Re: two concepts of dictatorship of the proletariat. ?

[cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Carrol Cox)]

    "Two concepts" simply will not do. The concept is too complex and
widely debated and defined for that.

    One element (I won't say separate or complete definition) is that of
ruling or deciding without being limited by law. And to some extent that
*has* to happen, willy-nilly, in any revolutionary situation. Certainly
(and I'm thinking here not of the entire revolutionary process but of
the immediately post-insurrection period) a revolutionary force would not
let itself be constrained by the various constitutional guarantees of
the rights of property. And certainly, also, various activities would be
defined as "criminal" even though they were not prohibited by law--or
at least had not been. For example: Would not certain members of the
police, judiciary, higher military command, corporate executives, be
put under some sort of restraint following a successful insurrection
without having to justify that in a bourgeois court.

    Clearly also, this could lead to abuses which would destroy the
revolution from inside. (I put it that way to underline that when I
say 'abuses' I am not meaning "excusable aberrations.") But the "law"
and procedures of it would have to be worked out on the go: there could
be no canned set of laws and regulations in advance (though I would favor
a revolutionary movement working out, in process, certain constraints: e.g.,
no death penalty). This would all, as I say, be willy-nilly quite
"dictatorial."1

    So that would be some sort of dictatorship, whether the revolutinary
leaders were communists, market socialists, anarchists, or radical
democrats. (The last item in this list is mostly but not entirely
absurd: insurrections are often not planned but come in self defense,
and even radical democrats under certain circumstances might decide
that they had to defend themselves.) It would be a "Dictatorship of the
????"
          Carrol


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