communism and democracy

[bassguy]

i was having a discussion with a friend about communism the other day
we were trying to work out the best system of government in a communist society
so i was wondering, is communism compatible with democracy?
soryr if this seems stupid but i'm a bit confused

[apathy maybe]

Depends on what you mean by democracy. If you mean what is currently meant in the "democratic" nations, then no (representation is not democracy). There will not be a government in communism as it is currently understood.

Democracy as in "rule by the people", direct and absolute rule by the people should theoretically be compatible with communism.

But seriously, how many decisions will actually have to be made that need the input of the community as a whole? Roads can be maintained, children taught, etc. with out any government needed.

[Whitten]

Yes its completly compatable with democracy. Most of us prefer alot of decentralisation too.

[MrDoom]

Communism without democracy is impossible.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

Are we talking about true Comunism or state Socialism here?

[LuXe]

Think he means Communism.

[Leo]

Democracy is capitalism, and it is therefore completely opposed to both communism and anarchism.

First of all democracy is a very authoritarian, bureocratic and hierarchic system. The only gig which enables cappies to present it as something desirable is that it allows 'people' to change the main staff in some period of time, yet this is in fact really meaningless: whoever gets elected has to do what the material conditions requires them to do: doing the best thing for capital. Making real changes with democracy is impossible, the system is not designed for that. Real changes happen when workers act for their interests and for themselves and electing a different group of staff to the office is highly irrelevant to workers struggle. A small elite party can't change anything, classes do.

Secondly, if we go to the roots of te word democracy, it means peoples power. People is a more material equivilant of nation, and it includes both the workers and the capitalists however the so called 'national' interests are always interests of the higher classes. So democracy unites different classes by saying "you are all equall at the ballot box", another thing preventing workers acting as a class.

Bordiga had a nice piece on democracy, if you are interested:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/wo...c-principle.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm)

As a term, I would propose something like Proletarchy instead of democracy.

[Alf]

From Lenin's State and Revolution:

Engels on the Overcoming of Democracy
Engels came to express his views on this subject when establishing that the term "Social-Democrat" was scientifically wrong.

In a preface to an edition of his articles of the seventies on various subjects, mostly on “international” questions (Internationales aus dem Volkstaat), dated January 3, 1894, i.e., written a year and a half before his death, Engels wrote that in all his articles he used the word “Communist”, and not "Social-Democrat", because at that time the Proudhonists in France and the Lassalleans[8] in Germany called themselves Social-Democrats.

"... For Marx and myself," continued Engels, "it was therefore absolutely impossible to use such a loose term to characterize our special point of view. Today things are different, and the word ["Social-Democrat"] may perhaps pass muster [mag passieren], inexact [unpassend, unsuitable] though it still is for a party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general, but downright communist, and whose ultimate political aim is to overcome the whole state and, consequently, democracy as well. The names of real political parties, however, are never wholly appropriate; the party develops while the name stays."

Agree with Leo: democracy, rule of the people, can't exist in a class society, where the "people" is an abstraction that hides class divisions; and in a classless society, there is no 'cracy', no state rule needed

'Proletarchy'? Not too keen on the word, but if it means the political power of the working class in the transition period towards communism, then fair enough.

So democracy is a not really the right word. But evidently the power of the proletariat has to mean exactly that - the power of the workers' councils, based on elected and revocable delegates, not subordinated to a political party or the transitional state.

[Leo]

Originally posted by Alf+--> (Alf)'Proletarchy'? Not too keen on the word, but if it means the political power of the working class in the transition period towards communism, then fair enough.

So democracy is a not really the right word. But evidently the power of the proletariat has to mean exactly that - the power of the workers' councils, based on elected and revocable delegates, not subordinated to a political party or the transitional state.[/b]

That's exactly what it means :)

Democracy is a hard word to escape:


Bordiga
Political freedom and equality, which, according to the theory of liberalism, are expressed in the right to vote, have no meaning except on a basis that excludes inequality of fundamental economic conditions. For this reason we communists accept their application within the class organizations of the proletariat and contend that they should function democratically.

Even Bordiga could not manage to find a better word, but we should!

The term proletarchy suddenly came to me when I was writing the post. It sounds weird, but most new terms do. I would gladly embrace anything sounding better, but literally it is much more accurate while describing organizational methods of the communist project than democracy.

[bassguy]

wow
thanks
you people really know what you're talking about

[More Fire for the People]

The problem of the whole question of whether or not democracy and communism are compatible is that we have to be sure of what we mean by ‘democracy’. Firstly, communism is not compatible with ‘democracy’— the democracy of our times, the democracy on paper but rule of the capitalist class in practice—because democracy implies the existence of a state: a group of specially designated people who carry out the management of things—essentially bureaucrats and politicians. In a communist society the state would cease to exist because state would be unnecessary. However, the state cannot be made useless overnight; the dismantlement of the state is a process. This process is accomplished by a special kind of state that is called the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.

This does not imply a dictatorship of autocrats and oligarchs but of the people, hence the use of the word ‘proletariat’. If the proletariat—the nine-tenths of the population that under capitalism sells their labor in order to live, the nine tenths that carries out tedious tasks at day-in, day-out jobs—is in charge of the administration of thing, is this not a democracy? Sure, it is not a democracy of parliaments, presidents, and popes but it is a democracy of real working people making decisions that affect their daily lives.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 08:16 AM
i was having a discussion with a friend about communism the other day
we were trying to work out the best system of government in a communist society
so i was wondering, is communism compatible with democracy?
soryr if this seems stupid but i'm a bit confused
Well in communism there would be no state. All issues would be resovleved pretty much through democratic internet referendum or local town meetings. In socialism however there would be a state and ideally it would be democratic.