Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariet and Peasantry

[Zoroaster]

What is it, exactly? How does it differ from Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution?

[Five Year Plan]

What is it, exactly? How does it differ from Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution?

It was a term coined by Lenin to refer to the government that would take power in Russia following a revolution by the workers and peasants in that society. Because Lenin thought that the bourgeoisie was incapable of carrying out the bourgeois-democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution, Lenin believed it was left to the workers and peasants. That is why he called it a "democratic dictatorship." He also recognized that in a society that was predominantly rural and peasant based, that the proletariat needed the assistance of the peasants in carrying out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution.

The question of the relationship of this formulation to Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is a thorny one, and you'll find a lot of people on this forum who would give you many different answers. My own view is that Lenin always insisted that the "democratic dictatorship" would be carried out under the political leadership of the proletariat, thus giving the proletariat a leading role in the coalition, even if the participation and support of the peasants was absolutely necessary. In this respect his understanding of the DDofthePP was no different than Trotsky's permanent revolution.

Lenin also stressed that the DDofthePP's carrying out of bourgeois tasks was part of the first stage of the revolution, which would then, he speculated develop into the carrying out of socialist tasks after the victory of the proletariat in Europe had successfully overthrown their own bourgeoisie. Trotsky also held this view.

Where there is daylight between the two models is Trotsky's emphasis on forms of state, a notion that did not enter Lenin's vocabulary until made a point of studying Hegelian philosophy, then later Marx's and Engels's writings on the state (culminating in Lenin's "State and Revolution" pamphlet published in 1917). Trotsky, while conceding that the peasants had an essential role in the carrying out of bourgeois tasks, and in the overthrow of Russian absolutism, hammered home the point that the state would have to be proletarian in form, by virtue of the nature of the peasantry as a class (a "sack of potatoes," to use Marx's metaphor). Lenin, at the time, was uncomfortable with this phrasing and thought, wrongly in my opinion, that it was the result of Trotsky attempting to underemphasize the role the peasantry would play in the government following the overthrow of the Tsar.

Another nuanced distinction was Trotsky's emphasis that, while bourgeois tasks would constitute the first phase of activity following the revolution, the fact that the proletariat and the peasantry would be forced to be the ones to carry them out meant that the bourgeois tasks would necessarily have to be carried out in different ways, and assume a different form, than if the bourgeoisie had carried them out. As a result, he emphasized that the activities of the revolutionary dictatorship would assume a proletarian and anti-bourgeois character from the start, even as the tasks being carried out where bourgeois in essence. Lenin did not go this far, once against stopping short of a discussion about forms.

Trotsky in his work Permanent Revolution reflected back on the discussions within the RSDLP about the DDofthePP and about his theory, and concluded that Lenin's perspective was "algebraic," in that it captured what Trotsky was saying, but left other things unspoken at the time. By 1917, I think Lenin had clearly begun to mention these unspoken things. So in short, it was a difference in emphasis that was later bridged completely before it was all said and done.

[Die Neue Zeit]

My own view is that Lenin always insisted that the "democratic dictatorship" would be carried out under the political leadership of the proletariat, thus giving the proletariat a leading role in the coalition, even if the participation and support of the peasants was absolutely necessary. In this respect his understanding of the DDofthePP was no different than Trotsky's permanent revolution.

Actually, I recall having read a couple of Lenin's articles in the 1905 period suggesting great flexibility on who leads the RDDOTPP. His position was flexible enough so that Trotsky's view could be accommodated if the peasants were too passive, but also flexible enough so that the Socialist Revolutionaries' position could be accommodated (i.e., the peasants take the leading role) if the peasants were active enough.

In this respect, my view on the political activism of the "national" elements of the urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie in Third World countries today is very similar.

[Five Year Plan]

Actually, I recall having read a couple of Lenin's articles in the 1905 period suggesting great flexibility on who leads the RDDOTPP. His position was flexible enough so that Trotsky's view could be accommodated if the peasants were too passive, but also flexible enough so that the Socialist Revolutionaries' position could be accommodated (i.e., the peasants take the leading role) if the peasants were active enough.

In this respect, my view on the political activism of the "national" elements of the urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie in Third World countries today is very similar.

If you can find any passage where Lenin discusses the possibility of the peasantry leading the DDofthePP, I would most certainly like to see it. I'm not even going to dignify your comparing Lenin's position to your quasi-trollish "Third-World Caesarean" dictatorship fetish with a substantive response.

As for Lenin on the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, see Lenin's The Aim of the Proletarian Struggle in Our Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1909/aim/ii.htm#v15pp73-367):


No, comrades, a discussion in the Central Organ should not be reduced to pettifoggery. Such methods will not help you to wriggle out of admitting the fundamental and undoubted fact that the majority of the R.S.D.L.P., including the Poles and the Bolsheviks, stand firmly for (1) recognition of the guiding role of the proletariat, the role of leader, in the revolution, (2) recognition that the aim of the struggle is the conquest of power by the proletariat assisted by other revolutionary classes, (3) recognition that the first and perhaps the sole “assistants” in this matter are the peasants.