dictatorship of the proletariat

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The 'Volatile' Marxian Concept of the Dictatorship of the ProletariatAuthor(s): Zoltan BaranySource: Studies in East European Thought, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 1-21Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099623 .

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ZOLTANBARANY

THE 'VOLATILE' MARXIAN CONCEPT OF THEDICTATORSHIP F THE PROLETARIAT*

ABSTRACT. The thesis of this paper is that even some of themost fundamentalconcepts of Marxism have been used and abused to fit their advocates' purposes.More specifically, the interpretation of the concept of the "dictatorship of theproletariat" has been subject to a dual development. First, the dictatorship of theproletariat has come to denote an increasingly violent regime. Second, the termhas been used to refer to a rule exercised by an ever smaller segment of society.This paper seeks to analyze and elucidate this much disputed and frequentlymisunderstood Marxist concept. In the first partMarx's use of the term is examined.The second section explores how the same concept was explicated in thewritingsof some of themost important first generation Marxist thinkers and "practitioners"like Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Bukharin, and Stalin. Following the summary of myfindings I attempt to formulate some meaningful generalizations about the usageof the concept by Marxist thinkers.KEY WORDS: dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx, Lenin, Stalin

Those who recognize only the class struggle are not yet Marxists... Only he is aMarxist who extends the recognition of the classstruggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.1

"All things are relative, all things flow, and all things change," opinedLenin in 1905. If anything, Marxist thought has amply confirmedhis "wisdom;" its various and swiftly multiplying interpretations,justifications, and utilizations have been as diverse as the aims of itschampions. The effects of this phenomenon have presented a seriousdilemma to many contemporary Marxists: is Marxism, in spiteof its countless variations, still a fundamentally cohesive theoryor is it "infinitely catholic, today's orthodoxy being yesterday'sheresy?"2The thesis of this paper is that even some of themost fundamentalconcepts of Marxism have been used and abused to fit their advocates' purposes. More specifically, the interpretation of the conceptof the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (die Diktatur des Proletariats) has been subject to a dual development. First, the dictatorshipStudies in East European Thought 49: 1-21,1997.

? 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in theNetherlands.

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of the proletariat has come to denote an increasingly violent regime.Second, the term has been used to refer to a rule exercised by an eversmall segment of society. This paper seeks to analyze and elucidatethismuch disputed and frequently misunderstood Marxist concept.First, I will examine Marx's use of the term. In the second sectionthe focus shifts to explore how the same concept was explicated inthe writings of some of the most revered first generation Marxistthinkers like Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Bukharin, and Stalin. The concluding section summarizes my findings and attempts to formulatesome meaningful generalizations about the usage of the concept by

Marxist thinkers.The "dictatorship of the proletariat" inMarxist thought was predicated upon the notion that there will be a period of transition betweenthe defeat of capitalism and the victory of socialism. Marx assumed

that the ranks of the working class would continuously expand asever larger segments of the bourgeoisie lost their battle for survivaland became impoverished proletars, forced to sell their labor for theirlivelihood. Thus, Marx anticipated that by the time the proletarianrevolution was to take place the vast majority of the people would be

workers and relatively few bourgeois elements would remain. Buthow many are a few? What form would the transition take? Howlongwill the transition period between capitalism and socialism last?It is noteworthy that even during Marx's lifetime there was no concord among Marxists on these and other similarly crucial practicaland theoretical issues.

MARX'S CONCEPTOF PROLETARIANDICTATORSHIPOut of the large body of Marx's contribution to political thought,probably the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has had the mostprofound implication for actual governance. In order to understandthe meaning of this concept, first it ought to be broken down toits components: the notions of "proletariat" or "working class,"and to that of "dictatorship," and must be separately defined. Theintrinsic significance of aprecise definition of the proletariat has beenrecognized by many sociologists. Nevertheless, no widely accepted

meaning has been agreed upon for an adequate definition must incorporate the notions of class-consciousness, productive physical labor,



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and industrial employment. In the context of the "materialist concept of politics" it is clear why the "boundary problem" is consideredto be a crucial one. It involves "political questions of the greatestimportance concerning the role of the working class and of alliancesin the transition period."3 Still, there is no agreement about whoshould and who should not be regarded amember of the workingclass. In the view of Poulantzas, for instance, it is necessary for theproblem of all salaried workers tobe posed inclass terms, rather thanin terms of stratification. Therefore, he would include white-collar

workers in the working class while the French and other communistparties have traditionally denied the proletarian character of suchemployees.4

For two reasons, at the center of the debate on the "membership" in or composition of the proletariat lies the notion of "productive labor" as an important clue to the definition of the proletariat.

First, it is instrumental in establishing a rigorous connection betweenMarx's writings on value and exploitation and the concept of social

class. Second, free labor is, for Marx, the hallmark of an authenticexistence. Since Marx and Engels never provided an unambiguousdefinition of the proletariat, the question whether commercial and/orwhite-collar workers are members of the working class could neverbe resolved ex cathedra.

