What prevents totalitarism ?

[TrotskyMyHero]

During the transitionnal phase in which state still exists, and is ruled by proletarian democracy/dictatorship, what prevents an asshole to reach power and erase all the progress we made to bring back capitalism or to build an autocracy ? (I won't quote Stalin as an example 'cause I don't want marxist-leninists to attack me, it would be most useless)

[The Feral Underclass]

During the transitionnal phase in which state still exists, and is ruled by proletarian democracy/dictatorship, what prevents an asshole to reach power and erase all the progress we made to bring back capitalism or to build an autocracy ? (I won't quote Stalin as an example 'cause I don't want marxist-leninists to attack me, it would be most useless)

I think the main issue is ensuring that political authority, i.e. administration over society, is decentralised using the mandat impératif system that Marx congratulated the Paris Commune for attempting. If positions of responsibility within the day-to-day running of our political and economic systems are not institutionalised, then it makes it more difficult for individuals to assume authority or circumvent any oversight.

The governance and planning for the military and intelligence services should also -- ideally -- be managed by a delegated committee, with the chain of command being limited. Rather than having a ranking system as we see it now, having only several positions for individuals -- who have been elected from within their own ranks -- would limit the need for hierarchical structures; structures that invariably perpetuate capitalist social relations and entrench positions of authority.

[Dodo]

do not obsess yourself with how "transitional phase" should be...whats going to happen depends on the context, the pre-conditions, what forces are at play, at what time and where. There does not need to be a totalitarian context.
The ideology forms up in the context...the problem is if people get into a situation with an already established ideology and impose it on everyone else, have firms beliefs on how everything should exactly be, then totalitarianism becomes an issue.(along with the form of oppositional forces that shapes the dominating forces)

USSR has so many aspects of the things I said...there is no guarantee that it won't repeat. The trick is to get a whole lot more critical thinking revolutionaries as opposed to those who believe in their "science"

[Comrade Hadrian]

The very idea of that a mere handful of people control millions seems fanciful to me. No one really thinks Pinochet all by himself overthrew Allende in Chile. He had a whole class behind him, including a lot of the major unions that were 'trained' by the AFL-CIA in the United States.

The Russian masses thrust the Bolsheviks into power because they were taking a horrific beating. Millions of Russians died in World War 1 for a cause they didn't even understand, let alone believe in. The only people promising them a way out of the madness was the Bolsheviks. The Russian masses wanted out of the slaughter so badly, the Bolsheviks were easily able to mobilize armies of people to go around suppressing their political enemies. None of this could even be imaginable without a real, massive, popular base of support. Just like Pinochet had in Chile, or Hitler in Germany.

Communism only spreads to the most backward masses. Russia was the poor-man of Europe, a decrepit, dying imperialist power. Lenin wrote an essay called "Russians and Negroes" comparing the state of blacks in America with the Russian masses, and says it was better for blacks in America than Russians.



It is a permissible comparison. The Negroes were the last to be freed from slavery, and they still bear, more than anyone else, the cruel marks of slavery—even in advanced countries—for capitalism has no “room” for other than legal emancipation, and even the latter it curtails in every possible way.


With regard to the Russians, history has it that they were “almost” freed from serf bondage in 1861. It was about the same time, following the civil war against the American slaveowners, that North America’s Negroes were freed from slavery,


The emancipation of the American slaves took place in a less “reformative” manner than that of the Russian slaves.



That is why today, half a century later, the Russians still show many more traces of slavery than the Negroes. Indeed, it would be more accurate to speak of institutions and not merely of traces. But in this short article we shall limit ourselves to a little illustration of what we have said, namely, the question of literacy. It is known that illiteracy is one of the marks of slavery. In a country oppressed by pashas, Purishkeviches and their like, the majority of the population cannot be literate.


In Russia there are 73 per cent of illiterates, exclusive of children under nine years of age.


Among the U.S. Negroes, there were (in 1900) 44.5 per cent of illiterates.


After Russia, all the other places communism has come to were even more backward and undeveloped, and/or subject to Western imperialist predation. Communism is the ideology backward nations gravitate towards in order to free themselves. In such places, the nationalists are the communists.

