates, would invite an immediate return of society to a feudal configuration.

mhh__ 6y ago

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

refurb 6y ago

The will of some people. Of course the people that oppose you are against “the will of the people” and over the course of the “revolutionary struggle” it would be a shame if those people dissappeared.