What would the Dictatorship of the Proletariat look like?

[Grayson Walker]

And be specific if that's fine. Would it be decentrealized or centralized? Would it have a standing army? Would it be run by workers councils? I know these are all opinions and visions of proletarian dictatorship differ significantly but I'd like to hear your views of it.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

Well, historically Paris Commune came closest to what Marxist envisioned as the DoTP. Although, by no means it was perfect. Some will say that the Soviet Union, at least before Stalinist counter-revolution was historically the best example of the DoPT. Some will say that the Soviet Union under Stalin was the best example. Well, I won't make a judgement on this one, but the safest bet is the Paris Commune, take a look at it.

[Blake's Baby]

As the revolutionary dictatorship must, by definition, be a class society, then we can conclude that it is presiding over the progressive destruction of late capitalism. We can also presume that there will still at this period be non-revolutionary areas of the globe.

So; it will be a state (of sorts); and it will be fighting internal 'pro-restoration' elements internally and hostile capitalist states externally. So, yes, it will probably have a form a standing army, until the world civil war is won.

It will, I hope, be run by workers' councils, because otherwise I can't see how it's 'the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat'.

As to centralisation or not - I suspect that it won't all be contiguous, different territories will declare themselves part of the revolutionary dictatorship but won't necessarily all be 'governed' as a single entity.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Does it matter?

[Red Star Rising]

Does it matter?

Is it not important to help others understand what we mean by DotP? Whenever you are arguing with someone and they ask about "what will ..... be like?" a hypothetical model would be important in effectively convincing them wouldn't it? You can't call yourself a connoisseur of Picasso if you can't describe a single one of his paintings.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Any configuration conjured up in the minds of enthusiasts is unlikely to turn into a reality. The role and function of the dotp is useful to think about maybe but imagining what it will actually look like manifested in reality is pretty useless.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Any configuration conjured up in the minds of enthusiasts is unlikely to turn into a reality. The role and function of the dotp is useful to think about maybe but imagining what it will actually look like manifested in reality is pretty useless.

This. Plus utopianism charge.

[Red Star Rising]

Any configuration conjured up in the minds of enthusiasts is unlikely to turn into a reality. The role and function of the dotp is useful to think about maybe but imagining what it will actually look like manifested in reality is pretty useless.

It depends what we mean by "look like". We can describe how it will be organised in Marxist terms and contrast it to capitalism for the purpose of argument (collective ownership of the means of production and a lack of class-based hierarchy etc.) That is the important part anyway, as for predicting how it will look in terms of technological advancement and social trends etc. is as impossible and useless as predicting what capitalism will look like in the future. We can't really say how it will affect human behaviour but that doesn't mean we have to avoid ever talking about it in a more general sense.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Right, thats what I said. Reality doesn't conform to what Marxists think or write about and if a revolution occurs its safe to assume that the people carrying it out will not be well read on the topic of work committees or any of the other organizations that Marxists predict will take form. The dotp as a task is separate from the future society that people imagine in their heads before it actually occurs.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Right, thats what I said. Reality doesn't conform to what Marxists think or write about and if a revolution occurs its safe to assume that the people carrying it out will not be well read on the topic of work committees or any of the other organizations that Marxists predict will take form. The dotp as a task is separate from the future society that people imagine in their heads before it actually occurs.

And revolutions aren't owned by an ideology.

[Red Star Rising]

Right, thats what I said. Reality doesn't conform to what Marxists think or write about and if a revolution occurs its safe to assume that the people carrying it out will not be well read on the topic of work committees or any of the other organizations that Marxists predict will take form. The dotp as a task is separate from the future society that people imagine in their heads before it actually occurs.

