The State and Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Rather than undergoing the exhausting process of evaluating, analyzing, and reviewing Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ masterpiece, The Communist Manifesto, I’ve taken it upon myself to scrutinize (constructively of course) in a Marxist nature some of the most fundamental (and often times overlooked) principles of the philosophy. The nature of the state in which Marx (and his subsequent successors) is an important question of class antagonisms that are just as prevalent today as they were over 150 years ago. In regarding the questions of the state it’s imperative to identify another key tenet of Marxism, and that is the dictatorship of the proletariat. These concepts, as well as the other numerous points of particular importance, require a significant amount of study as well as putting things into context, and this is the ultimate aim of my work (Marx 382).
Before we begin, it is understood that when describing the state, Marx is actually talking about two important stages in the development of society. Marx defines the state in the following context:
The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. (Karl Marx 384)
What Marx is talking about, and which would later be expounded upon by the great Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin, is that the state symbolizes organized suppression of one class against another. In other words, in capitalist society, it is the bourgeoisie who utilizes state power in its suppression of the proletarian working class as well as sustaining its own stake in society. Thus, it is the act of socialist revolution that creates a power void after the bourgeoisie have been replaced, and it is up to the proletariat to assume state power and present an agenda of class suppression on its former exploiters, the bourgeoisie.
At this stage, we have to recognize the key differences between the bourgeois state and the proletariat (workers) state. Bother are defined by their class antagonisms that which dictate the general direction of each respective society. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is a complicated issue to say the least. Even in the most democratic sense, the bourgeois states (the United States, Great Britain, and France) freedom exists only for the rich to get richer. Democracy, particularly that of the bourgeois nature, is perhaps the vilest political disposition known to man, and will inevitably fracture at the mighty hand of socialism. In essence then, we can conclude that it is the bourgeois state operating under bourgeois democracy that utilizes state suppression and terror against the subservient working class (Marx 384).
As for the worker’s state (proletarian state power), class subjugation is still present, in accordance to the aforementioned definition of the state itself, only now the majority class is using state resources to suppress the wealthy bourgeois/petty-bourgeois class. Marx cites this transformation as the necessity “to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class” (Marx 384) It’s at this point that Marx becomes somewhat ambiguous. He does however go into detail the types of policies and framework of government the new ruling class must initiate, but nothing in excessive detail. This ambiguosity led to Lenin’s expounding upon Marx’s “dictatorshop of the proletariat” in his classic work The State and Revolution.
The “dictatorship of the proletariat” marks the essential transitionary period between capitalism and communism (aptly named socialism) in which the socio-economic system in which society was previously founded upon is transitioned into a social structure that benefits no one particular class via exploitation over another. This is an ipmortant aspect because Marx specifically notes that exploitation of one human being over another must end abruptly on the ascension of the proletariat to power. Exploitation refers to the way in which the working class is exploited through capital into producing what is known as surplus value; however, this is another topic altogether, but poignant to our debate nonetheless.
When describing this “dictatorship of the proletariat,” Marx may have chosen not to go into detail regarding this government due to the nature of change and the circumstantial properties in which each revolution would subsequently undergo. This lack of structured definition has left open a structural void that would later be filled by Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, and other great communist leaders/philosophers. The dicatorship of the proletariat truly represents the point in human progression (and in accordance to historical/dialectical materialism) that the state thus far represents the agenda of the working class towards the socialization/nationalization of the means of production, and in essense the end of wage slavery and capital appropriation from the working class.
The nature of the dictatorship must be one built on the essence of the vanguard. The vanguard represents the most committed, resolute, and better organized of any social movement. After the revolution, it is the vanguard who assumes power, and essentially becomes the state. The nature of the state is that of a immensely strong, centralized government with the capabilities of the complete socioalization of the economy, the resources of drafting and mobilizing a large Red or People’s Army, and finally the ability to subjugate the bourgeoisie.
