Soviets VS People's Democracies

[heiss93]

Zizek write that the substitution of people's democracy and a multiclass state instead of the pure dictatorship of the proletariat represented the ultimate hypocrisy of Stalinism.

According to Soviet textbooks the substance of People's Democracies was the same as Soviets. However in some ways the term can be seen as a retreat from the days in which there were calls for German, British, Hungarian, Chinese, and American Soviets as opposed to People's Republics. The universal Soviets embody the most radical direct democratic aspects of the Leninist state.

Hardline Trotskyists and Hoxhaists emphacize the difference, while Maoists and Sovietists play down the difference.

What are your thoughts?

[Charles Xavier]

They never ignored the Working Class Character of the state until the mid 1960s when they called it a State of All Peoples.

I don't understand the question though.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Zizek is correct, especially since the "people's democracy" advocates from *Stalin* (post-WWII revisionism) onwards wanted their political program implemented in developed countries.


Hardline Trotskyists and Hoxhaists emphacize the difference, while Maoists and Sovietists play down the difference.

How do Maoists play down the difference? They have their term: "New Democracy." This is applicable for less developed countries (although I seriously disagree with their inclusion of any segment of the bourgeoisie in their "bloc of classes").

[heiss93]

A specific example to what I'm referring to would be the replacement of the 1930s program For a Soviet Britian to the 1950s British Road to Socialism in the CPGB.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This replacement was endorsed by Stalin himself.

[heiss93]

The Chinese originally organized a Soviet Republic in the 1930s and then abandoned it after WW2, and similar events occurred in the USA, UK, and E.Europe where plans for Soviet Republics were dropped in favor of People's Democracies. I agree with the use of People's Democracy (PD) in the 3rd world and even the 1st world as a transitional state uniting multiclass elements against imperialism or fascism. But I'm not sure if the substance can be considered identical to Soviet uniclass uniparty state. This can't be blamed on "revisionists" as both Mao and Stalin supported the claim that PD was identical to the Soviet. Hoxha however criticized Mao for saying that the multiclass state would last until Communism. And Trots denounced PD from the start.

I think there is a difference between the Soviets advocated by the 1930s Comintern and the post-WW2 People's democracies. PD essentially abandons Lenin's call to smash the old state and set up worker's councils.

This article on the Brit Road to Socialism elaborates some of these points: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv13n2/brs1951.htm

[Die Neue Zeit]

And that's why I *don't* like "people's democracies" at all.

[heiss93]

Here are the direct sources from Mao and official Soviet texts claiming that people's democracies were identical to Soviets. Is it perhaps merely a question of semantics with Soviet sounding too foreign? Maybe it would be better to just use native language equivalents of worker councils or similar unique national institutions. The only institutions that I could think of in the USA and UK that would be similar would be local or neighborhood governments.

Mao:

7. The Form of the Proletarian State
On page 334 the book says, “the proletarian state can take various forms.” True enough, but there is not much difference essentially between the proletarian dictatorship in the people’s democracies and the one established in Russia after the October Revolution. Also, the soviets of the Soviet Union and our own people’s congresses were both representative assemblies, different in name only. In China the people’s congresses included those participating as representatives of the bourgeoisie, representatives who had split off from the Nationalist Party, and representatives who were prominent democratic figures. All of them accepted the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. One group among these tried to stir up trouble, but failed.[6] Such an inclusive form may appear different from the soviet, but it should be remembered that after the October Revolution the soviets included representatives of the Menshevik rightist Social Revolutionary Party, a Trotskyite faction, a Bukharin faction, a Zinoviev faction, and so forth. Nominally representatives of the workers and peasants, they were virtual representatives of the bourgeoisie. The period after the October Revolution was a time when the proletariat accepted a large number of personnel from the Kerensky government — all of whom were bourgeois elements. Our own central people’s government was set up on the foundation of the North China People’s Government. All members of the various departments were from the base areas, and the majority of the mainstay cadres were Communist Party members.http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_64.htm
A Dictionary of Scientific Communism