[The Feral Underclass]

The Bolsheviks weren't "thrust into power" they took power...I think that is an important distinction.

[Comrade Hadrian]

The Bolsheviks weren't "thrust into power" they took power...I think that is an important distinction.

I don't think so. Everyone knew the Bolsheviks would eventually take power. It was only a matter of time. The Bolsheviks had ballooned from less than 23,000 members in February of 1917 to over 240,000 on the eve of October. This wasn't because the Bolsheviks suddenly got more organized, or started producing better pamphlets. This is recognized by Lenin in his essay "Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?"


To proceed. Thirdly, the facts show that it was after July 3-4 that the rot set in among the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, precisely because the Tseretelis had exposed themselves by their July policy, precisely because the mass of the people realised that the Bolsheviks were their own front-rank fighters and that the "social-bloc" advocates were traitors.

The masses couldn't help but realize the Menshevik-backed Kerensky regime cared about staying in the war at all costs, even to the point of gunning people down who protested it during the July days. Even horrendous state-repression couldn't stop the Bolsheviks from coming to power.

Their political opponents knew this. There was no question of if the Russian masses would thrust them into power. There was only a question of if the Bolsheviks would dare to take their offer.


On what are all trends agreed, from Rech to Novaya Zhizn inclusively, from the Kornilovite Cadets to the semi-Bolsheviks, all, except the Bolsheviks?

They all agree that the Bolsheviks will either never dare take over full state power alone, or, if they do dare, and do take power, they will not be able to retain it even for the shortest while.

The Russian masses made history by putting the Bolsheviks in power, because only the Bolsheviks promised them a way out. If the Bolsheviks had spewed any other line but the one they did, they would have been nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of Russia.

[The Feral Underclass]

I don't think so. Everyone knew the Bolsheviks would eventually take power. It was only a matter of time. The Bolsheviks had ballooned from less than 23,000 members in February of 1917 to over 240,000 on the eve of October. This wasn't because the Bolsheviks suddenly got more organized, or started producing better pamphlets. This is recognized by Lenin in his essay "Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?"

You don't think it's an important distinction or you don't think they took power?

In any case, who is "everyone"? The point of me highlighting the distinction was to point out a dangerous tendency within revolutionary socialism to want to replicate what happened in Russia in 1917. As Dogukan points out, different situations will arise in different contexts. What happened in Russia is not a one-size fits all scenario. Of course, that's not to say we don't need to be careful about what the process actually means and what we want to achieve from it in terms of building a viable transition into communism. We absolutely do, that's why the distinction is important.

A minority of people seizing state power in a coup will never be the right process to create the necessary conditions for a transition from capitalism to communism.


The masses couldn't help but realize the Menshevik-backed Kerensky regime cared about staying in the war at all costs, even to the point of gunning people down who protested it during the July days. Even horrendous state-repression couldn't stop the Bolsheviks from coming to power.

Their political opponents knew this. There was no question of if the Russian masses would thrust them into power. There was only a question of if the Bolsheviks would dare to take their offer.

The Socialist Revolutionaries were the largest elected contingent in the Constituent Assembly by almost 200 seats, why do you think the Bolsheviks staged their coup in the first place? So I'm afraid what you're saying doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The decision to remain in conflict with Germany under the conditions as they were in 1917 was something that needed to be dealt with, but the way the Bolsheviks dealt with it was arguably not the right one.

And the Bolsheviks were instrumental in their very own "horrendous state-repression" against left-wing opponents, so let's remember that if you are going to start using the accusation to undermine people you don't happen to agree with.


The Russian masses made history by putting the Bolsheviks in power, because only the Bolsheviks promised them a way out. If the Bolsheviks had spewed any other line but the one they did, they would have been nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of Russia.

The Bolsheviks came to power by staging a coup, seizing state institutions and dissolving an institution they did not control. There were no "masses" involved; that is simply a romanticised telling of actual historical events.


They all agree that the Bolsheviks will either never dare take over full state power alone, or, if they do dare, and do take power, they will not be able to retain it even for the shortest while.

A statement that transpired to be blatantly untrue...