Then how exactly do we ensure that it doesn't go horribly horribly wrong? We can't give everyone a detailed education on what Karl Marx meant by DotP and the billions of interpretations of it. Some kind of basic constitution written by intellectuals that outlines the basics and acts as instructions for workers without asserting themselves as a ruling elite but people aren't really spurred into revolution by literature. Like you say, it is impossible to imagine exactly how a DotP will behave and come into fruition and not particularly useful to try. But it is probably more useful to conclude what DotP does NOT mean tbh and then just let it function in whatever way it will as long as it does not break the basic core principles. Still, there might always be unforeseeable disagreements on what the most important principles are.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Then how exactly do we ensure that it doesn't go horribly horribly wrong? We can't give everyone a detailed education on what Karl Marx meant by DotP and the billions of interpretations of it. Some kind of basic constitution written by intellectuals that outlines the basics and acts as instructions for workers without asserting themselves as a ruling elite but people aren't really spurred into revolution by literature. Like you say, it is impossible to imagine exactly how a DotP will behave and come into fruition and not particularly useful to try. But it is probably more useful to conclude what DotP does NOT mean tbh and then just let it function in whatever way it will as long as it does not break the basic core principles. Still, there might always be unforeseeable disagreements on what the most important principles are.

You can't ensure it. Simple. The task is to just struggle, get involved, critique forms of struggle and organisation in relation to the state society is in (constantly update to match changes in society) and finally always maintain the point of opposition to the totality, always keeping total negation in mind with whatever social issue.

[Red Star Rising]

You can't ensure it. Simple. The task is to just struggle, get involved, critique forms of struggle and organisation in relation to the state society is in (constantly update to match changes in society) and finally always maintain the point of opposition to the totality, always keeping total negation in mind with whatever social issue.

We can't ever ensure anything I suppose. And maintaining struggle + allying ourselves to existing struggles is the best we can do. Still, some measures could be taken in negating the chance of the revolution going wrong again. As for what they are, we can't say until we see it happen.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

We can't ever ensure anything I suppose. And maintaining struggle + allying ourselves to existing struggles is the best we can do. Still, some measures could be taken in negating the chance of the revolution going wrong again. As for what they are, we can't say until we see it happen.

A lot can happen in a few hours and if something took off we'd have to throw ideas around here while engaging in activity.

[Thirsty Crow]

And be specific if that's fine. Would it be decentrealized or centralized? Would it have a standing army? Would it be run by workers councils? I know these are all opinions and visions of proletarian dictatorship differ significantly but I'd like to hear your views of it.
I advocate the viewpoint that territorial workers' councils (delegate councils), also underpinned by the activity of mass assemblies (which enable mass participation in discussion and deliberation), and workplace committees (on the ground bodies of workers tasked with organizing the specifics of operation in a particular workplace, organs of workers' direct control of work activity) are two basic mechanisms of working class rule. In place of the standing army I also would advocate the general arming of the class, with organs such as the intelligence service formed out of necessity for curbing counter-revolutionary activity. The issue of instant recall of delegates is hugely important, and particular operational mechanisms need to be devised to ensure it is not merely a recognized right with no possible effect.

The revolutionary political parties and organizations have their own role as well, in my view one of hubs for definite visions of how to do this business of social transformation. Whether it is one political organization with internal platform/faction structure, or multiple organizations is irrelevant in my opinion as long as monopolization of political space doesn't occur (in other words, granting multiple revolutionary perspectives, while completely excluding restoration politics from public and political life).

[RedWorker]

According to Marxism, contradictions within capitalism produce class antagonisms between the working class and capitalist class which will result, at some point, in a revolutionary situation wherein the working class forms organs of workers' power -- such as workers' councils, workers' associations, committees, communes -- to try and conquer political power. These organs, part of a revolutionary body -- the workers' state or revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat -- is organised from below with power in the lowest organs, and mandated, recallable, rotating workers' deputies in higher organs executing decisions. These decisions are binding on all organs by virtue of the lower organs accepting the decisions of the higher organs. This is important since the revolutionary working class needs to generalise its conditions to consolidate victory. The revolutionary state is a temporary one where councils and such organs will wield political power, while workers' associations will assume control of production. Through this process, socialised production under private property is transformed into social ownership. The state will use violence, pressure, and coercion where necessary to consolidate power and carry the revolution to victory. This violence is directed at the reaction, those using violence to restore property rights and to restore the bourgeois class to the position of ruling class. As the social revolution progresses the reaction is beaten and defeated, and the process of socialisation is completed, revolutionary violence is obsolete and will necessarily disappear -- it's not a matter of giving up power, it's matter of it becoming obsolete. What remains of the workers' state -- the workers' state stripped of its coercive functions -- is the associations of producers and social ownership. In other words, the result is the free association of equal producers and consumers administrating commonly owned productive resources: communism.