People’s Democracy, a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat established in several European and Asian countries as a result of popular-democratic revolutions in the 1940s which developed into socialist revolutions. It emerged at a new stage in the world revolutionary process and reflected the specific way in which the socialist revolution was developing at a time when imperialism was weakened and the balance of world forces had tipped in favour of socialism. p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#The.general) The common features characteristic of people’s democracy as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat (q. v.) were determined by the broad social base underlying the socialist revolutions that occurred in the European and Asian countries after World War II, their relatively peaceful development and the assistance and support rendered to them by the Soviet Union. Yet, in each particular country, people’s democracy has its own distinctive features, since the socialist changeover took place there under specific historical and national conditions.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#Unlike.the.Soviet) The general principle of proletarian dictatorship is an alliance of the working class and non-proletarian working people, and the proletariat’s leading role in it. But the forms and boundaries of such an alliance may vary. In the majority of the states of people’s democracy, the middle peasants, who did not wage any active struggle against workers’ power, were drawn into the alliance rather than neutralised. Intellectuals and representatives of the urban petty bourgeoisie also accorded active support to the proletariat. Hence the dictatorship of the proletariat in its people’s democratic form 175 enjoyed a broad social base. Mass sociopolitical organisations like the Popular Front (q.v.), consisting of various parties and other public organisations, became an organisational form of the working class’s alliance with the non-proletarian working people, and the principal feature of P.O. The Popular Front is an important element in the system of proletarian power and has a major role to play in the building of socialist society and its further evolution. As national and social liberation was attained and society transformed on the socialist lines, the balance of class forces underwent a change, which was also reflected in the Popular Front.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#Today.too) Unlike the Soviet Union, where a singleparty system emerged in the course of history, in most of the countries of P.D. a multi-party system was formed. The parties united in the Popular Front to fight fascism and imperialism; under these conditions, the multi-party system helped to expand the social base of the revolution and better fulfil the tasks facing it. Leading positions were held by Communist and Workers’ Parties (this was the case in the GDR, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia). To strengthen cohesion within the ranks of the working class, the Communist and Workers’ Parties in several European countries of P.D. merged with Social-Democratic parties on the basis of Marxism-Leninism (q. v.), while in Hungary and Romania the multi-party system was replaced by a single-party one.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#The.exploiting) Today, too, co-operation between Communist and Workers’ Parties, and nonproletarian democratic parties is going on successfully in several countries of P.D. Experience gained by these countries clearly shows the false nature of assertions by bourgeois ideologists and reformists that Communists have always opposed co-operation with other parties, both in the fight for power and during the building of socialism.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#There.were) The exploiting classes in the countries of P.O., unlike in the USSR and Mongolia, were not, as a rule, deprived of electoral rights because, given the correct policy of the Marxist-Leninist parties and favourable internal and external conditions, their exercise of this right could not present a threat to people’s rule. Only in Romania were the exploiting classes completely deprived of electoral rights for a time; in the rest of the countries of P.O., restrictions only concerned particular categories of persons those engaged in hostile activities against people’s power and traitors who collaborated with the occupation forces during the war. This proved Lenin’s thesis that, in order to implement a proletarian dictatorship, it is not always necessary to restrict the exploiters’ electoral rights.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#Like.the.Soviets) There were also certain other peculiarities in some countries of P.D. In Poland and Czechoslovakia, for example, use was made of some old democratic parliamentary forms modified to conform to the new requirements.
p (http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy#The.experience) Like the Soviets (q.v.), P.D. ensures participation by the workers and all working people in administration of the state, electivity and rotation of the working people’s representatives on governmental bodies, the unity of legislative and executive power, establishment of the state administrative system based on the principle of democratic centralism (q.v.), and leadership by the Communist and Workers’ Parties. P. D. undergoes a change as socialism is built and consolidated, the result being that existing forms of the socialist state draw closer together.
The experience of P.O., like that of the Soviet Union, is of great importance for the international working-class and national liberation movement and the peoples’ struggle to attain socialism. The socialist revolutions that are bound to occur in the future will create new political forms of proletarian power; however, for all their diversity, their essence, as Lenin noted, will invariably be the same: a dictatorship of the proletariat (see Period of Transition from Capitalism to Socialism).
http://leninist.biz/en/1984/DOSC288/Peoples.Democracy

[zimmerwald1915]

No, it is not merely a "question of semantics". Soviets are institutions that spring out of the concrete working-class struggle against the bourgeoisie, and serve to advance and eventually transcend that struggle. People's Democracies, on the other hand, are institutions used to dampen and weaken the working class' autonomy and ability to act on its own, against other classes, in defense of its own interests. No amount of phrasemongering can change this.