The very concept of "dictatorship" has also been subjected toscores of various interpretations since its appearance in ancient

Rome, when itwas considered constitutional, temporary, and limitedin many ways. It meant different things at the time of the French

Revolution, in 1848, and in 1917. Certainly, "dictatorship" was notthe word that commonly came tomine to describe absolute authorityeven inMarx's lifetime. For Louis Blanc in 1848, dictatorship meanthe domination of the "enlightened people of the cities" over thenumerically superior "ignorant people of the countryside," that is,the rule of aminority.5 Bakunin explained that he rejected a "parlia

mentary republic," representative rule, constitutional forms, etc. forhe... thought that inRussia more than anywhere else a strong dictatorial governmentthat would be exclusively concerned with elevating and educating the popularmasses would be necessary; a government free in the direction it takes and in itsspirit, but without parliamentary forms; with the printing of books free in contentbut without the freedom of printing ...6



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These views demonstrate clearly that the definition regarding theconcepts of the "proletariat" (or "working class") and "dictatorship"have been interpreted as variedly as the individuals who set out todefine them. This is partly the result of the fact that theirmeaningin Marx's texts was seldom consistent and clear. Perhaps the mostlucid statement thatMarx himself made regarding the dictatorshipof the proletariat can be found in a letter he sent to his friend Josef

Wedemeyer in 1852. Discussing his own role indescribing historicaldevelopments Marx said:

What I did new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound upwith particular historical phases of the development of production', 2) that theclass struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that thisdictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes andto a classless society?

The broad outlines of Marx's ideas are discernible from this wellknown excerpt from his letter. It comes as little surprise, however,that many have been confused about the exact meaning of Marx'sterminology. The blame is partly the author's for Marx had offeredremarkably few hints as to the precise meaning of his concepts.In view of this notion it is apparent why the conceptual debatesurrounding the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has never ceased.

Nevertheless, there are two issues Marx had been clear and persistent about when dealing with the notion of "dictatorship" in general.

First, whenever the subject of dictatorship came up in the context ofthe socialist movement, Marx's comments were always pejorative.

He vehemently opposed any notion of a dictator or dictatorship inthe workers' movement and equated itwith tyranny; indeed, the concept for Marx certainly "did not imply tyrannical rule."8 As Huntconvincingly argues, Marx and Engels' conception of proletariandictatorship did not require all workers to support a single party, letalone aMarxist party, still less that all other parties be suppressed.9

Second, the concept of "dictatorship" in Marx's mind was notnecessarily linked to the notion of "dictatorship of the proletariat."Clearly, these were two separate entries in his vocabulary.10 Thispoint, of course, does not resolve the issue altogether. The meaningcould have been there, even if the familiar phrase was coined later.Draper, notwithstanding his elaborate argument, appears to be wronghere. As Marx's letter attests, he used the phrase that for him denoted



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the end towhich class struggle led. The pairing of the two concepts- "dictatorship" and "proletariat" - could hardly be coincidental.Marx first used the term the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in1850. Two years earlier, in theManifesto of the Communist Party heemployed the term "the rule of theproletariat" but it seems thathe didnot make any distinctions between the two. As amatter of fact, Marxmade it clear that he recognized no substantive difference betweenhis concept of the dictatorship of theproletariat as set out inThe ClassStruggle in France and the formulation utilized in theManifesto}1

While Marx had remarkably little to say about the transition periodor proletarian dictatorship, his views of the state after the successfulworkers' revolution are delineated with particular lucidity in TheCivil War in France, and, in a somewhat less elaborate fashion, intheCritique of the Gotha Programme}2Marx recognized the historical significance of theParis Communeas a social and political victory for theworking class. Although heregarded the Commune "the political form discovered at last," innone of his writings did he ever refer to it as an example of thedictatorship of the proletariat precisely because, for a number ofreasons, he did not consider it as such. First, Marx's reluctance tocharacterize the Commune as a proletarian dictatorship followedfrom the fact that he perceived this dictatorship as the product ofa socialist revolution on a national scale.13 Second, the Communealso failed tomeasure up toMarx's expectations because it had takenplace against his advice and he knew that themajority of its leaderswere not "communists" or people to his own liking.14 Indeed, thefew "Marxists" participating in the Commune acted, for the mostpart, out of spontaneous enthusiasm rather than driven by definiteideas about the future.15 Thirdly, Marx's accounts of the Communeleave no doubt that he thought it should have developed amore clearsighted and less ambiguously defined social and economic program.

Marx was, in fact, so appalled by the direction of the Commune'saffairs that at one point he even asserted that its policies "were notsocialist."16 In theCritique his most direct statement referring to thetransition period is in essence a projection of the future existence ofa historical "period of revolutionary transformation;" during this era"the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of theproletariat."17



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Although Marx had never defined exactly what he meant by the"dictatorship of the proletariat" it is clear that he thought of thisconcept as a temporary phenomenon that would take place duringthe brief period of transition between capitalism to socialism. Still,Marx's ideas regarding the transition period had been characterizedby a great deal of conceptual vagueness. He provided two differentinterpretations of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Inwhat David

Lovell calls the "core meaning," Marx understands the defense of thesocialist revolution against a bourgeois opposition.18 Accordingly,the dictatorship of theproletariat ismerely one aspect of the transitionperiod. The second meaning, however, identifies the "dictatorship"with the entire transition, that is, itwould determine the political andsocio-economic realms from the time of the successful revolutionuntil the arrival of socialism. Here, then, not only does dictatorshipsuggest that "defense of the revolution against the bourgeoisie is the

primary task of the transition, to which all else must be subordinate,but itmakes no distinction between class rules."19

Not surprisingly, there isa great deal of discord among students

of Marxism on Marx's interpretation of the transition period itself.Etienne Balibar, for instance, considers the dictatorship of the proletariat as the period of transition from capitalism to communism.

