Right Wing vs Left Wing Dictatorship

[Die Rote Fahne]

It's an interesting topic for sure. What I'd like to look at is no the similarities, but differences.

Sure we had the police states of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia.

But what key things make it clear that Stalin's Russia, or at least Stalinism is a much safer totalitarian view than Nazism? Or is it? Or should Leninists want to uphold that the dictatorship by Lenin was best.

The idea of oppression, resistance, etc. should be discussed. Why left wing dictatorship's like Lenin was oppressive, yet secular (on issues like marriage, homosexuality, etc.). Why Stalin reversed some of this, etc.

-- To make it clear I do not support dictatorship or a vanguard party. I just think this is a good topic for discussion. --

[Robocommie]

Dictatorships have the advantage of being able to cut through red tape. You don't have to overcome dissent democratically, you can decide what needs to be done and do it, and some of the economic changes that have to be made to establish socialism may require that. Land redistribution, for example.

But once you've crossed that line, I think you've opened the door for all kinds of abuses. Corruption is going to be unavoidable in any system, to some extent, because not everyone's motives will be pure or genuine, and giving unchecked power to any particular institution or person can lead to disaster.

I've been working to sort out my feelings on this for awhile, but I suppose at the moment I'm leaning towards the idea that if the bill of rights stated in a revolutionary constitution includes certain Socialist assumptions, including the exclusion of private property rights, an authoritarian centralized state may not be necessary at all.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think any dictatorship shares certain features when it represents a minority trying to force its will onto an unwilling population. Dictators are usually utilized by a ruling class to ice-out other classes and social forces when they feel threatened or are unable to accomplish what they need done. So in Latin America in the 50s and 60s, dictatorships were used to prevent left-leaning governments from coming to power through promises of land and labor reforms; in the 1970s and 1980s, dictators were set up when the rich knew they could not pass strict neoliberal reforms and austerities. Stalin or Pinochet didn't become tyrants because they were dictators, they needed tyranny to undemocratically force the population to conform to a new order.

Any dictator needs some kind of base of support - military, sections of the bourgeois, landowners, or whatever - or they won't last long enough to deliver their long rambling speeches.

I don't think dictatorships are effective or even useful in a system where the working class is in power and controls production: when the ruling class is the minority class in society, it needs systems where only a minority of the population can influence the system - when we have a majority class ruling class, then we will need the most democratic means possible for our rule.


To make it clear I do not support dictatorship or a vanguard partyI don't know if you were trying to say theses things are the same or not, but I think a vanguard party has (or should have) nothing to do with an autocratic dictatorship - otherwise it's not a vanguard; not connected organically to the working class. A military vanguard can't win a war or a battle, the whole military does that - the vanguard just scouts out and reports back what the situation is as they see it. To continue the military analogy: the groups who rule over the workers and "give them socialism" would not be a vanguard, they would be like the generals, dictating what the forces need to do. Therefore, today most self-proclaimed vanguard parties are just generals without armies.:lol:

[NecroCommie]

Hmph! As if we Leninists would support dictatorship as a standard. Dictatorship-like system of the USSR was a necessity of surival in the russian political conditions, not a goal to be sought after actively. Full direct democracy through soviets is the only way to go FTW!

Vanguard party on the other hand is there only to achieve and sustain revolution, not to pass legistlation.

[Uppercut]

There is one aspect that seperates socialist "dictatorships" with fascist ones: Soviet democracy. This is a powerful tool that helps to prevent the national ministers and secretaries from getting out of hand. Stalin, for example, fought for contested elections in the soviets and greater restrain on beaurocrats and party members. This is to make sure that local, district-wide, and regional soviet leaders do not abuse their power or make unlawful or unpopular decisions. The way I look at it, Stalin was a true representative of the Soviet masses, and his job was to keep an eye on the higher-up party members.

Fascism, on the other hand, truly is a dictatorship of the elite. It doesn't matter if the decisions and legislature passed are within the will of the people. It's based on a societal hierarchy, instead of equality and guaranteed suffrage. People like Pinnoche, and Mussolini really didn't care if their decisions were popular or not. They put their personal beliefs ahead of everyone else.

I think most of us on Revleft, if not all of us, would prefer a dictatorship of the proletariat, as opposed to a genuine, elitist dictatorship