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[Tim Cornelis]

This. Plus utopianism charge.

Poppycock. The 'utopianism charge' is abused as cop out by people who, in utopian fashion of their own sense, wrongly allege that you cannot infer from existing social development a future social development and even a new society. A misunderstanding of what utopianism is that leaves the door open to all kinds of reformist illusions about what may succeed the capitalist mode of production. After all, if any discussion of what may arise in the place of capitalism -- or even something as fundamental as the instruments used to get there -- is dismissed as utopianism, then there is no basis for dismissing that, for instance, the Soviet Union has superseded capitalism.

As Bordiga said, "communism presents itself as the transcendence of the systems of utopian socialism which seek to eliminate the faults of social organisation by instituting complete plans for a new organisation of society whose possibility of realisation was not put in relationship to the real development of history." However, a Marxist analysis can certainly tell us what the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat will look like by analysing the tendencies that arise organically from class antagonisms and contradictions in capitalism, and thus the real development of history.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Poppycock. The 'utopianism charge' is abused as cop out by people who, in utopian fashion of their own sense, wrongly allege that you cannot infer from existing social development a future social development and even a new society. A misunderstanding of what utopianism is that leaves the door open to all kinds of reformist illusions about what may succeed the capitalist mode of production. After all, if any discussion of what may arise in the place of capitalism -- or even something as fundamental as the instruments used to get there -- is dismissed as utopianism, then there is no basis for dismissing that, for instance, the Soviet Union has superseded capitalism.

As Bordiga said, "communism presents itself as the transcendence of the systems of utopian socialism which seek to eliminate the faults of social organisation by instituting complete plans for a new organisation of society whose possibility of realisation was not put in relationship to the real development of history." However, a Marxist analysis can certainly tell us what the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat will look like by analysing the tendencies that arise organically from class antagonisms and contradictions in capitalism, and thus the real development of history.

It isn't a product of people who have their own fashion of utopianism, that's really bizarre. What I was saying was that one can only ever point out the general consequences of negating what we already live under, the opposite and transcendence of what we have in a dialectical sense. So from private property we can infer commonly owned property, from hierarchical organisation we can infer horizontal organisation of a higher order, merely subjecting the individual to the collective instead of the individual to the collective and then to an individual/smaller collective. But this is very much just abstract thought with little to tie it to practice except for historical examples, so it's just a floating blueprint at worst, a general and permissive checklist at best. It seems Utopian because it fixes an image of something to be obtained rather than focussing on immediate changes to relations that have their roots in current struggles, like simply taking commodities for free and abandoning money.

[Tim Cornelis]

It isn't a product of people who have their own fashion of utopianism, that's really bizarre. What I was saying was that one can only ever point out the general consequences of negating what we already live under, the opposite and transcendence of what we have in a dialectical sense. So from private property we can infer commonly owned property, from hierarchical organisation we can infer horizontal organisation of a higher order, merely subjecting the individual to the collective instead of the individual to the collective and then to an individual/smaller collective. But this is very much just abstract thought with little to tie it to practice except for historical examples, so it's just a floating blueprint at worst, a general and permissive checklist at best. It seems Utopian because it fixes an image of something to be obtained rather than focussing on immediate changes to relations that have their roots in current struggles, like simply taking commodities for free and abandoning money.

This is merely speculative assumptions based on some really flawed "dialectics". By this logic ("general consequences of negating what we already live under") we should have had socialism after feudalism. It's meaningless and inaccurate to say that something necessarily will be the opposite of what was negated. Why should it be that way?

We can infer social ownership, not from that it is the opposite of private ownership, but because when socialised production is confronted with class struggle and expropriation, it slips into public property.
We can infer associated labour ('non-hierarchy'), not from that it is the opposite of hierarchy, but from that cooperative labour is the organic outcome of class struggle and expropriation (with expropriation being the outcome of class struggle)
We can infer production from use, not from that it is the opposite of commodity production and profits, but from that associated labour makes monetary-commodity exchange of immediate and final products obsolete, and makes them incompatible.