He argues that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the periodof transition to socialism for "it is socialism itself, an historicalperiod of uninterrupted revolution and of the deepening of the classstruggle."20 Yet others consider this period to extend from the proletarian revolution to the advent of socialism, admittedly, amomentousdifference.21

Likewise, no scholarly agreement has been reached on the question of whether Marx regarded political or economic elements tobe themost important for defining the transition to socialism. For

Lovell, the central aspect of transition in Marx's thought was itsfostering of politics as an activity integral to human existence.22This view is hardly congruent with other interpretations of Marx,according to which the very purpose of the transition stage was totranscend "political" freedom. For Daler Deol, however, the function of the period of transition forMarx was clearly twofold. Onthe one hand, the mission of the proletarian dictatorship was to sup

press the resistance of the bourgeoisie, i.e., a political-destructive set



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of activities and, on the other hand, to establish socialism throughsocio-economic reconstruction, i.e., via constructive socio-economicactivities.23 It should be reiterated thatMarx only considered thenotion of "transition" as ameans to the end (socialism) and not as anend in itself. Itwas in this context thatMarx expressed enthusiasmfor the Paris Commune as an effective dissolution of the state.

Accepting the notion that the dictatorship of the proletariat is butone aspect of the transition period, there still remain such questions ashow and by whom the dictatorship would be organized, how would itenforce its authority, etc. Whatever Marx believed would be or mightbe characteristic of the transition period, itwas not this term that dealtwith future problems of theworkers' state.24The dictatorship of theproletariat did not refer to specialized characteristics or instrumentsof the envisioned workers' rule, such as the utilization of coerciveterror; itmeant proletarian rule itself. Nonetheless, Marxism has notbeen a stranger to thewell-known tension between the acceptance of violence as an inevitable concomitant of the class struggle ... on the one hand, and the utopia of a classless societyinwhich all instruments of coercion would wither away, on the other.25

Marx himself, however, failed to define the use of violence duringthe transition period. Although he did not explicitly disapprove ofcoercion, he certainly did not advocate its unbridled use. Herbert

Marcuse's interpretation supports this point:Violence was at least not inherent in the action of the proletariat; class consciousness neither necessarily depended upon nor expressed itself in open civil warfare;violence belonged neither to the objective nor to the subjective conditions of therevolution (although itwas Marx's and Engels's conviction that the ruling classescould and would not dispense with violence).26

Neither is there anything to indicate inMarx's writings that he"conceived the proletarian state as a party state, a dictatorship of asingle party ruling, or claiming to rule on behalf of the proletariat."27It appears that, asMihailo Markovic noted, the emerging regimesthat called themselves "Marxist" conveniently "forgot" the fact, that

Marx referred to the rule of the "working majority of people whichhad to give way to a stateless society .. .The word 'dictatorship'was, however, well remembered."28

In a sense, Marx's failure to specify practical aspects of implementing the dictatorship provided an unusually large margin of



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interpretation for his disciples. It is important to realize that inMarx's thinking dictatorship was not an inherent part of workers'rule and this, in fact,may be the reason thatMarx and Engels used the

term so rarely.29 Miliband's conclusion appears to be correct when heasserts that forMarx the dictatorship of the proletariat constituted... both a statement of the class character of the political power and a descriptionof the political power itself... it is, in fact, the nature of the political power whichit describes which guarantees its class character.30

It seems clear, then, that Marx used the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" rather sparsely and ambiguously in his

writings. Moreover, when he did employ the term, he failed to elaborate on specific aspects of its denotation. As we will see, theseshortcomings were to have dire consequences in the usage of theterm by the first generation ofMarxist writers.

THE 'MODIFICATION' FA MARXIAN CONCEPT:FROM ENGELS TOSTALINIt is ironic, perhaps, that Engels 's interpretation of the concept and,

more importantly, his understanding of Marx's interpretation, wassharply criticized by his irreverent contemporaries as well as futuregenerations of Marxists and students of Marxism. Some of the misunderstanding pertaining to Marx's views on the Commune wereoriginated by Engels 's famous remark, directed against the "socialdemocratic philistine" in 1891: "Look at the Paris Commune. Thatwas the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."31 As noted above, Marxnever identified the Commune as the dictatorship of the proletariat.Engels 's error, however, should be evaluated in the specific historicalcontext. Faced with a growing social democratic movement that wasswiftly becoming increasingly reformist in the 1890s, he felt he hadto point to immediate political objectives that would be justifiablewith the broader concepts of Marxist ideology.The reason for the divergent interpretation of the concept of the"dictatorship of the proletariat" appears to lie in the fact thatEngelshad been heavily influenced by the anarchist vision of a statelessfuture. The only modification that he made to the anarchist schemawas the inclusion of the era of transition inwhich the state, if still inexistence, would function merely as a tool in the hands of the proletariat used to defend the revolution from its enemies. Consequently,



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Engels stressed the coercive nature of the proletarian dictatorshipin the transition period considerably more than Marx did. At thesame time, Engels did not realize that a "transition period centered

on coercion, to a society in which there shall be no coercion, seemsto entail overwhelming risks."32 Summarizing Engels 's role as theinterpreter of Marx, Michael Harrington wrote:... [He is] the second great figure in theMarxist misunderstanding of Marxism... [Marx] was unjust to his ideas in a few passages; Engels did much moreconsistent harm to his mentor's theory although he sometimes was its shrewdestinterpreter.33In sum, while Engels - similarly to Marx - recognized the mainfunction of the dictatorship of the proletariat to be the suppressionof bourgeois resistance to the new rule he, too, failed to be morespecific thereby opening up ways to divergent interpretations of histheses.34

Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and most other "revisionists"actively discouraged the use of the Marxian "dictatorship of theproletariat" concept arguing that with its illiberal connotations itwould be a rule by a minority, an embattled regime built on theunstable foundations of a yet unprepared working class.35 For themproletarian dictatorship referred to the dominance of the workingclass and did not denote a tyrannical, non-consensual form of governance.

