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And in communist thoughts, capitalism is sometimes referred to as "the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." I've always taken it to mean where power relies and not

And in communist thoughts, capitalism is sometimes referred to as "the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." I've always taken it to mean where power relies and not in the modern sense of what we call a dictatorship.

int_19h 3y ago
It can be interpreted more or less literally, depending. Thing is, while Marx is the originator of that term and concept, the source from which most people are aware of it is actually Lenin/Bolsheviks and their offshoots (Mao etc), and they were very much on the literalist side of that interpretation. But they had to be to do what they wanted - a society run by workers - because they managed to take power in Russia, a country, where 80% of the population were peasants who did not, as a rule, support Bolsheviks (the de facto Russian peasant party was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party). Consequently, when you look at early USSR, it had gems like these in its 1924 Constitution: "ARTICLE 9. The Congress of Soviets of the USSR is composed of representatives of the urban Soviets and of the Soviets of the urban type, on the basis of one deputy per 25,000 electors, and of representatives of the Congresses of Soviets of the rural districts on the basis of one deputy per 125,000 inhabitants." That is, rural (peasant) votes were explicitly diluted ~1:5 wrt urban (worker) votes in the Soviet council system. Needless to say, this has very little to do with democracy, but it is a good example of taking "dictatorship of the proletariat" literally.
- hnbad 3y ago
  The Bolsheviks specifically believed in vanguardism. This meant they not only had to suppress the 80% or so that had no interest in Bolshevism at all but also the various communist, anarchist and syndicalist movements that existed alongside the Bolsheviks but did not follow the vanguardist tradition. Ironically this means one thing the "Soviets" eliminated first was the soviets, i.e. the workers councils, and the worker cooperatives. This fixation on vanguardism continued to manifest in sabotaging other communist and anarchist movements in Ukraine and even Spain where it contributed to the victory of the fascists. If there's one thing the Bolsheviks succeeded at, it's purges. I'm just not sure if that's something to be proud of as it evidently never led to anything beyond "actually existing socialism". It's also worth remembering that according to Marx, communism is a state-less and class-less society. A literal "dictatorship of the proletariat" by definition maintains a class system because the proletariat is defined by its exploitation (i.e. working but not owning - an owner who works for his own business, like an enfranchised peasant, is not proletarian). In practice this literal interpretation thus also meant that the state replaced the capitalist class (hence state capitalism) even if theoretically the state was under the democratic control of the proletariat (but again via a system of representation, not delegation, as the vanguard party needed to be able to overrule any democratic interests that would have been deemed counter-revolutionary).
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Indeed. I'm actually from a region of Russia that saw one of the biggest peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks, notable for use of chemical weapons against the rebels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion. The rebels weren't really anarchists as such, and I don't think they had any particularly well-defined ideology beyond "land to the peasants", but they were still clearly a part of the socialist tradition (leadership was mostly SR). To add insult to injury, the people who led the punitive expedition to crush said revolt were presented as heroes afterwards, and in Soviet times we had streets in the city named after them. The thing that they eliminated first was actually the peasant councils, starting as early as 1918, as those were the ones where they rarely had a majority. Kombeds ("committees of the poor") were established largely for this purpose, and were folded into the councils once they fulfilled their function of purging the latter of undesirables. Independent worker councils and trade unions followed shortly after.

int_19h 3y ago

It can be interpreted more or less literally, depending. Thing is, while Marx is the originator of that term and concept, the source from which most people are aware of it is actually Lenin/Bolsheviks and their offshoots (Mao etc), and they were very much on the literalist side of that interpretation. But they had to be to do what they wanted - a society run by workers - because they managed to take power in Russia, a country, where 80% of the population were peasants who did not, as a rule, support Bolsheviks (the de facto Russian peasant party was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party). Consequently, when you look at early USSR, it had gems like these in its 1924 Constitution: "ARTICLE 9. The Congress of Soviets of the USSR is composed of representatives of the urban Soviets and of the Soviets of the urban type, on the basis of one deputy per 25,000 electors, and of representatives of the Congresses of Soviets of the rural districts on the basis of one deputy per 125,000 inhabitants." That is, rural (peasant) votes were explicitly diluted ~1:5 wrt urban (worker) votes in the Soviet council system. Needless to say, this has very little to do with democracy, but it is a good example of taking "dictatorship of the proletariat" literally.

hnbad 3y ago
The Bolsheviks specifically believed in vanguardism. This meant they not only had to suppress the 80% or so that had no interest in Bolshevism at all but also the various communist, anarchist and syndicalist movements that existed alongside the Bolsheviks but did not follow the vanguardist tradition. Ironically this means one thing the "Soviets" eliminated first was the soviets, i.e. the workers councils, and the worker cooperatives. This fixation on vanguardism continued to manifest in sabotaging other communist and anarchist movements in Ukraine and even Spain where it contributed to the victory of the fascists. If there's one thing the Bolsheviks succeeded at, it's purges. I'm just not sure if that's something to be proud of as it evidently never led to anything beyond "actually existing socialism". It's also worth remembering that according to Marx, communism is a state-less and class-less society. A literal "dictatorship of the proletariat" by definition maintains a class system because the proletariat is defined by its exploitation (i.e. working but not owning - an owner who works for his own business, like an enfranchised peasant, is not proletarian). In practice this literal interpretation thus also meant that the state replaced the capitalist class (hence state capitalism) even if theoretically the state was under the democratic control of the proletariat (but again via a system of representation, not delegation, as the vanguard party needed to be able to overrule any democratic interests that would have been deemed counter-revolutionary).
- int_19h 3y ago
  Indeed. I'm actually from a region of Russia that saw one of the biggest peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks, notable for use of chemical weapons against the rebels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion. The rebels weren't really anarchists as such, and I don't think they had any particularly well-defined ideology beyond "land to the peasants", but they were still clearly a part of the socialist tradition (leadership was mostly SR). To add insult to injury, the people who led the punitive expedition to crush said revolt were presented as heroes afterwards, and in Soviet times we had streets in the city named after them. The thing that they eliminated first was actually the peasant councils, starting as early as 1918, as those were the ones where they rarely had a majority. Kombeds ("committees of the poor") were established largely for this purpose, and were folded into the councils once they fulfilled their function of purging the latter of undesirables. Independent worker councils and trade unions followed shortly after.