6. This brings us to the major Bolshevik-Leninist
revision of the Marxism of the Social-Democratic
variety—viz., the abandonment of its commitment to
democracy as a system of social organization, as a
theory of the political process including political orga-
nization, and, finally, as the high road to socialism.
Until the October Russian Revolution, the phrase
“the dictatorship of the proletariat” was rarely used
in Marxist literature. Marx himself used the term very
infrequently, and Engels pointed to the Paris Com-
mune of 1871, in which Marx's group was a tiny mi-
nority, as an illustration of what the phrase meant.
Even those who spoke of the “dictatorship of the
proletariat” meant by it the class rule of the workers,
presumably the majority of the population, which
would democratically enact laws introducing the so-
cialist society. That is what Engels meant when he
wrote in 1891 that the democratic republic was “the
specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat”
(Marx and Engels, Correspondence 1846-1895, New
York [1936], p. 486). Marx and Engels also anticipated
that the transition to socialism would be peaceful
where democratic political institutions had developed
that gave the workers the franchise. Force would be
employed only to suppress armed rebellion of unrec-
onciled minorities against the mandate of the majority.
The Marxist-Leninist version of “the dictatorship of
the proletariat” is that it is substantially “the dictator-
ship of the Communist Party,” which means not only
a dictatorship over the bourgeoisie but
over the prole-
tariat as well. The Paris Commune on this view is not
really a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The dictator-
ship of the Communist Party entailed that no other
political parties, not even other working-class parties,
would be tolerated if they did not accept the Leninist
line. It meant that there could be no legally recognized
opposition of any kind. For as Lenin put it, “Dictator-
ship is power based directly upon force, and unre-
stricted by any laws,” and again “dictatorship means
neither more nor less than unlimited power, resting
directly on force, not limited by anything, not re-
stricted by any laws, nor any absolute rules” (
Selected
Works, VII, 123).
This whole conception is based frankly on the as-
sumption that armed by the insights of Marxist-Lenin-
ism, the Communist Party knows better what the true
interests of the working class are than the workers
know themselves; that it cannot give the workers their
head but must, if necessary, restrain or compel them
for their own good. Thus Lenin proclaimed “All power
to the Soviets,” the organs of the Russian workers and
peasants after 1917, when he anticipated that they
would follow the Communist (Bolshevik) Party line,
but this slogan was abandoned and even opposed when
there was fear the Soviets would not accept the Com-
munist Party dictatorship. This view of the dictatorship
of the Party is central to all Marxist-Leninist parties.
Thus the Hungarian communist premier, Jan Kadar,
in his speech before the Hungarian National Assembly
on May 11, 1957, justifying the suppression by the Red
Army of the Hungarian workers in the Budapest upris-
ing of 1956, makes a distinction between “the wishes
and will of the working masses” and “the interests”
of the workers. The Communist Party, knowing the
true interests of the workers and having these interests
at heart, is therefore justified in opposing the wishes
and will of the masses. This is the Leninist version of
Rousseau's doctrine that the people “must be forced
to be free.”
The antidemocratic conception of the political party
actually preceded the transformation of the dictator-
ship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the party
over the proletariat. Logically the two ideas are inde-
pendent, since a hierarchically organized party could
accept the democratic process as providing an oppor-
tunity for coming to power legitimately. The Social-
Democratic conception of party organization made it
a very loose-jointed affair. Marx and Engels actually
assumed that in the course of its economic struggles,
the working class spontaneously would develop the
organizational instrumentalities necessary to win the
battle. Lenin, on the other hand, thought of the politi
cal party as an engineer of revolution, spurring on,
teaching, even lashing the working class into revolu-
tionary political consciousness.
The political party structure devised by Lenin owes
more probably to the fact that the socialist parties
were underground and had to work illegally in Russia
than it does to Marxist theory. The theory of “demo-
cratic centralism” was really better adapted for a re-
sistance movement than for political democratic proc-
ess. Nonetheless all of the many Communist Parties
associated with the Communist International were
compelled to adopt that theory as a condition for
affiliation. The Central Committee of the Party was
the chief organizing center, the final link in a chain
of command that extended down to the party cells.
The Central Committee had the power to co-opt and
reject delegates to the Party Congress which nominally
was the source of authority for the Central Committee.
Because of its access to party funds, lists, periodicals,
and control of organizers, the leadership of the “demo-
cratic centralized” party tended to be self-perpetuat-
ing. Certain maneuvers or coups from the top would
bring one faction or another to the fore, but no broad-
based movement of member opposition was possible.