Many German socialists who developed the workers' movementinto a real political force inGermany had propagated views thatwerequite different from those held by Marx and Engels. Among them,Kautsky and Luxemburg were ardent critics of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat that had come to power - according to the claims ofthe Bolshevik leaders - in Soviet Russia. For Rosa Luxemburg, onlya spontaneous form of proletarian politics can be the dictatorship ofthe proletariat. For Kautsky, in so far as the term is acceptable at all,it stands only as a somewhat "parliamentarized" version of the Paris

Commune, resting upon the highest moral authority of the vote. Consent is abstracted from coercion and is declared to be the conceptualsoul of the true proletarian state.36 As Kautsky states, dictatorship"as a form of government" is something rather different from thedictatorship of a class, since "a class can only rule, not govern."37

Kautsky, then, denied the very possibility of the realization ofsocialism where democracy was displaced by dictatorship.38 He went



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as far as suggesting that the "dictatorship of the proletariat had beenan off-the-cuff phrase by Marx and had no serious importance for

Marxism."39 For him, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was distinguished from democracy chiefly by its lack of universal suffrage andpopular participation in politics. Voting rights had become increasingly inclusive in the industrial nations of Europe between the 1880sand the 1920s. Universal manhood suffrage was introduced by 1919in Britain, France, theWeimar Republic, and Italy, but substantialexpansion in the granting of voting privileges was realized by asearly as 1915. Thus, for Kautsky in 1918 the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" had quite different connotations than for

Marx, partly because the socio-political milieu of his time was radically different fromMarx's. By 1918 in Soviet-Russia, rival partieshad been already outlawed, open opposition had been suppressed,and suffrage had been restricted by the Bolsheviks, to be sure, butthe effective terrormachinery affecting the bulk of the populationwas not yet put in place.

One of the principal reasons for the European social democraticparties' attacks on Bolshevism in the late 1910s and early 1920swas the contrast between "democracy" and "dictatorship." The firsttwo decades of the twentieth century was a period of often brilliantintellectual debate among the various factions of the left, concerning practical and theoretical aspects of the workers' movementin general, and the Marxian legacy in particular. Kautsky's book,The Dictatorship of theProletariat (1918) and Lenin's reply in the

pamphlet The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky wasperhaps the culmination of a long-standing intellectual and ideological feud between the Bolsheviks and "mainstream" Europeansocial democrats. On the question of the dictatorship Kautsky arguedthat since "the exploiters have always formed only a small minority

of the population" the rule of the proletariat need not assume a form"incompatible with democracy." Lenin's less than radiant rejoinder

was that the "pure" democracy Kautsky talked about was "sheernonsense. Kautsky, with the learned air of a most learned armchairfool, or with the innocent air of a ten-year old schoolgirl, asks: Whydo we need dictatorship when we have a majority?"40While Lenin surely had clear ideas regarding the political future,his thoughts were ill-formed as far as immediate tasks were con



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cerned. According tomany of his critics, Lenin simply ignored the"laws of development." This is evident not only on the theoreticallevel but in the extraordinary terminological confusions before andjust after the Bolshevik Revolution.41 In fact, J?rgen Habermas, supporting Daniel Bell's argument, contends that the "Soviets inOctober1917 under the direction of Leninistically schooled professionalrevolutionaries had no immediate socialist aims."42 It is characteristic of Lenin's initial naivete or political opportunism that he

believed that "workers' control" - itself a much debated notion -could run an entire society. A practical thinker, Lenin swiftly realized, however, that some measure of bureaucracy was necessary in

order to keep the country governed. In a remarkable statement at thetime, he said that "Ours is a workers' government with a bureaucratictwist."43

Thus, when the Bolsheviks seized power, the dictatorship of themajority, envisioned by Marx, had gradually turned into the dicta

torship of an ever smaller minority.44 Lenin's ideas, however, weremore concisely formulated than those of Marx. For him, the "partywas completely identified with the dictatorship of the proletariat."45The "revolutionary" party's function, under the Bolsheviks, was to"lead themasses and organize and unite them in the struggle for thevictory of anew system."46 The Leninist rationale for such a "leadingrole" of the party was that "No dictatorship by a class can be organized in such a way as to enable the whole class to exercise directleadership of society," thus "the function of guiding society in the

name of the class ... is performed by its political vanguard" i.e., theBolshevik Party.47 In the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet GovernmentLenin declared that

... Soviet power is nothing but an organizational form of the dictatorship of theproletariat, the dictatorship of the advanced class, which raises to a new democracyand to independent participation in the administration of the state tens upon tensof millions of working people, who by their own experience learn to regard thedisciplined and class conscious vanguard of the proletariat as their most reliableleader.48

This passage illustrates well Lenin's interpretation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." First, he refers to the dictatorship of the"advanced class," but it soon becomes evident that there is an even"more advanced" stratum of the "advanced class," the vanguard



