Dictatorship of the Proletariat=Democracy?

[Alkarin]

(Take note this thread is about the discussion of the political theory purposed by Marx, please don't turn this into a thread about Communism VS capitalism. Theres plenty of other threads for that)

Lately I've been diving into the theory of communism and how it works along the lines of the "dictatorship of the Proletariat' and its come to my assumption that the dictatorship of the proletariat is just a fancy way of saying the people are in charge IE Democracy and whenever Karl Marx talked about the Ruling of the proletariat it was more of that of the proletariat had all the say and the bourgeoisie has no say. So basically you could bring it to the term of it merely being a Democratic Socialist(minus the word from the bourgeoisie)state where the people would gradually and politically switch over to a utopia democratically(According to theory)
So technically the reason all communist states so far have failed is because they take the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat'' As something literal and set up a dictatorship unlike making it a democracy as proposed by Marx himself? Or i could just be reading it wrong but the evidence seems to hint heavily towards being completely democratic without a 'supreme leader' of any sort. (according to Marxism only)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictato...he_proletariat

What is your take on this?

[Claudius Gothicus]

There's not a real democracy when some people are not allowed to have a say.
But yeah I understand your point, most communist states failed because of their economical planning though too much capital in the hands of the state tends to corruption and over spending.
The proletariat democracy is to be fair more anarcho-collectivist than state planned really and if I remember correctly Marx implies that the resources need to be in the hands of the state.

[Meneldil]

You seem to not understand what the dictatorship of the proletariat is. As roughly stated on wikipedia, it refers to a temporary state between the bourgeoise society and the stateless and classeless society.

Even though Marx was rather vague about it, it's assumed that the proletariat would take the power, instaure a dictatorship, required to eliminate classes and the state.
Now, Marx never said or explained how the state and classes would be eliminated, so once again, it's fair to assume that said process would have been quite violent, resulting in the deportation and elimination (physical or not) of all who opposed Marx's theory.

Now, as Marx was fully aware that such an idea was scary and too radical for a large part of the working class (who first and foremost wanted to improve working conditions and didn't really bother about creating a new society), he later on explicitely used the Paris Commune of 1871 to describe what a dictatorship of the proletariat would be. Indeed, the Paris Commune was by all means a completely democratic and socialist governement, which became more and more radical (though it could be argued that the Versaillais were in fact much more radicals and violent) only when it became clear that neither the Versaillais nor the Prussians would let Paris govern itself.
Thing is, the Paris Commune wasn't Marxist (actually, marxists were a tiny minority among the communards), didn't try to abolish the state or classes, and basically didn't do much (as most socialist trends wasted their time arguing with eachothers) apart from a few important but barely applied laws (such as the complete separation of the church and state, free education for all, work at night prohibited for the most tedious jobs, etc).

So yeah, nobody knows what a dictatorship of the proletariat would be/would have been. Marx's views of the Commune was highly biased and instrumental (he "cherished" it while it was alive, before describing it as doomed from the very beginning), so bleh. I personally consider it as a way to make his whole theory more acceptable to the vast majority of readers.

[Shi Huangdi]

(Take note this thread is about the discussion of the political theory purposed by Marx, please don't turn this into a thread about Communism VS capitalism. Theres plenty of other threads for that)

There is no difference between "Communism" and "the political theory proposed by Marx". When you try to implement a so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" that Marx believed would eliminate government, you end up with the tyranny of Communism. That's what history shows, and that's just the way it is. Marxism doesn't work.

Lately I've been diving into the theory of communism and how it works along the lines of the "dictatorship of the Proletariat' and its come to my assumption that the dictatorship of the proletariat is just a fancy way of saying the people are in charge IE Democracy and whenever Karl Marx talked about the Ruling of the proletariat it was more of that of the proletariat had all the say and the bourgeoisie has no say. So basically you could bring it to the term of it merely being a Democratic Socialist(minus the word from the bourgeoisie)state where the people would gradually and politically switch over to a utopia democratically(According to theory)
So technically the reason all communist states so far have failed is because they take the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat'' As something literal and set up a dictatorship unlike making it a democracy as proposed by Marx himself? Or i could just be reading it wrong but the evidence seems to hint heavily towards being completely democratic without a 'supreme leader' of any sort. (according to Marxism only)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictato...he_proletariat

What is your take on this?

Dictatorship of the proletariat does NOT mean the people are in charge. It means that the proletarians rise and take the power and wealth of the bourgeois. So what happens is the bourgeois and the proletarians switch places: a select group of the proletarians become the rulers, and the bourgeois become the oppressed. So Marxism merely exchanges one tyranny for another.

Read the Declaration of Independence, and study John Locke and the American Founders. They represent true democracy and true equality.

[Taxandrius]

The dictature of proletariat is no democracy, not even close. The dictature should follow a revolution according to Karl Marx. Problem number one: the system should be taken down to make it possible for the proletariat to reign. Where is the voice of the old order ? There could be no such thing as a democracy if certain groups/classes are not allowed to participate in the government of a state.
So, even if we pass this problem, it is still a dictatorship, which implies that a small group of people have unrestrained powers over the vast majority and often use it to consolidate their power by "dura lex". Is that democracy ? A small group of people who supress a majority to keep their power ? No.
The biggest problem of Marx theory is that, as in most of his ideas, he did not approach the subject from a psychologic, a social point of view. He tried to solve a social problem by looking at the history of man rather than the nature of man. A human is still an animal in many ways. Absolute democracy is impossible in such cases: the competitive nature of man is to strong. The dictatorship of the proletariat, a Confined Democracy, will always lead to a dictatorship, even if Marx' theories are a bit weakened.
E.g.:
Russia: dictatorship by an individual followed by dictatorship of a party
China: dictatorship by an individual followed by dictatorship of a party
Cuba: dictatorship by an individual
DDR: dictatorship by a party
.....

