DotP, Workers' State, and Socialism

[CollectivRed]

I was just wondering, is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat the same thing as a "workers' state," or does a workers' state mean socialism, which, I think, comes after the DotP? I have not yet read State and Revolution yet, which I plan on doing eventually.

[Blake's Baby]

Different tendencies will have different answers to this question. Maoists, and some confused Trotskyists, think that the revolutionary dictatorship = socialism.

'Ortho'-Stalinists, and most Trotskyists, think that the revolutionary dictatorship = a workers' state, which is not the same as socialism.

Left Communists think that the revolutionary dictatorship is not socialism, but generally we reject the notion of the 'workers' state'.

Marx's schema, I think, boils down to
1 - 'capitalist dictatorship' ->
2 - revolutionary dictatorship (during revolution) ->
3 - socialist/communist society - first phase (in which production is not yet completely re-organised for free access) ->
4 - socialist/communist society - higher phase (in which free access communism is possible)

That's as simple as Marx's thought seems to be on the periodisation of the revolution and the transformation from capitalist to socialist society.

[RedWorker]

"Workers' state" may be used as a synonym for "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat", as may "proletarian democracy", and so on.

According to Marx, after the first stage of social transformation, there is a stage where there can be "nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat", which then ushers into communist society: first its lower stage, born with the birth marks of capitalism (which Lenin calls 'socialism', but without deviating what it actually means, unlike Stalinists), and then its upper stage (which Lenin calls 'communism').

Anyway, I would rather get it from Marx than from Lenin. In "Critique of the Gotha programme" he talks about the revolutionary DOTP, lower stage and upper stage. And in "The German Ideology" historical materialism is explained.

[tuwix]

I was just wondering, is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat the same thing as a "workers' state," or does a workers' state mean socialism, which, I think, comes after the DotP? I have not yet read State and Revolution yet, which I plan on doing eventually.

Yes, it means it.


However, in mouth of Leninist it can be something completely different. :)

[Red Star Rising]

Marx's schema, I think, boils down to
1 - 'capitalist dictatorship' ->
2 - revolutionary dictatorship (during revolution) ->
3 - socialist/communist society - first phase (in which production is not yet completely re-organised for free access) ->
4 - socialist/communist society - higher phase (in which free access communism is possible)

What exactly entails a revolutionary dictatorship?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The armed working class abolishing itself as a class. Unfortunately that's pretty vague which leads people to assigning the title to places where it doesn't belong.

[Red Star Rising]

The armed working class abolishing itself as a class. Unfortunately that's pretty vague which leads people to assigning the title to places where it doesn't belong.
Thought so :/

How does this differ from socialism?

[Illegalitarian]

There's a lot of debate about the "lower" and "higher" phases of communism. Some argue that the first, lower stage is a "stage" all on its own, while others argue it's synonymous with the period of proletarian dictatorship.

I don't think Marx thought so, though. Most anarchists do, however

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Thought so :/

How does this differ from socialism?



Socialism is a society free of class, in order to reach that point the conditions that create classes have to be addressed. The working class arms itself, takes control of production, eliminates the state and in the process demolishes the conditions that lead the existence of the bourgeoisie. The working class can only exist in relation to the bourgeoisie, with that class eliminated workers themselves are eliminated as a class. What's left is a classless society in control of it's own future.

[Tsiolkovsky on the Moon]

As I understand it, the dictatorship of the proletariat exists with the worker's state. The dictatorship of the proletariat refers to the control (dictatorship) of the state by a new class (proletariat as opposed to bourgeoisie) and this is the form of government a worker's state possesses. The worker's state has not achieved socialism yet, but is actively working towards a socialist society that will shrug the "state" in the phrase worker's state off.

[Blake's Baby]

EDIT - pretty much just repeating what Ethics Gradient said.

[Red Star Rising]

Socialism is a society free of class, in order to reach that point the conditions that create classes have to be addressed. The working class arms itself, takes control of production, eliminates the state and in the process demolishes the conditions that lead the existence of the bourgeoisie. The working class can only exist in relation to the bourgeoisie, with that class eliminated workers themselves are eliminated as a class. What's left is a classless society in control of it's own future.

Does't the bourgeoisie cease to exist after the revolution - they can no longer purchase labour or own the means of production given that both are liberated from private ownership. Doesn't this make the term "bourgeoisie" irrelevant? So in the very action of seizing control of the state don't the Proletariat abolish themselves as a class seeing as there is nobody to sell their labour to?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Provided the victors don't start the whole thing back up again themselves, sure. But you're assuming revolution would happen everywhere at once, it might but it also might not. Places where it has happened need to be able to defend themselves until its all over. Plus it's not like you just flip a switch and everything is ready to go, you have to reorganize an entire society, that might take years or it might take days.