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of the proletariat, that is, the Bolshevik Party. As Lenin explicitlynoted:Yes, the dictatorship of one party! We stand upon it and cannot depart from thisground, since this is the party which in the course of decades has won for itselfthe position of vanguard of thewhole factory and industrial proletariat.49

Lenin was convinced about the necessity of coercion during thetransition period. As he explained inMarch 1917 inone of his lettersfrom afar, the purpose of coercion was to ensure that when the oldstate machinery was crushed, the people "substitute a new one forit, merging the police force, the army, and the bureaucracy with theentire armed population."50 In his thought, violent suppression is a

major if not themost important attribute of proletarian dictatorship.In Lenin's words, "the dictatorship rests directly on violence."51 Asearly as 1904 he declared that "the dictatorship of the proletariat isan absolutely meaningless expression without Jacobin coercion."52Furthermore, in his later writings Lenin equated proletarian dictatorship with violence: "when we speak of dictatorship we meanthe employment of coercion" specifically organized as institutionalviolence.53

Nevertheless, themore pragmatic the policies of the Bolshevikleadership became, the more criticism they had to face from externaland even internal sources. Already in 1921, Alexandra Kollontay,a prominent Bolshevik and sometime critic of her party, openlylamented social developments:

The workers ask - who are we? Are we really the prop of the class dictatorship,or are we just an obedient flock that serves as a support for those, who havingsevered all ties with themasses, carry out their own policy and build up industrywithout regard to our opinions and creative abilities under the reliable cover ofthe Party label?54

What Kollontay perceived was that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" had turned into not only the dictatorship of the BolshevikParty but into the dictatorship of the upper echelon of the BolshevikParty that had gradually become totally estranged from theworkingclass.

Since then, Communist leaders have cleverly utilized many ofLenin's statements that point to the necessity of violence for thesake of establishing proletarian dictatorship. Various interpretationsof Lenin by Soviet writers also assisted Communist leaders abroad



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in their efforts to create totalitarian dictatorships. As one such workcontends, while the "proletarian dictatorship implies not only orchiefly coercion," violence is an indispensable attribute of thisconcept.55 Le Duan, the Vietnamese Marxist leader interpreted Leninnot quite a half-a-century later as follows:Lenin developed the idea of carrying out proletarian revolution by violencewhere imperialism existed. In discussing democracy under bourgeois rule, Leninpointed out that the bourgeoisie would only allow a democracy ... within a certain limit, without detriment to its rule. Should theworking class go beyond thislimit, the bourgeoisie would suppress itwith open violence. Therefore, counterrevolutionary violence can only be smashed with revolutionary violence.56

Lenin seems to have been acutely conscious of the fact that, givenRussian backwardness and isolation, Soviet rule utilized the dictatorship of the proletariat in its harshest form.57While Lenin advocateda particularly merciless form of dictatorship for Soviet-Russia, heappears to have also expressed the hope that, as he put it in 1919,"other countries will travel by a different, more humane road."58Soviet writers reiterated the notion that the Soviet model was notnecessarily the example to be emulated. Their explanation for thecrude dictatorship imposed by the Bolsheviks was that the "classopponents offered stronger resistance to socialist developments inSoviet-Russia than in other socialist countries."59 Given the historyof Communist states, such an explanation should be accepted onlywith wary contemplation.

Bolshevik leaders other than Lenin were also ready to publicizetheir interpretations of Marx's concept of the proletarian dictatorship.

For Bukharin, one of the better equipped Bolshevik theoreticians, theproletariat was not a homogenous social category. The proletariat'svictory and the subsequent establishment of its dictatorship wastypically the development of its nature, which was characterized bya signal instability of the productive forces. Consequently, Bukharinargued, it had to be recognized that there would "inevitably result atendency to 'degeneration,' that is, the excretion of a leading stratumin the form of a class-germ."60 He saw the source of "degeneration"during the transition period in the heterogeneity of the workingclass and in the fact that the productive forces were, at this time,"materially insecure." Recognizing the attendant implication thatthe "class enemy" would also be characterized by heterogeneity,

Bukharin advised lenience toward certain strata of the bourgeoisie



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14 ZOLTANBARANY- notably toward the technical intelligentsia - during the transitionperiod.In his essay, "The Theory of theDictatorship of the Proletariat."(1919) Bukharin insists that the proletarian state is a "dictatorship ofthe majority over the minority." He contends that theaim of the proletarian dictatorship is to break the old relations of productionand to organize new relations in the sphere of social economics, the 'dictatorialinfringement' of the rights of private property.61

For Bukharin, then, the foremost attribute of the Soviet power is thatit is the "power of the mass organizations of the proletariat and therural poor."62

For Leon Trotsky, who shared Bukharin's early prominence andtragic fate, proletarian dictatorship had ameaning associated with

more violence. As he wrote,Just as a lamp before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, beforedisappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., themostruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively inevery direction.63

Trotsky understood proletarian dictatorship not only as an essentiallyviolent regime but also as the last historical stage in which theconventional state had legitimate functions. In sum, he was an even

more spirited advocate of violent dictatorship than Lenin.64 Trotsky,similarly to other Bolsheviks sharing his views, had remarkably littleto say with regards to the practical arrangements of the "inevitablestateless future."