The dictatorship of the proletariat is therefore impossible.

[Alkarin]

although its not a small group having unrestrained powers over a vast majority of others say for instance look at the spartan system. they had their own slaves yet were considered a democracy since the Spartans were able to vote while the slaves were not

In this case it would just be the proletariat in charge and the rich as the slaves i suppose?

Dictatorship of the proletariat does NOT mean the people are in charge. It means that the proletarians rise and take the power and wealth of the bourgeois. So what happens is the bourgeois and the proletarians switch places: a select group of the proletarians become the rulers, and the bourgeois become the oppressed. So Marxism merely exchanges one tyranny for another.

fair enough. although i would not call it a dictatorship...if anything an oligarchy even though the entire base of the proletariat are supposed to have a say in the way things are run. not a select few of them. There I believe is where communist societies cease to be communist by mis-interpreting marx's ideas for their own personnel gain IE lenin or stalin

[tullyccro]

First off, keep in mind that Marx had Germany specifically in mind for his theory even though he painted it as a universal, also, keep in mind the social and political character of Germany and Europe at the time he wrote CM and his other works.

The exclusion of the bourgeoisie from politics doesn't mean that you physically oppress middle class business owners, it means, as Nietzsche and others meant, that you destroy the conditions under which a property owning middle class can arise and you do this because you despise their values, i.e. selfishness, lack of patriotism, fear of death, etc...

Again, it doesn't simply mean oppressing a class it means eliminating the conditions under which a class can exist, Communism demands the subordination of every aspect of an individual's life to a government, and as we saw in the 20th century this eventually turns into Hitlerism, Stalinism, or Mussolini's fascism.

[Da Skinna]

It's a transition into holy utopia...

Of course, it also means that the landed interests, the nobility, the corporate class that owns everything, DO NOT have the control over democracy.

[tullyccro]

But then again there is no democracy, at least in any recognizable form. When you own nothing, when familial and cultural ties are subordinated to a government, when you're allowed no freedom of choice in either public or private life, that's not democracy, it's totalitarianism.

[Yoda Twin]

a select group of the proletarians become the rulers, .

Your thinking of Leninism their with his Vanguard of the Proletariat taking power. The Communist states that followed also used this nifty Vanguard as they saw that it worked for Russia (Not in Long Term).

Alkarin I think you've hit it right on the money when it comes to the dictatorship of the proletariat and as Tullyccro pointed, Marx was referring to mainly Germany and GB with his manifesto as the proletariat were a major chunk of the population and where they would have a real political say when comapred to Russia where these workers made at most 10% of the population.

Russia: dictatorship by an individual followed by dictatorship of a party
China: dictatorship by an individual followed by dictatorship of a party
Cuba: dictatorship by an individual
DDR: dictatorship by a party
.....

The dictatorship of the proletariat is therefore impossible.

You cannot say it is impossible. All the countries you listed were heavily influenced by the SU and therefore adopted their point of view when it came to leadership. All had a one party system which had total control and when you think about it, this isn't Communism.

[Claudius Gothicus]

You cannot say it is impossible. All the countries you listed were heavily influenced by the SU and therefore adopted their point of view when it came to leadership. All had a one party system which had total control and when you think about it, this isn't Communism.

Right now is impossible because of human nature, once you get to be on top letting that power slip from your hands is a very difficult task it takes a very ethical person to do that, but also you have to consider the consequences of a disordered passing of power: anarchy, civil war, repression etc. those factors are very dangerous ones.

The classic stages of Marxist socialism are

Bourgeois society -> Revolution/Unique Party like government -> Dictatorship of the Proletariat/end of history.

Now to get to the las stage you need the second one but th second one generates many problems as history shows as a centralized government can become inept and corrupt, repressing large parts of the population can also end up in violent revolts against the establishment and general distrust of the system.

So then you have the reformist/social-democratic way you keep the personal freedoms and all the rights of a capitalistic country(keeping the pressure groups happy) while getting the state more compromised with society and social programs to help those that can't afford certain expectancies in their lives.

[Bovril]

Marx had different ideas about this during his lifetime. Earlier on he believed in participatory democratic control by workers, and later on by the rulership of a vanguardist movement who are not necessarily proletarians, but constitute a bueracrcy working for the proletariat. Needless to say, the ideas of the later Marx have been better reflected, but still not very well reflected, in supposedly 'Marxist' states.

As for the failure of communist states, I think there have been more problems than it is possible to list, but certainly the vanguardist nature of the political structure has been disasterous, as so many socialists warned Marx, Lenin and others, including communists such as Rosa Luxemburg.

[Hobbes]

Proletarian dictatorship: A political system that could work, but nowhere on Earth, not at the moment. You see, such systems require a higher level of knoweledge and a new way of thinking. It's utopian. The requirements are achieved only through education, and certainly not through this one. In fact, the better educational system can only be made possible by achieving some of the elements of the requirements mentioned. Proletarian Dictatorship means that the workers (proletarians) are the ruling class ("dictators"). But there will always be people who will want more power than others (see cuba) and will overuse their authority. Given the present situation, Proletarian Dictatorship is doomed. Not only it is hard to establish (so far only through revolutions and violence of some kind-it's very radical for our minds), but it will get bad after it is established.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

lolololol commynism is stooopid! The current Democrasy is good