People fetishize it and turn it into something it's not, I don't think it implies a specific organizational form. There is a revenge fantasy at work in a lot of people's heads, visions of revolutionary terror taking the form of scaffolds and secret police raids and all that kind of shit. The real revolutionary terror comes in the shape of reorganizing society beyond the control of its current masters. The form this act will really take will be based on whatever conditions caused it to leap into existence in the first place, not proclamations made by angry people on the internet living under capitalism now.

[Red Star Rising]

Provided the victors don't start the whole thing back up again themselves, sure. But you're assuming revolution would happen everywhere at once, it might but it also might not. Places where it has happened need to be able to defend themselves until its all over. Plus it's not like you just flip a switch and everything is ready to go, you have to reorganize an entire society, that might take years or it might take days.

People fetishize it and turn it into something it's not, I don't think it implies a specific organizational form. There is a revenge fantasy at work in a lot of people's heads, visions of revolutionary terror taking the form of scaffolds and secret police raids and all that kind of shit. The real revolutionary terror comes in the shape of reorganizing society beyond the control of its current masters. The form this act will really take will be based on whatever conditions caused it to leap into existence in the first place, not proclamations made by angry people on the internet living under capitalism now.

That sort of answers a few questions. I was wondering how all this would work on a global scale :)

[Red Star Rising]

Provided the victors don't start the whole thing back up again themselves, sure. But you're assuming revolution would happen everywhere at once, it might but it also might not. Places where it has happened need to be able to defend themselves until its all over. Plus it's not like you just flip a switch and everything is ready to go, you have to reorganize an entire society, that might take years or it might take days.

People fetishize it and turn it into something it's not, I don't think it implies a specific organizational form. There is a revenge fantasy at work in a lot of people's heads, visions of revolutionary terror taking the form of scaffolds and secret police raids and all that kind of shit. The real revolutionary terror comes in the shape of reorganizing society beyond the control of its current masters. The form this act will really take will be based on whatever conditions caused it to leap into existence in the first place, not proclamations made by angry people on the internet living under capitalism now.

The whole "protection" thing is used a lot by Marxist-Leninists trying to defend the USSR. What would this "defense" entail? Can you have a democratic, less bureaucratic dictatorship of the proletariat?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The dictatorship could only be relevant in the context of an actual revolutionary situation. If the USSR was ever even an example of a this dictatorship to begin with, it outlived it's moment of usefulness and was recuperated back into capitalist production anyhow.

[CollectivRed]

So, essentially, because the term "workers' state" means the revolutionary dictatorship (existing during the time of revolution, defending the revolution, and beginning to take control of and transform society) is when the "state" exists? Does the state still exist in the stage of socialism, meaning it is still technically there, but is just not as prominent and is in the gradual process of withering away? After which being full communism, which is an entirely new stage after socialism, or the highest stage of it (a fully developed, globalized, total free-access society). If that is the case, socialism would not be a workers' state, but just a "state." Were most of the so-called "socialist" countries that existed in the past just failed DOTPs organized along Marxist-Leninist lines, the original DOTP being the USSR, which went wrong due to the historical/material conditions (being an economically backwards nation, failure of the revolutionary wave in Western Europe to spread, and invasion by the imperialist powers)?

[Creative Destruction]

there is no state in socialism. socialism is the era in which classes have been destroyed. since the state is an instrument of class oppression, it'd make no sense to have a state in a period in which there is no class.

[RedWorker]

What exactly entails a revolutionary dictatorship?


Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society – an inevitable transformation in all previous states – the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts – administrative, judicial, and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.


[...] Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat


(source (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm))


The first point of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is that all office is to be elected by the concerned population.


The second is the existence of state organs which allow for the popular control of certain processes, which put into possibility the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production.


According to Lenin: "The way out of parliamentarism is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions and the elective principle, but the conversion of the representative institutions from talking shops into “working” bodies." (State and the Revolution)

[David Warner]

I was just wondering, is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat the same thing as a "workers' state," or does a workers' state mean socialism, which, I think, comes after the DotP? I have not yet read State and Revolution yet, which I plan on doing eventually.

In a way that's like asking what's the difference between capitalism, a bourgeois state, and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Socialism is a socio-economic system -- a stage in the evolution of human society. (So are primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism.) A state is an institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it follows that a workers' state is the the institution by which the working class (proletariat) exercises its dictatorship over other (former) oppressor classes. The dictatorship of proletariat is simply the organization (of the vanguard) of the working class for the purpose of suppressing the these oppressor classes.

[Blake's Baby]

But it's not socialism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The term "workers' state", actually "degenerated" or "deformed workers' state" is also used by (many) Trotskyists to refer to states whose internal relations of production are of the same type as the Soviet Union after the bureaucratic Thermidor of the mid-twenties, which we view as transitional between capitalism and socialism (c.f. Mandel, "Ten Theses", which are actually fairly good apart from the dreadful tenth thesis), although complicated by the existence of a parasitic bureaucratic layer.