Looking at Stalin's thoughts on proletarian dictatorship itbecomes clear that the long process of misinterpreting the concepthad reached its climax. In Stalin's interpretation the dictatorship ofthe proletariat was synonymous with violence and, in practice atleast, the entire proletariat was represented by a single dictator. ForStalin, as he explained in The Foundations of Leninism (1924), thedictatorship of the proletariat was the instrument of the proletarianrevolution."There have been no cases in history where dying classes havevoluntarily departed from the scene" therefore, class struggle duringthe dictatorship of the proletariat must necessarily become moreintensified.65 Even though the bourgeoisie might have been defeated



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it could still draw strength from international capital and from itsenduring connections with the international capitalist community.The dictatorship of the proletariat arises not on the basis of the bourgeois order,but in the process of the breaking up of this order, after the overthrow of thebourgeoisie ... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a revolutionary power basedon the use of force against the bourgeoisie... for the proletarian state is amachinefor the suppression of the bourgeoisie.66

In contrast with Bukharin, the dictatorship of the proletariataccording to Stalin is not a brief interlude in the evolution of thecommunist state but an entire historical era.67 Another major difference between the two Bolsheviks is that, as we have seen, Bukharinwould have spared some groups of the bourgeoisie (particularlysome segments of the intelligentsia) from the wrath of proletariandictatorship while themajor objective of this stage for Stalin wasto physically crush any potential opposition to proletarian rule.68 Inthe late 1920s and early 1930s, under the emerging Stalinist form ofproletarian dictatorship the perspicacious intellectual polemic of thefirst fifty years afterMarx's death had degenerated into Stalin's andhis henchmen's heavy-handed and often irrational verbal attacks onand, increasingly, physical elimination of, their real and presumedenemies.

CONCLUSIONThe preceding discussion attempted to demonstrate how the interpretation of the Marxian notion of the "dictatorship of the proletariat"had changed in the first half century after Karl Marx's demise.Since Marx we have witnessed a dual development in the use of theconcept.

First, proletarian dictatorship had come to be associated withthe dictatorship of an increasingly narrow stratum of society overan ever-larger proportion of the citizenry. As we have seen, forMarx the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the domination of thevast majority of the population by a small minority. For Lenin, thedomination of the small minority had gradually become the rule oftheBolshevik Party. During Stalin's rule, theproletarian dictatorshiphad come todenote the terroristic rule of a small group of individuals(members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet

Union) and, in time, reduced to a single person: Stalin.



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Second, in a parallel development with the gradual erosion of thepopular basis of the dictatorship, the concept had come to denote anever more violent form of governance as well. While Marx did notdissociate himself from the possibility of violence in order to suppress the opposition of the former exploiters, he merely condonedit. Lenin, as we have seen, enthusiastically advocated the necessity

of coercion against the Party's adversaries. Under Stalin, however,proletarian dictatorship had become a tool to justify the indiscriminate slaughter of his and the Soviet leadership's real or imaginedenemies.

This study also attempted to contrast the views of Marx and Leninon the dictatorship of the proletariat. According toDonald Hodges,Lenin's thoughts differed on three points from Marx concerning thisconcept. First, for Marx proletarian revolution begins under the conditions of imperialism while Lenin disregarded theMarxian "laws ofdevelopment." Second, for Lenin a "political rather than economiccrisis becomes a catalyst of the proletarian revolution." Finally, forLenin revolution "breaks out where the link is weaker" while Marxexpected the arrival of proletarian revolution in an advanced industrial society.69

Nevertheless, Hodges's argument is at fault on two accounts. Onthe one hand, he is dealing with the notion of proletarian revolutionand not proletarian dictatorship, clearly two substantially differentconcepts. The former merely suggests the beginning of the transitionperiod during which the latter is presumed to function. On the otherhand, Hodges himself states that "Marx spoke only inpassing of thetransition to Communism," thus he finds it convenient to "turn to

Lenin for an elucidation of this concept." It may be a minor pointbut one should note that, as Marcuse pointed out, the notion of the"weakest link" originated from Trotsky and not Lenin.70

As we have seen above, there are two crucial differences betweenthe interpretations of Marx and Lenin of proletarian dictatorship.First, while Marx preferred a peaceful dictatorship of the proletariat,Lenin considered it necessarily violent. Second, while the term for

Marx denoted the rule of a large majority over a small minority, forLenin it entailed the domination of the ruling Bolshevik Party overthe rest of society. Therefore, to explain Marx's meaning according



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VOLATILE'MARXIAN CONCEPTOF THEDICTATORSHIPOF THEPROLETARIAT 17

to Lenin's interpretation is clearly tantamount to not only a grossmisinterpretation but also to doing injustice toMarx's thought.It appears likely, then, that the dictatorship of the proletariat thatwas realized by the Bolsheviks did not approximate Marx's ideas.Nevertheless, as McCarthy notes, if "the proletariat has failed tocarry out the mission Marx assigned to it, the fault lies not with theproletariat but with themission itself."71More precisely, Marx hadnot only been ambiguous about many aspects of his theories but... in reading Marx (not just Engels) one can find him, at one time or another,

espousing (at different times) both sides of nearly all the polar opposites listedabove, and one cannot explain that by using theword "dialectical" since thatwordexplains everything.72Consequently, it is important to realize that one should not put all theblame for "bending" Marx's concepts only on those who purposefully or inadvertently misinterpreted them. The individuals whosethought this study has attempted to examine were pragmatic thinkers

who simply took advantage of the vaguenesses and ambiguities inMarx's writings on this and other subjects. They did so in order toaccomplish practical goals, to serve political ambitions.It is the inconsistency inMarx's work that has made itpossible for

so many people to construct "their own version of Marxism." Thereare so many alternative Marxisms that one is hard pressed to decide"which one (if any!) is the right forme?" Marxist thinkers have beenconfronted by structuralist Marxism, humanistic Marxism, historical Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism, African

