Introduction
This article is a response to “Why the Green Party should embrace Socialist Libertarianism versus Marxism” by Samantha Hull.
In my reading, Samantha’s article makes two central claims.
First, it advocates “decentralized, grassroots, socialist libertarian currents that emphasize direct democracy, local control, and horizontal organizing.”
Second, this is opposed to “more centralized tendencies, party-structured approaches, sometimes influenced by Marxist frameworks, that lean toward top-down coordination and national strategy..”
Here I will focus on the second claim,the question of Marxism and democracy. I have recently published an article in New Green Horizons that addresses issues relevant to the question of decentralization[1]
Samantha attributes the anti-democratic character of the Russian and Chinese revolutions to Marxism. Here I argue that the reality is quite different. Not only were the Stalin and Mao regimes the antithesis of Marxism in fundamental aspects, this contradiction was noted by self-identified Marxists, both at the time and into the present.
First, I consider the Marxist understanding of the term ‘dictatorship of the proletariat”, as used by Marx and Engels. Then I focus on the Russian Revolution and its degeneration, without which an understanding of recent Chinese history would be impossible. Finally, I turn our attention briefly to China, focusing on the early years of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Marxism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Marx’s political views may best be understood as a revolutionary democrat. Writing in the Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels wrote that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.”[2]
Writing almost a hundred years later, then revolutionary socialist Max Shachtman wrote that “the continual extension of democracy, is therefore an indispensable necessity under a Workers’ Government. The idea of a Workers’ Government is thus inseparably connected with the idea of […] democracy […]”[3].
Unfortunately, the use by Marx and Engels of the term “dictatorship” has been the source of considerable confusion among both Marxists and non-Marxists alike. As Hal Draper argued,[4] the term “dictatorship” had a different meaning in the 19th century than it does now. For Marx and Engels, Draper argues, the word dictatorship may be replaced by the word “rule.” That is, the dictatorship is equivalent to the rule of the proletariat as a class.
This interpretation is supported by Engels In his 1891 Introduction to Marx’s Civil War in France[5] , Engles wrote: “[D]o you want to know what this dictatorship [of the proletariat] looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. This seems so clear that even most anarchists can understand it, though Stalinists might have some difficulties.
On the Russian Revolution [1917]
Marxism is not monolithic. It has never been monolithic. It is a profound misreading of history to believe otherwise.
In this section, I consider some of the debates within the Marxist movement both before and after the Russian revolution of 1917
In the Russian revolution, working class rule was embodied in the call from the Bolsheviks for “all power to the soviets” (or equivalently, all power to the workers’ councils.) That is, the revolution could be based only on the democratic organs of the emergent workers’ state.
Rosa Luxemburg on Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), a leader of German and Polish socialism, wrote influential critiques of Leninism from a revolutionary Marxist perspective. In 1904, Luxemburg warned against the potential dangers embodied in Lenin’s theory of the revolutionary party. She advocates for party democracy and against the centralization of power within the leading party bodies.
Also writing in 1904, socialist revolutionary and Marxist Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) warned of the danger of the substitution of the party leadership over the working class[6].
Following the victorious Russian revolution of 1917, Luxemburg returned to her critique of Leninism in 1918[7] Writing from a German prison, she supported the revolution but was critical of Bolshevik positions. She wrote that “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently”.
My point here is not to take sides in the debate (though I admit to an affinity for the positions of Luxemburg and the young Trotsky). Rather, it is to bring attention to critiques of what later became known as Leninism from a perspective grounded in revolutionary Marxism.
The failure of the German revolution and the development of a Russian opposition
The failure of the German revolution (1919-1923) was the death knell for the Russian revolution. Its repercussions continue to be felt even a century later.
Separated from the defeated European working class, the Russian working class was decimated by the civil war. The workers’ state was weak, isolated, and in danger of collapse. Democracy both within as well as outside the Communist Party withered and died. A window opened for the emergence of a new ruling class with Stalin at its head.
Skipping over a myriad of historical details, we will just touch on the emergence of the joint opposition within the Russian Communist Party leadership[8], including the once warring factions of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, Their goals were to block the emergence of a leadership faction under Stalin, along with its anti-democratic practices. Their objectives included the reconstruction of inner-party democracy, restoration of internal party and external (soviet) democracy, and acceleration of economic development,
Once again, my point is not to argue the merits of their political positions (though, of course, I am sympathetic to their views). The point here, as before, is that there was a democratic Marxist opposition to the emerging authoritarian rule of the Stalinists.
As we can see easily in hindsight, it was too little, too late. Trotsky was driven into exile. Zinoviev and Kamenev rejoined with Stalin, but to little avail. Zinoviev and Kamenev were executed in the purges of 1936. Trotsky was assassinated in 1940.
The Chinese Revolution
It is important to emphasize that the 1949 victory of the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came in the wake of the defeat of the German revolution, the failure of the Russian revolution and the victory of Stalinism, including its expansion into eastern Europe.
Not surprisingly, there are both similarities and differences between the Russian and Chinese experiences. One similarity lies in the Marxist critiques that emerged within China[9].
In the 1920s, under the influence of Stalin and the Comintern, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formed an alliance with the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), initially under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen, and later Chiang Kai-shek, foreshadowing the Comintern’s popular front strategy.
In 1927 however, the KMT turned on the CCP, killing hundreds of communists in the Shanghai massacre and elsewhere[10] . Most of the remaining communists left the cities for the countryside in the long march under Mao Zedong. This embodied the shift from a revolution based on an urban, working class to a rural, peasant-based revolution, abandoning in both theory and practice the long-standing goal of a workers’ state.
For our purposes, it is important to note that there was Marxist opposition, especially among incipient Trotskyists, to the alliance between the KMT leadership and the Chinese ruling class[11].
Conclusion
Marxism provides us with an always evolving set of ideological tools. These tools have developed over time, both during and after Marx’s lifetime. As Marx famously emphasizes in his Theses on Feuerbach (1845)[12] “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”
Marxian thought has played a central role in the development of ecosocialist theory[13]. If an ecosocialist program is further developed and implemented in practice, Marxian theory will certainly continue to play a central role in its development.
- https://newgreenhorizons.us/planetary-problems-require-planetary-solutions/ ↑
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm ↑
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1946/ffs/ffs07.htm ↑
- Hal Draper The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’
in Marx and Engelshttps://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/hal-draper/article2.htm ↑ - F. Engels, 1891 Introduction to the Civil War in France, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/intro.htm ↑
- Our Political Taskes, (1904) https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1904/tasks/ ↑
- R. Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution, 1918, https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/index.htm ↑
- (1927), https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/index.htm ↑
- For brief introduction to this period in Chinese left history, see https://isreview.org/issue/111/trotskyism-china/index.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre ↑
- C, Hore, Trotskyism in China , https://isreview.org/issue/111/trotskyism-china/index.html ↑
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm ↑
- e.g., A. Malm, https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/ecology-marxism-andreas-malm/ ↑