We can likewise infer what a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat would look like by analysing the real development of history and social development. Class antagonisms, occasionally, lift a tip of the veil, when open confrontations of opposing class interests result in open class conflict, the revolting working class forms organs for their own immediate interests and defence. Sometimes these organs are more advanced (Paris Commune, Russia 1917, Spain 1936) than in other times (Argentina 2002, Bosnia 2014).

Similarly, "It is not necessary to construct it or think it out. History has already produced it. It sprang into life out of the practice of the class struggle. Its prototype, its first trace, is found in the strike committees. In a big strike, all the workers cannot assemble in one meeting. They choose delegates to act as a committee. Such a committee is only the executive organ of the strikers; it is continually in touch with them and has to carry out the decisions of the strikers. Each delegate at every moment can be replaced by others; such a committee never becomes an independent power. In such a way, common action as one body can be secured, and yet the workers have all decisions in their own hands. Usually in strikes, the uppermost lead is taken out of the hands of these committees by the trade unions and their leaders." (Anton Pannekoek, Workers' Councils, 1936).

From this we can construe what a hypothetical workers' government would look like.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

This is merely speculative assumptions based on some really flawed "dialectics". By this logic ("general consequences of negating what we already live under") we should have had socialism after feudalism. It's meaningless and inaccurate to say that something necessarily will be the opposite of what was negated. Why should it be that way?

We can infer social ownership, not from that it is the opposite of private ownership, but because when socialised production is confronted with class struggle and expropriation, it slips into public property.
We can infer associated labour ('non-hierarchy'), not from that it is the opposite of hierarchy, but from that cooperative labour is the organic outcome of class struggle and expropriation (with expropriation being the outcome of class struggle)
We can infer production from use, not from that it is the opposite of commodity production and profits, but from that associated labour makes monetary-commodity exchange of immediate and final products obsolete, and makes them incompatible.

We can likewise infer what a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat would look like by analysing the real development of history and social development. Class antagonisms, occasionally, lift a tip of the veil, when open confrontations of opposing class interests result in open class conflict, the revolting working class forms organs for their own immediate interests and defence. Sometimes these organs are more advanced (Paris Commune, Russia 1917, Spain 1936) than in other times (Argentina 2002, Bosnia 2014).

Similarly, "It is not necessary to construct it or think it out. History has already produced it. It sprang into life out of the practice of the class struggle. Its prototype, its first trace, is found in the strike committees. In a big strike, all the workers cannot assemble in one meeting. They choose delegates to act as a committee. Such a committee is only the executive organ of the strikers; it is continually in touch with them and has to carry out the decisions of the strikers. Each delegate at every moment can be replaced by others; such a committee never becomes an independent power. In such a way, common action as one body can be secured, and yet the workers have all decisions in their own hands. Usually in strikes, the uppermost lead is taken out of the hands of these committees by the trade unions and their leaders." (Anton Pannekoek, Workers' Councils, 1936).

From this we can construe what a hypothetical workers' government would look like.

Commonly owned property cannot be sustained by an economic system that was, prior to the change, feudal. Post-scarcity would not be able to exist. Admittedly my use of dialectics was weaker than yours because the examples I gave were too abstract in the Hegelian sense, they lacked other supporting abstract concepts to make things more concrete.

[Red Star Rising]

Poppycock. The 'utopianism charge' is abused as cop out by people who, in utopian fashion of their own sense, wrongly allege that you cannot infer from existing social development a future social development and even a new society. A misunderstanding of what utopianism is that leaves the door open to all kinds of reformist illusions about what may succeed the capitalist mode of production. After all, if any discussion of what may arise in the place of capitalism -- or even something as fundamental as the instruments used to get there -- is dismissed as utopianism, then there is no basis for dismissing that, for instance, the Soviet Union has superseded capitalism.

I agree. There is a world of difference between speculation on how DotP will function and Utopianism. as long as we treat inference as pure speculation and are prepared to respond to unforeseeable factors affecting humanity in the future, there is no harm in discussing it. It is good to understand our goals as long as we don't suffer from an inability to adapt or compromise. Attempting to attain a specific description is futile but there is nothing wrong with sharing various ideas.