Until Stalin's death changes in the leadership of Com-
munist Parties outside of the Soviet Union occurred
only as a consequence of the intervention of the Russian
Communist Party acting through representatives of the
Communist International. Thus, to cite a typical ex-
ample, the leadership of the American Communist
Party which claimed to have the support of 93% of
the rank and file was dismissed by Stalin in 1928, and
the new leadership of W. Z. Foster and Earl Browder
appointed. The processes of “democratic centralism”
then legitimized the change. After the Second World
War, Browder, based on the ostensibly unanimous sup-
port of the party membership, was unceremoniously
cashiered as leader by signals communicated by
Jacques Duclos of the French Communist Party at the
instigation of the Kremlin.
There have been some developments in the theory
and practice of Marxist-Leninism of the first political
importance. Lenin and Stalin both believed that the
capitalist countries were doomed to break down in a
universal crisis; that because of their system of produc-
tion they must expand or die, and that before they died,
they would resort to all-out war against the Soviet
Union. The classic statement of this view was Lenin's
declaration of November 20, 1920, repeated in subse-
quent editions of his and Stalin's writings:
“As long as capitalism and socialism exist, we cannot
live in peace; in the end one or the other will tri-
umph—a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet
Republic or over World Capitalism” (Selected Works,
VIII, 297). Despite the hypothetical possibility of a
capitalist triumph, the victory of communism was
declared to be inevitable in consequence of the inevi-
table war for which it was preparing. The Soviet Union
and all its communist allies must consider itself to be
in a state of undeclared defensive war against the
aggression being hatched against it; Communist Parties
abroad must have as their first political priority “The
defence of the Soviet Union”—which sometimes led
to difficulties with workers who struck industrial plants
in capitalist countries manufacturing goods and muni-
tions for the use of the Soviet Union.
The doctrine of the inevitability of armed conflict
between the democratic countries of the West and the
Soviet Union undoubtedly played an important role
in Stalin's war and postwar policy. Even though Great
Britain and the United States were loyal allies in the
struggle against Hitler, the war had to be fought with
an eye on their capacity for the subsequent struggle
against the Soviet Union. This led to an extensive
development of Soviet espionage in allied countries
during, and especially after, the war; the expansion of
Soviet frontiers; the establishment of a communist
regime by the Red Army in adjoining territories; and
a political strategy designed to split the Western alli-
ance. Although aware of the development of nuclear
weapons, Stalin was skeptical about their capacity for
wholesale destruction, and remained steadfast in his
belief in the inevitable victory of communism through
inevitable war.
Nikita Krushchev, who by outmaneuvering Bul-
ganin, Malenkov, and Beria, succeeded Stalin, had
a far greater respect for the potential holocaust in-
volved in nuclear war. Although he spurred on the
development of Soviet nuclear power, he revived the
notion of “peaceful coexistence,” a theme originally
propounded by Lenin in an interview with an Ameri-
can journalist in 1920, and periodically revived for
propaganda purposes since. But what was highly sig-
nificant in Khrushchev's emendation of the doctrine,
was his declaration that although the final victory of
world communism is inevitable, world war was not
inevitable; that it was possible for communism to suc-
ceed without an international civil war. This recog-
nized the relatively independent influence of techno-
logical factors on politics, and created an additional
difficulty for the theory of historical materialism.
The second important political development since
the death of Stalin has been the growth of communist
polycentrism, and the emergence of Communist China
as a challenge to Soviet hegemony over the world
communist movement. Communist “polycentrism”
meant the weakening of the centralized control of the
Russian Communist Party over other Communist
Parties, and the gradual assertion of political inde-
pendence in some respects by hitherto Communist
Party satellites. For the first and only time in its history
the American Communist Party officially declared
itself in opposition to Soviet anti-Semitism. After
Khrushchev's speech exposing Stalin's terrorism, it has
become impossible for Communist Parties to resume
the attitude of total compliance to Kremlin demands.
The degree of independence, however, varies from
country to country—the Italian Communist Party
manifesting the most independence and the Bulgarian
Communist Party the least.
The strained relations between Communist Yugo-
slavia and the Soviet Union and especially between
Communist China and the Soviet Union—all invoking
the theory of Marxist-Leninism—are eloquent and iron-
ical evidence that some important social phenomena
cannot be understood through the simple, explanatory
categories of Marxism. After all, war was explained
by Marxists as caused by economic factors directly
related to the mode of economic production. That one
communist power finds itself not only engaged in
military border skirmishes with another, but actually
threatens, if provoked, a war of nuclear annihilation
against its communist brother-nation, as spokesmen of
the Soviet Union did in the summer of 1969, is some-
thing that obviously cannot be explained in terms of
their common modes of economic production. Once
more nationalism is proving to be triumphant over
Marxism.