Marxism, and so forth. It seems that the search for the "authentic"Marxism will never end. Eugene Kamenka had the following to sayon the volatility of Marxism:The past history, present character and likely future development of Marxismshow Marxism to be as complex and as much subject to historical change andtension as Christianity ... The only serious way to analyze Marxist or socialistthinking may well be to give up the notion that there is a coherent doctrine calledMarxism and socialism, that there is such thing as theMarxist or socialist idea oreven theMarxist or socialist view of the world.73

Thus, it is difficult to avoid the question of whether or not we mayconsider Marxism as a set of clear and concise ideas in any sense.There is a coherent and clear kernel of Marxism that should berespected and not subjected to misinterpretation and abuse for anyjustification. If there is any accurate definition of what Marxism is,



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the parameters of such explanation should probably include Marx'sdialectical approach to knowledge itself and materialist perspectiveof dealing with history on the one hand, and his general view of capitalism based on his social analysis and his permanent commitmentto socialism, on the other.

This essay sought to demonstrate through the examination of thevarious interpretations of a single concept by the first generationof selected Marxist thinkers some of the practical and theoreticalproblems that resulted from the lack of consistency in theMarxianusage of theoretical constructs. The notion of the "dictatorship of theproletariat" is only one of the many concepts that has been subjectedtomisuse andmisinterpretation. In fact, itwould be rather difficult tofind any aspect ofMarx's thought that has not been disputed. In orderto avoid or at least lower the risk of "misinterpreting" Marx, what

his interpreters ought to strive for is, perhaps, to explore the reasonsbehind Marx's frequently unclear statements and examine the surrounding historical, political, and socio-economic environment thatinfluenced his work.

NOTES* For their insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper I am indebted toProfessors Dante Germino andW. Randy Ne well.1Lenin, "The State and Revolution" in Selected Works, Vol. II, Part 1 (Moscow:Foreign Language Publishing House, 1952), p. 233.2 Les Johnston, Marxism, Class Analysis, and Pluralism: A Theoretical and Political Critique ofMarxist Conceptions of Politics (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986),p. 2.3 Nikos Poulantzas, "The New Petty Bourgeoisie," in A. Hunt, ed., Class andClass Structure (London: Lawrence andWishart, 1977), p. 113.4 Nikos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: New LeftBooks, 1975), p. 201.5Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Vol. Ill, The 'Dictatorship of theProletariat' (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986), pp. 46-47.6 Mikhail Bakunin, The "Confession" of Mikhail Bakunin (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1977), p. 41, my emphasis. For an excellent recent examinationof Bakunin's thought, see Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1988), chapters 1-3.7Marx's italics. See Robert C. Tucker, ed., TheMarx-Engels Reader (New York:W. W. Norton, 1978), p. 220.8 Robert L. Heilbroner, Marxism: For and Against (New York: W. W. Norton,1980), p. 73.



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VOLATILE'MARXIAN CONCEPTOF THEDICTATORSHIP F THE PROLETARIAT199 Richard N. Hunt, The Political Ideas ofMarx and Engels: Classical Marxism1850-1895 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984), pp. 195-199.10Draper, The 'Dictatorship of theProletariat, p. 93.1 For arguments supporting this view, see for instance, Hal Draper, "Marx andtheDictatorship of the Proletariat," New Politics (1962), pp. 91-104.12For an excellent examination of the evolution ofMarx's thought on the state, seeHans Kelsen, Sozialismus und Staat: eine Untersuchung der politischen Theoriedes Marxismus (Vienna: Verlag derWiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1965).13See Ralph Miliband, "Marx and the State," Socialist Register (1965), pp. 278296.14 David McLellan, "Marx, Engels and Lenin on Party and State," in Leslie

Holmes, ed., The Withering Away of the State? Party and State Under Communism (London: SAGE, 1981), pp. 7-33.15 Otto Bihari, The Constitutional Models of Socialist State Organization(Budapest: Akademiai Konyvkiado, 1979), p. 15.16See McLellan, "Marx, Engels and Lenin on Party and State," p. 23; and Robin

Blackburn, "Marxism: Theory of the Proletarian Revolution," New Left Review,No. 97 (1976), p. 27.17Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign LanguagePublishing House, 1952), Vol. II, p. 33.18 See, David W. Lovell, From Marx toLenin: An Evaluation ofMarx's Responsibility for Soviet Authoritarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1984), p. 69.19Lovell, From Marx toLenin, p. 69.20 Etienne Balibar, On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (London: New Left

Books, 1977), p. 124.21 On this point, see for instance, Shlomo Avineri, The Social and PoliticalThought of Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 185188; Bruce Mazlish, The Meaning of Karl Marx (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1984), pp. 68-70.22 Lovell, From Marx to Lenin, p. 69.23 Daler Deol, Liberalism and Marxism (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1976),

p. 93.24 On this point, see for instance, Draper, The 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat',p. 213.25Alexander Dallin and George Breslauer, Political Terror inCommunist Systems(Standford: Standford University Press, 1970), p. 9.26 See Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis (New York: Random

