The development of a dictatorship in the USSR

[durhamleft]

From a Marxist-Leninist perspective, what do you see as the reasons for why Marx's theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR developed into a genuine dictatorship, with the majority of the working class excluded.

For those who are more Trotskyist, or other forms of communist, or even anarchist, how do you think the USSR could have been developed in a way that would have given more power to the proletariat?

Sorry if this is vague, I'm just curious where people of different ideologies stand on this, can you also state what form of lefty you generally view yourself as.

Regards comrades.

[Queercommie Girl]

Basically put, proletarian democracy must be centralised in any kind of genuine socialist state.

Of course, I don't dismiss the objective difficulties Stalin faced in his time, which is one reason why I don't reject him completely. It is difficult to implement a non-distorted form of democracy during a major war for example.

Proletarian democracy is the only long-term method to prevent the rise of corruption, waste, and the restoration of capitalism by revisionist elements. It is idealistic and not materialistic to assume that the party vanguards would always stay disciplined and morally pure etc, without democratic supervision and control.

Without proletarian democracy, degeneration of the worker's state is an absolute inevitability. No human being can ever be a saint. That's a reactionary idealistic semi-religious superstition about human nature. That's why we need democracy. We could all potentially degenerate into mass-murdering bureaucrats. Yes, workers like me and you. Who and what's going to be there to prevent us, apart from generalised working class democracy?

Stalin failed to implement genuine proletarian democracy. His successors were even worse in many ways. Therefore the death of the USSR became set in stone.

Mao tried to introduce some proletarian democracy during the Cultural Revolution, but objectively the Cultural Revolution ultimately failed.

The Trotskyist and Left Maoist methods of developing proletarian democracy are the direct opposite of each other:

Trotskyist: through worker's democracy, establish a proletarian dictatorship;

Maoist: establish a proletarian dictatorship first through war, then gradually introduce direct proletarian democracy through cultural revolutions.

[bie]

From the Marxist-Leninist perspective democracy in Soviet Union never turned into a "dictatorship". In 1970s the number of people engaged in the decision making processes on the various stages of the administration was highest in the world and accounted for more than 11 millions. It was a genuine socialist country, that ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin were put into practice and were proved by the experience to be right. Socialism in USSR brought chances and progress for literally hundreds millions of people. It brought the biggest social, cultural, economical and scientific progress ever and gave rise to the most egalitarian society known. It proved that socialism is a genuine and dangerous for imperialists, alternative to the criminal capitalism.

The concept of "dictatorship" is a bourgeoisie archetypal distortion that is widely applied to all the societies that dare to challenge imperialism, not only to ones that which decided to build society based on scientific principles - i.e. socialism.

Concerning other "interpretations" - ideology is not a supermarket that you go and select what you think you like - may be this - or maybe that.

[Queercommie Girl]

From the Marxist-Leninist perspective democracy in Soviet Union never turned into a "dictatorship". In 1970s the number of people engaged in the decision making processes on the various stages of the administration was highest in the world and accounted for more than 11 millions. It was a genuine socialist country, that ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin were put into practice and were proved by the experience to be right. Socialism in USSR brought chances and progress for literally hundreds millions of people. It brought the biggest social, cultural, economical and scientific progress ever and gave rise to the most egalitarian society known. It proved that socialism is a genuine and dangerous for imperialists, alternative to the criminal capitalism.

The concept of "dictatorship" is a bourgeoisie archetypal distortion that is widely applied to all the societies that dare to challenge imperialism, not only to ones that which decided to build society based on scientific principles - i.e. socialism.


How did such a genuinely democratic socialist society fall to pieces in such a pathetic way? Doesn't that contradict the Marxist notion that socialist society is supposed to be objectively superior and more powerful than capitalist society? How come the genuinely socialist USSR was ultimately defeated by the imperialist USA?



Concerning other "interpretations" - ideology is not a supermarket that you go and select what you think you like - may be this - or maybe that.

No, but then scientific socialism should be underpinned by critical thinking - it isn't a religious faith either. I don't need to have fixated loyalty on a particular kind of tendency.

[bie]

How did such a genuinely democratic socialist society fall to pieces in such a pathetic way? Doesn't that contradict the Marxist notion that socialist society is supposed to be objectively superior and more powerful than capitalist society? How come the genuinely socialist USSR was ultimately defeated by the imperialist USA?
Let me remind you that Paris Commune also fell into pieces. Class struggle is a war, it is nowhere said that it will be won at once. It was found that the proletariat will have to fight once again until it will eventually win. We know only that is will happen, we don't know when and where.

No, but then scientific socialism should be underpinned by critical thinking - it isn't a religious faith either. I don't need to have fixated loyalty on a particular kind of tendency.
Of course you don't have to. The problem is that some of them are based on false assumptions that are taken for granted (eg. that in USSR was a "dictatorship"). And this only serve the imperialism.