Marx and dictatorship
IN
THE WORLD TODAY there are many countries under dictatorships of varying
degrees of ruthlessness; that is to say countries in which the
government is not responsible to the electorate, and in which political
parties and trade unions are suppressed, or are allowed to exist only
as organs of the government itself, and in which freedom of speech and
opposition propaganda are denied.
The Socialist Party of Great
Britain, in conformity with its adherence to democratic principles, is
opposed to all dictatorships; but we are asked to believe by the
Communist parties that while some dictatorships are to be condemned
others, such as that in Russia, deserve the support of socialists.
It is of first importance that our reasons for rejecting that view
should be understood.
The
socialist movement in its formative years developed against the
European background at a time when all of the governments were
autocracies — not subject to control by electors on a wide franchise.
They all in greater or lesser degree represented the interests of a
landed class resisting the rise to political power of the industrial
capitalists and, of course, were even more opposed to the aspirations
of the working class. At the extreme was the so-called Holy Alliance,
proclaimed by Alexander I, Tsar of Russia in 1815, as the protector of
reactionary regimes everywhere against the industrial capitalists,
against the movements for national independence, and against democracy
and the working class effort to organise industrially and politically.
In
the circumstances of the time it seemed logical to Marx and others that
the workers in their own independent organisations should accept that
for the moment their interests coincided with those of the capitalist
democrats, until such time as the absolutist regimes had been
overthrown, and should then continue their struggle against the new
capitalist regimes. It was assumed that "the bourgeois democratic
governments" could be placed in the situation of immediately losing
"all backing among the workers". (Marx's address to the Communist
League, 1850. Reproduced in A Handbook of Marxism, Victor Gollancz
Ltd.. 1937, page 67.)
While Marx did not suppose that the
working class could at once expect to gain political control for
Socialism he did envisage the possibility of the workers' organisations
retaining the initiative in their progress towards that end. Marx
recognised that if the feudal estates on being broken up were handed
over to the peasants as their private property (as had happened in
France after the Revolution) this would set up a barrier against the
development of the socialist movement and he urged that this should be
prevented and instead the land should be handed over to "associated
groups" of landless peasants.
Events failed to develop as Marx
had at that time hoped. With our advantage of viewing the process
afterwards we can see that Marx underestimated the magnitude of the
problem of winning over the working class to acceptance of world-wide
Socialism, and equally underestimated the strength of capitalism and
the resourcefulness of the capitalist class in imbuing the workers with
capitalist and nationalist ideas.
Later on, as Marx pursued his
analysis of social development he was to formulate his view that "no
social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which
there is room in it have been developed, and new. higher relations of
production never appear before the material conditions of their
existence have matured in the womb at the old society".
In its
techniques and potentialities of production. European capitalism has
made vast strides in the past century. It has been oustripped by the
United States of America; but there are many parts of the world in
which the development of capitalism has not yet reached the form
existing, for example, in Britain and America in which the social
structure has resolved itself into a capitalist class confronting an
enfranchised working class.
In some countries, such as Spain and
Greece and much of Latin America, the struggle of the industrial and
commercial capitalists to overthrow political regimes favourable to
landowning classes was much later in being completed. The democratic
forms that for a time existed were overthrown and replaced by
authoritarian dictatorships. Some point to this as proof of the myth
discussed in the previous section (democracy and dictatorship) that,
faced with a revolutionary working class movement, the capitalist
government would just suspend democracy. In fact, it proves the
opposite. It is precisely because the working class was undeveloped
that political democracy proved unstable in these countries. With a
large part of their populations often illiterate and still working the
land under pre-capitalist conditions of exploitation, these countries'
governments were able to rule in a way they could not if faced with a
modern educated urban working class. It is instructive to note that
with the continued industrial development which these dictatorships are
powerless to prevent, they themselves are forced to come to terms with
the capitalists and ditch the more reactionary elements that originally
backed them. This process can be seen in Spain and Greece.
Economic
backwardness and a small working class, often smaller than in the
countries just discussed (in most African countries, at present, the
working class makes up
only a very small proportion of the
population) also underlie dictatorships of another sort. These, far
from favouring pre-capitalist privileged groups, use State power
ruthlessly to sweep away all obstacles, social and ideological, to the
spread of the capitalist relations of production for sale, capital
accumulation, and wage-labour in the areas they control. Many of these
regimes claim to be socialist but in fact they are pursuing a policy of
State capitalism after the manner of Russia. The rulers of State
capitalist Russia claim that their dictatorship is the instrument by
which capitalism has been overthrown and replaced by Socialism.
This claim is defended in Communist Party propaganda on the ground of a
statement made by Marx in 1875 that:
"Between
capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary
transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this
also a political
transition period in which the state can be nothing but the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."
(Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme.)
A
detailed study by Hal Draper of the occasions on which Marx and Engels
used this and similar phrases provides convincing proof that Marx meant
here nothing more than was meant by the statement in the Communist
Manifesto that the working class must achieve "conquest of political
power". (New Politics, Vol. I, No. 4, Summer 1962.)
This has no
resemblance to the regime in Russia where for more than sixty years a
party clique has exercised dominance over the population by military
force, secret police, censorship and the other manifestations of
absolutist rule now being more and more challenged.
That Marx
should believe a transition period to be necessary, considering the
level of industrial, social and political development in 1875 is
understandable. Marx accepted that a more or less prolonged transition
would be required also because of the mental outlook of the people and
because of the productive capacity of society being not yet equal to
the demands made on it under the new conditions.
As has already
been stated, the Socialist Party's view from its formation has been
that there can be no Socialism until the great majority of the working
class fully understands and accepts the implications of what they are
consciously setting out to achieve. Dictatorship in various forms
exists at the present time, basically because of the political
immaturity of most of the working class all over the world. Instead of
being united by world-wide class consciousness they are everywhere
divided: divided between the nations by the poison of nationalism;
divided inside the nations by religious, racial and other
superstitions; divided also by the failure of many to appreciate the
importance of democracy.
When Marx wrote of the working class
winning the battle of democracy he did not foresee that tbe extension
of the franchise was to bring into being Labour and Social Democratic
governments which would continue to administer capitalism. Instead of
the odium of perpetuating capitalism falling on the capitalists it has
had considerable effect in bringing democracy into disrepute, thus
helping demagogues such as Mussolini and Hitler to rise to power and
helping the Communist parties in Russia and elsewhere to gain support
for their dictatorships.
Nationalism plays a powerful role in
thwarting the growth of class consciousness; by inducing workers in the
newly created countries of Africa to accept oppression for the supposed
benefits they will later receive when industrial development has been
speeded up; by the readiness of the workers in countries holding
colonies to condone what is in effect a dictatorship imposed on the
colonial peoples.
In this category falls the Russian military
occupation of Czechoslovakia and other countries in the Russian sphere
of interest; matched by the readiness of workers in the NATO countries
to condone the similar actions of these governments on the plea that
this is a necessity thrust on them by the threat of Russian military
power.
Spain, in the civil war 1936-39, and Greece in the civil
war and military dictatorship of later years are other examples of
rival groups of powers propping up governments acceptable to their own
strategic needs.
Against all these manifestations of capitalism
the Socialist Party of Great Britain proclaims the need for
world¬wide
Socialism using the methods of democracy. |
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