Historically, as seen in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, the People’s Republic of China, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, this dictatorship has systematically been in the shape of a monolithic government, suitable for undertaking the and commanding the economy, state affairs, and foreign policy. The “dictatorship,” while criticized in the west for its authoritarian tendencies, without regard or understanding of the priorities and circumstances for which this dictatorship arises. Any government or state body that is going to pursue revolutionary socialist democracy is in turn forced to turn over certain individualistic rights in order for economic security and equality (these rights are undeniably false metaphysical principles); a sacrifice the west has not come to appreciate in its own individualistic attitudes towards life. These governments represented the true interpretations of the Marxist-Leninist model of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
There are certain undertakings the dictatorship of the proletariat must utilize in its continued class antagonisms towards the bourgeois class as a whole. Some of these policies may include the creation of a secret police service, censorship of the press, government seizure of private property, and the collectivization of the farmland. A point of particular interest is the suppression of the bourgeois press in a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. The press subsequently becomes an extended arm of the state, and all other branches of media become forbidden. Also, the democratic system (in the western sense) must be suspended and all opposition political parties must be declared illegal.
Outside of class suppression of the former ruling class, the dictatorship assumes another, greater responsibility of dealing with internal forces of reaction and revisionism. Marx defines reaction as the conservative response to radical, revolutionary change. If history has told us anything, it’s the nature of the reaction will almost always turn a violent face towards any revolutionary initiatve. This can be seen in the insurrection of the White Army/Guards in Soviet Russia, to the predated reactionary components facing the French Revolution. The reactionary forces require firm, swift, and decisive action in a manner in which the severity of responsive actions will not only deter future counter-revolution, but also to successfully display to external forces that the new revolutionary dictatorship is a force to be reckoned with.
“In this sense, the theory of Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property” (Marx 387). This basic summation by Marx offers the most appropriate defining characteristic of the communist movement. It is up to the dictatorship of the proletariat to undertake the abolition of private property. This doesn’t mean the abolition of private property in the most general sense, but rather, as Marx puts it, “âÂ?¦but the abolition of bourgeois property.” This property, as held by the bourgeoisie, is the property of exploitation, capital exploited out of wage labour and based on antagonisms of the capitalistic class system. The owner of this property assumes social status, thus it can be reduced that capital is the equivalent to social power. This is what legislation and direct force by the government must vehemently struggle against, in the creation of a new society. It is of the utmost importance that the seizure and banishment of private property continue to be a societal staple in order for the revolution (based on dialectic theory) to be successful. Active participation in the spread of capital amongst a few private individuals, as what has been done in the People’s Republic of China, will only lead to the degredation and “market socialism.”
While communist democracy is the ultimate goal, Marx emphasizes the importance of the transitional period in which democracy, the false democracy of the bourgeois, is crushedand replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Proletarian democracy will in turn result out of said dictatorship and symbolize the end of class exploitation and wealth appropriation. Marx thoroughly addresseses the concept of the dictatorship as well as the other principle aspects of communism in his manifesto for the Party. His notion and ideas are that based on a philosophy that continues to spread to this day, amongst the embattled revolutionaries of Nepal, Peru, Colombia, India and others. Marx’s theories have been heavily renounced and criticized by contemporary western capitalists, particularly by the likes of neoliberals such as Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. It’s the likes of these few individuals whom look to further their own capital gains and sustain this failing system, while at the same time continuing the class antagonisms unbeknownst to the working class, whom in the west is completley blind to their own suffering and exploitation. It is not Marxism that’s dead, but rather the capitalist system as it continues to progress (just as Marx predicted). And perhaps the most significant event of the twentieth century was in fact this final progression of the capitalistic system, as laissez-faire capitalism transformed into welfare capitalism, and the most recent monolith, the final stage: imperialism (or global capitalism).
Sources
Marx, Karl. “The Communist Manifesto.” Searching for Great Ideas: Readings Past and Present. Ed. Thomas Klein, Bruce Edwards, Thomas Wymer. United States: Thomson Heinle, 1998. 382-391.
