by Peter Thompson
Lithograph of the end of the Paris Commune, 1871. Photograph: Krause, Johansen/ Krause, Johansen/Archivo Iconografico, SA/Corbis
If there is one thing which separates the revisionist sheep from the Leninist goats it is the question of power: what is it, how do you take it, how do you defend it and how do you hold on to it? If we consider Marx to be the theoretician of revolution, then it is Lenin who sought to marry theory with practice. The debate as to whether there is a continuity between Marx, Lenin and Stalin, that one leads ineluctably to the other and from there straight to the cellars of the Lubyanka, is one which has raged since Rosa Luxemburg criticised Lenin and which will, probably, continue for centuries to come.
There are basically three camps: first, paradoxically, an alliance of the Stalinist diehards and anti-communists who posit a direct and logical connection between Marx and Stalin, for better or for worse; second, those who see a distinct break between Lenin and Stalin (largely Trotskyists) and third; those who see a break between Marx and Lenin and who admire the former for his analytical skills but oppose the latter's dictatorial measures. We might call this third group the platonic Bolshevists who would like to live in a different world, but are not quite sure that they like the measures taken to get there.
The emergence of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat comes from the fact that in the bourgeois epoch history had both speeded up and wised up. Marx pointed out that in the transition between the previous epochs he had outlined, from ur-communism to the ancient mode, from there into feudalism and on to bourgeois capitalism, there is an acceleration of the process of transformation as well as a growing political consciousness. The early historical stages are slow, almost organic transitions taking many centuries. Where does one system slide into the next and how does it happen? Marx, and in particular Engels, developed the idea of the dialectic of quantity into quality, small incremental changes in a prevailing system which at some point add up to more than the sum of their parts and contribute to a full transition or a sudden Hegelian leap, as Lenin put it, to something new.
In 19th-century Europe this was increasingly the case. The workers in the major industrial countries in Europe did combine into unions and political movements and parties which were determined to improve their lot. The question was how this growing pressure could be either combated or accommodated. Under Bismarck for example, it became clear that the proletariat was a growing threat and, after the banning of the socialist party, social measures were brought in by the mid-1880s to ameliorate the situation for workers in a system that was then called a form of "state socialism".
This was a recognition that the political threat from the proletariat was real and that, if steps were not taken, the whole of Europe could go the way of the Paris commune of spring 1871, a period in which the workers in that city took power initially in defence of the republic against a Prussian offensive and in a very short span of time, were pushed by the reaction of the state and its collaboration with the Prussian attackers to seize power in their own political interests. It is out of this experience and its defeat that Marx developed further the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The term needs understanding properly here. First, abstractly, it is an expression of the fact that the working class now comprises a majority of the population but that it has virtually no political representation and power. The idea is that if the workers were to take power against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat which would emerge would, by definition, be a democratic one. Second, however, what the commune also did was to establish for the first time a democratic system of tightly controlled government from the ground up. Anyone elected to a leadership role was subject to recall, salaries were capped and there was a full separation of church and state, amongst many other measures. But the commune was defeated by a combination of the French government and the Prussian army and the ensuing bloodbath claimed the lives of between 20,000 and 30,000 communards summarily executed by the government.
Marx's criticism of the commune was that it had not been harsh enough in defending itself against the counter-revolutionaries and Lenin later said that it was the lack of a unified leadership willing to go beyond "half-measures" that led to its downfall. Trotsky too saw the commune as a prime example of how any proletarian revolution has to be permanent, had to move rapidly from limited democratic demands to the expropriation of property and the establishment of socialist structures, and in this way the Paris commune was the model for Soviet democracy in 1917. Whether the descent into Stalinism is the logical consequence of this concept is something that will no doubt be debated below.
There are basically three camps: first, paradoxically, an alliance of the Stalinist diehards and anti-communists who posit a direct and logical connection between Marx and Stalin, for better or for worse; second, those who see a distinct break between Lenin and Stalin (largely Trotskyists) and third; those who see a break between Marx and Lenin and who admire the former for his analytical skills but oppose the latter's dictatorial measures. We might call this third group the platonic Bolshevists who would like to live in a different world, but are not quite sure that they like the measures taken to get there.
The emergence of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat comes from the fact that in the bourgeois epoch history had both speeded up and wised up. Marx pointed out that in the transition between the previous epochs he had outlined, from ur-communism to the ancient mode, from there into feudalism and on to bourgeois capitalism, there is an acceleration of the process of transformation as well as a growing political consciousness. The early historical stages are slow, almost organic transitions taking many centuries. Where does one system slide into the next and how does it happen? Marx, and in particular Engels, developed the idea of the dialectic of quantity into quality, small incremental changes in a prevailing system which at some point add up to more than the sum of their parts and contribute to a full transition or a sudden Hegelian leap, as Lenin put it, to something new.
In 19th-century Europe this was increasingly the case. The workers in the major industrial countries in Europe did combine into unions and political movements and parties which were determined to improve their lot. The question was how this growing pressure could be either combated or accommodated. Under Bismarck for example, it became clear that the proletariat was a growing threat and, after the banning of the socialist party, social measures were brought in by the mid-1880s to ameliorate the situation for workers in a system that was then called a form of "state socialism".
This was a recognition that the political threat from the proletariat was real and that, if steps were not taken, the whole of Europe could go the way of the Paris commune of spring 1871, a period in which the workers in that city took power initially in defence of the republic against a Prussian offensive and in a very short span of time, were pushed by the reaction of the state and its collaboration with the Prussian attackers to seize power in their own political interests. It is out of this experience and its defeat that Marx developed further the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The term needs understanding properly here. First, abstractly, it is an expression of the fact that the working class now comprises a majority of the population but that it has virtually no political representation and power. The idea is that if the workers were to take power against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat which would emerge would, by definition, be a democratic one. Second, however, what the commune also did was to establish for the first time a democratic system of tightly controlled government from the ground up. Anyone elected to a leadership role was subject to recall, salaries were capped and there was a full separation of church and state, amongst many other measures. But the commune was defeated by a combination of the French government and the Prussian army and the ensuing bloodbath claimed the lives of between 20,000 and 30,000 communards summarily executed by the government.
Marx's criticism of the commune was that it had not been harsh enough in defending itself against the counter-revolutionaries and Lenin later said that it was the lack of a unified leadership willing to go beyond "half-measures" that led to its downfall. Trotsky too saw the commune as a prime example of how any proletarian revolution has to be permanent, had to move rapidly from limited democratic demands to the expropriation of property and the establishment of socialist structures, and in this way the Paris commune was the model for Soviet democracy in 1917. Whether the descent into Stalinism is the logical consequence of this concept is something that will no doubt be debated below.
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