House, 1961), p. 11.27 Deol, Liberalism and Marxism, p. 93.28 Mihailo Markovic, Democratic Socialism: Theory and Practice (New York:St.Martin's Press, 1982), p. x.29 Hunt, The Political Ideas ofMarx and Engels, p. 246.30Miliband, "Marx and the State," pp. 289-290.31 Quoted inN. Harding, Lenin's Political Thought (London: Macmillan, 1981),P-91z Lovell, From Marx to Lenin, p. 87.33 Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism (New York: Simon andSchuster, 1976), p. 42. For other arguments along these lines, see "The 'Marx



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Legend', or Engels, Founder ofMarxism," in Joseph O'Malley andKeith Algozin,eds., Rubel on Karl Marx: Five Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1981); and Norman Levine, The Tragic Deception: Marx Contra Engels (SantaBarbara: Clio Books, 1975).34 It appears that Lenin derived this views on the state and on the dictatorshipof the proletariat primarily from Engels 'swritings and the latter's interpretationof Marx, rather than from the original source. One very likely reason for thiswas the fact that the body of work left behind by Engels fitted into the Bolshevikideology much more tightly thanMarx's original dictums. For an illuminatingstudy attempting to dissociate Marxism from its bastardized Soviet version, seeIring Fetscher, Marx and Marxism (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971).35 Lovell, From Marx to Lenin, p. 194. See also, Peter Gay, The Dilemma ofDemocratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's Challenge toMarx (New York: Collier

Books, 1962).36 See John Hoffman, The Gramscian Challenge: Coercion and Consent inMarxist Political Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), p. 179.37 Karl Kautsky, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1964), p. 180.38 The same conclusion is reached by Christopher Pierson, Marxist Theory andDemocratic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 60.39 See Roy Medvedev, Leninism and Western Socialism (London: Verso, 1981),p. 31.40

Vladimir I. Lenin, Collected Works (Moscow: Foreign Language PublishingHouse, I960-), Vol. 28, p. 252.41 For an illuminating treatment, see Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (New York:Free Press, 1962), p. 375.42 Habermas, Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 197.43 Cited inBell, The End of Ideology, p. 383.44 One caveat should be entered here. Even Marx could not envision literal ruleby the masses themselves: "dictatorship" implied for him some sort of centralauthority. Nevertheless, he failed to elaborate on what shape this central authority

might adopt or take.45 Deol, Liberalism and Marxism, p. 76.46 V. Chikvadze, The State Democracy and Legality in the USSR: Lenin's IdeasToday (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), p. 88.47 Georgi Shakhnazarov, The Role of the Communist Party in Socialist Society(Moscow: Novosti Press, 1974), pp. 11-12.48 Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government in Selected Works (NewYork: International Publishers, 1935-1938), Vol. 1,p. 422.49Cited inE. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution (London: Harmondsworth, 1975),Vol. 1, p. 236.50 See Lenin's third letter in Letters from Afar. On the Proletarian Militia, inCollected Works, Vol. 23, p. 229.51

Mihaly Samu, Hatalomes allam (Budapest: Kozgazdasagi

esJogi Konyvkiado,1982), p. 203.52 Nikolai Valentinov, Encounters with Lenin (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1968), p. 128.53 Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 417.54 Cited in Leonard Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Polit



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icol Opposition in the Soviet Phase (1917-1922) (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1955), pp. 254-255.55 See, for instance, B. Topornin and E. Machulsky, Socialism and Democracy:A Reply toOpportunists (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 31.56 Le Duan, Hold High theRevolutionary Banner of Creative Marxism! (Peking:Foreign Language Press, 1964), p. 35.57 Hoffman, The Gramscian Challenge, p. 178.58 See M. Johnstone, "Socialism, Democracy and the One-Party System,"Marxism Today, August, September, and November 1970, pp. 242-250; 281?287; 349-356. The quote was taken from p. 352.59 Topornin andMachulsky, Socialism and Democracy, p. 30.60Nikolai I.Bukharin, Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (AnnArbor:University of Michigan Press, 1969), p. 310.61 Bukharin, The Politics and Economics of the Transition Period (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 48, Bukharin's emphasis.62 Bukharin, The Politics and Economics of the Transition Period, p. 49.63Trotsky, Terrorism and Communism (Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press,1961), p. 170.64 This view is shared by Miliband. See his Marxism and Politics, p. 143.65 Cited in Thornton Anderson, Masters of Russian Marxism (New York:

Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963), p. 232.66 See Bruce Franklin, ed., The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings,1950-52 (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972), p. 127.67 See Ibid., and Stalin, "The Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B)" inWorks, vol.12 (Moscow, 1955), pp. 35-38.68 See, for instance, Henri Chambre, From Karl Marx toMao Tsetung: A Systematic Survey of Marxism-Leninism (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1963),pp. 141-142.69 Donald C. Hodges, The Bureaucratization of Socialism (Amherst: Universityof Massachusetts Press, 1981), pp. 8-9.70 Marcuse, Soviet Marxism, p. 15.71 Timothy McCarthy, Marx and the Proletariat: A Study in Social Theory (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 70.72 Daniel Bell, "The Once and Future Marx," American Journal of Sociology,Vol. 83, No. 1 (July 1977), p. 189.73 Eugene Kamenka, "The Many Faces of Marx," Times Literary Supplement,November 19, 1976, p. 1442.

Department of GovernmentUniversity of TexasAustin, Texas 78712-1087USA

dictatorship of the proletariat

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