Re: [Marxism] Lenin's 'democratic dictatorship' slogan

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades,

Visit http://www.dsp.org.au/dsp/permrev.htm for the DSP's take on this.

Norm.

Simon Kennedy wrote:
> I know that this is well trodden ground for a number of people, but help me 
> out. I would like to hear thoughts of the following.
>
> Lenin in 1905 was trying to see how the Russian development would fit into the 
> model of capitalism followed by the advanced capitalist countries. It was clear 
> to him, unlike the Mensheviks, that the Russian bourgeoisie did not have the 
> will to establish a 'modern' capitalist country. There would be no French-style 
> bourgeois revolution in Russia. So he looked to other forces to do it for them, 
> and came up with the proletariat and peasantry.
>
> The bourgeoisie was so weak that the proletariat and peasantry would have to 
> establish a dictatorship to be sure of keeping power.
>
> Why should the workers do the bourgeoisie's dirty work for them? Firstly, Lenin 
> believed that the Russian working class was not ready for socialism, that it 
> needed a long experience of democracy to organise itself and build up its 
> political awareness before it was able to move to overturn capitalism. This 
> space to develop would be opened by establishing a democratic republic.
>
> Secondly, he was adamant that the bourgeois stage cannot be jumped over. He 
> says: 'we absolutely insist on the necessity of drawing a most strict line' 
> between the two revolutions. The republic was to remain 'within the bounds of 
> bourgeois social and economic relationships'.
>
> So the slogan made total sense: 'democratic' to allow working-class 
> development, a 'dictatorship' to keep it on course; and 'proletarian and 
> peasant' to describe its leading forces. Its social and economic content being 
> bourgeois.
>
> Trouble was, it didn't turn out this way.
>
> There was no long period of democratic bourgeois republic in 1917 or 1918. The 
> regime installed in February achieved none of the tasks that are associated 
> with the bourgeois revolution, not even the most basic. These were addressed 
> after the Bolshevik seizure of power. Indeed the new government went out of its 
> way to avoid any socialist measures.
>
> Thus the Trotskyist talk of 'combining' socialist and bourgeois measures 
> immediately after the seizure of power does not apply to this experience. The 
> dictatorship was not a socialist one. Not at first anyway.
>
> But Lenin's 1905 notion of a stable democratic state went out the window too. 
> Indeed Lenin after 1917 begins to explain things very differently. The 
> revolution was bourgeois he explains, only insofar as the working class had to 
> keep an alliance with the whole of the peasantry. This was a tactical 
> consideration. The block was formed in order to peel off the poor peasants from 
> the wealthy ones. He now talks of 'a dictatorship of the proletariat and poor 
> peasants'. Very different.
>
> If the delay is only tactical, a device to realign short-term politics, not an 
> unavoidable stage of historical development, then the thinking behind the 1905 
> slogan falls. For example, where the peasantry is already politically divided 
> then there is no reason to delay moving to the socialist tasks. Hey ho let's go.
>
> In fact the whole purpose of the slogan, to replace the bourgeoisie as the 
> agent of the bourgeois revolution is pointless. The seizure of power is in 
> order to move quickly to the socialist reconstruction.
>
> The slogan remains the same but the content changes. The immediate aim of the 
> dictatorship is socialism, not a republic. The block with the peasantry is just 
> one of convenience, to win over the poorer layers. The 'democratic' component 
> has changed too. There is no need it seems for a long period of socialist 
> education and organisation it seems.
>
> As soon as they thought they had sufficient support in the countryside the 
> Bolsheviks introduced socialist changes. Now Lenin says 'to attempt to raise an 
> artificial Chinese wall' between the socialist and bourgoeis revolutions 'means 
> to distort Marxism dreadfully'.
>
> It is clear from this reasoning that when Lenin used the 'democratic 
> dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry' slogan in 1905 he had a quite 
> different usage to the one of 1917. Unfortunately, he never admitted this, as 
> far as I know. And it is the source of much confusion, not least, to me.
>
>
>
>
>
>                 
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