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Again, your understanding of Marxist political theory is grossly inaccurate. This is [still] the mythical version of Marxism that was parroted by Soviets, [at least some] Chinese, and Western powers for their own ends--be it masquerading as "true" Marxists, or scaring the shit out of people into seeing Marxism/socialism/communism, instead of its authoritarian practitioners, as "evil". You also appear to misunderstand entirely Marx's conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was in no way authoritarian in any of Marx's explications of the idea. Marx was--in his political theory, as well as his political activity--focused on defending and advancing the idea of democratic authority of the general interests of the masses. He did not, unlike Bakunin and others, view the masses as mere cannon fodder--Bakunin actually called them this--to throw at standing power to succeed in revolutionary overthrow. Moreover, Marx ardently and unfailingly argued and advocated that the ultimate end, with regard to the masses, was to teach them to walk by themselves, eschewing the bureaucratic regulation through which they are taught from childhood onward to believe in and acquiesce to the authority of those set over them. Workers are to engage the process of self-emancipation through taking charge of and reorganizing society--through bottom-up democratic means. Bakunin and others, on the other hand, argued that teaching the people anything was stupid, and they should merely be convinced to revolt. To this, Marx once wrote that inciting workers without offering them any guiding ideas or constructive self-emancipatory doctrine was "equivalent to vain dishonest play at preaching which assumes an inspired prophet on the one side and on the other only the gaping asses."[1] Writing during his time of participating in the International, Marx believed it “the business of the International Working Men’s Association to combine and generalize the spontaneous movements of the working classes, but not to dictate or impose any doctrinary system whatever.”[2] He vehemently opposed the moves by Bakunin and others to create secretive, autonomous groups within the International, because such a group “is opposed to the development of the proletarian movement because, instead of instructing the workers, these societies subject them to authoritarian, mystical laws which cramp their independence and distort their powers of reason.”[3] Marx explained to Wilhelm Blos that when he and Engels joined the Communist League, they “did so only on condition that anything conducive to a superstitious belief in authority be eliminated from the Rules.”[4] The dictatorship of the proletariat is a bottom-up democratic seizure of power. Marx did not have any problem playing politics. He just wanted to see the workers in control of politics, instead of it residing in the hands of capitalists and their elitist servants who would use political power to perpetuate the alienation and division of workers, thus preserving the privileged status of those with capital within the social and political system. Of course, this is also heavily integrated with taking control of the means of production and placing it into the hands of the working masses, as tarentel mentions in a sibling comment. Nevertheless, you are imbuing Marx's notion of "dictatorship of the proletariat" with post-Marx, 20th-century infused notions of dictatorship--that is, authoritarian rule of one (or few) over all. Feel free to say if you are still convinced of the rightness of your inaccurate understanding and I will offer more explanation. [EDIT]: For full disclosure, the particular arc and inclusion of quoted items 2-4 is borrowed from David Adam's "Marx, Bakunin, and the question of authoritarianism"[5]. It got directly to the bits I wanted to cover, and saved me the time of having to comb back through my own library to find the relevant quotes I was looking for. [1]: Francis Wheen's Karl Marx: A Life, 104. [2]: Marx's "Instructions for Delegates to the Geneva Congress" in Political Writings Vol 3, 90. [3]: Marx's "Speech on Secret Societies" from Collected Works Vol 22, 621. [4]: Marx to Blos in Collected Works Vol 45, 288. [5]: http://libcom.org/library/marx-bakunin-question-authoritaria... |