What Did Marx Mean by 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'?

This might be a good read: http://marxmyths.org/hal-draper/article2.htm

Thanks for posting that Selig - welcome to the boards!

Harris, it's worth noting that not only is Marx's useage disputed, (diktat can be translated as 'rule' as much as 'dictatorship'), but he also didn't use it all that much, and often polemically.

Just take it to mean the w/c should be in charge

In the form of state power. You been reading too many ICC contributions recently?

or perhaps take it to be an off the cuff analogy thats been turnt into a central tenant of Marxist thought.

Not exactly.

Marx and Engels stated in the preface to the 1872 German edition of the Communist Manifesto that the Paris Commune was where "The proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months".

If Marx had thought a large, centralized state were the way to go, wouldn't he have said, "The Paris Commune would have faired better, had they established a strong, centralized state apparatus" ?

Whereas he actualy said, altering the original argument in the Manifesto, One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz. that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machine and wield it for its own purposes...

I think what you think about the concept depends alot on whether you accept the Leninist conception of the period of transition (which, to me, sounds a lot like a period of systematic, centrally directed, personalised violence against former members of the ruling class who've already been stripped of their social power).

In the fluffiest reading of the idea, the revolutionary organisation(s) are defined by Marx as a 'state' at the moment they achieve power, as at that time they are an instrument for the suppression of the capitalist class by the workers. The real questions then are how the revolutionary organisation(s) is/are structured, and what happens after the revolutionary overcoming.

See the link, The Class Struggle in France 1848-1850

http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me07/me07_064.htm

Read Bakunin on the Paris Commune (and Marx's turnaround on it)...

I find it strange that a man who is capable of such intellectual capacity would be so inconsistent in his politics as to not see the contradiction in on one side that the workers revolution can only be handled by the workers and on the other that the workers must be led by a communist party, a party of the most prominent workers who know what the rest of the workers dont.

Did Marx argue that then?

(EDIT: the quote is now the link, getting the hang of these tags now )

His views changed throughout his life, but this was 1879 and he died in 1883 so this looks like where he ended up ...

I think trotsy used the argument that if the working class was capable of siezing power then no one would be able to hold power over it so in the act of the succesful revolution the party becomes irrelavent. Something like that anyway.

I've been trying to find that quote for about 6 months. Thankyou thankyou thankyou.

I think Trotsky argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat was the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. He liked the dictatorship of 19 people, but didn't like the dictatorship of 1 man.

Does anyone know if Trotsky believed that the USSR (during Stalin's time) was still the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Trotsky refered to it as a degenerated workers state.

He did. But did he argue that it was the dictatorship of the proletariat?

No prob. The joys of ctrl-f (find in browser)

I don't know shit about Trotsky though, I kinda tend to ignore Bolsheviks and hope they go away

I recall reading that Trotsky maintained critical support for the Soviet Union. I think he fell out with many latter day Trotskyists just on this issue. I'm not sure if he continued to refer to it as the "Dict...", but I'd be surprised if he did.

According to Engels, the Paris Commune was the DoP, despite the fact that the Commune wasn't in control of all business in Paris.

Does the DoP mean the political power of the working class, and not economic power?

No but Marx did (kind of - it's known as an unusually libertarian piece of writing by Marx). I have it here in Guerin's 'No Gods No Masters' and I just found it on the net, slightly different translation though. Interesting nonetheless

In the Civil War piece, he said:

Although a few years later, he accepted it was a result of exceptional circumstances in Paris. Engels called the Paris Commune the dictatorship of the proletariat however.

Marx was also know to say "If that's Marxism then I'm not a Marxist" upon reflection on the Paris Commune. However he also praised the commune as a success for the working class.

no he never said that about the Commune, he said it about his crude objectivist disciples.