Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bord...lass-party.htm

In section II where Bordiga talks about the tasks of the communist party while the bourgeoisie remain in power, I agree with each point. I think his description of unity and persistence is very good, but more developed in other Bordiga writings.

In the phase which follows the dismantling of the apparatus of capitalist domination, the task of the political party of the working class is as vital as ever because the class struggle - though dialectically inverted - continues.

This is one of the reasons why I, and other Bordigists, are not against the party taking power after the revolution has succeeded.

Any social class whose power has been overthrown, even if it is by means of terror, survives for a long time within the texture of the social organism. Far from abandoning its hopes of revenge, it seeks to politically reorganise itself and to re-establish its domination either in a violent or disguised way. It has turned from a ruling class into a defeated and dominated one, but it has not instantly disappeared.

I think the above is important for all revolutionaries who just seek freedom of the "people" to keep in mind. I don't seek freedom of the people, I seek freedom for the proletariat against the domination of capital. I believe that all communists should enthusiastically support the suppression of the bourgeoisie, in all it's forms, after the revolution.

The presence of such an apparatus does not characterise communist society but instead it characterises the stage of its construction. Once this construction is secured, classes and class rule will no longer exist. But the essential organ of class rule is the state - and the state can be nothing else. Therefore communists do not advocate the proletarian state as a mystical creed, an absolute or an ideal but as a dialectical tool, a class weapon that will slowly wither away (Engels) through the very realisation of its functions; this will take place gradually, through a long process, as the social organisation is transformed from a system of coercion of men (as it has always been since the dawn of history) into a comprehensive, scientifically built network for the management of things and natural forces.

I think that it is important for all communists to recognize that the use of the proletariat state is a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

Section IV were Bordiga talks about the role and the make-up of the proletariat state is very good as well. There is something that I am confused about in this though, and it is here. (I won't quote the entire thing to save room).

The proletarian state can only be "animated" by a single party and it would be senseless to require that this party organise in its ranks a statistical majority and be supported by such a majority in "popular elections" - that old bourgeois trap... If the word democracy means power of the majority, the democrats should stand on our class side. But this word both in its literal sense ("power of the people") as well as in the dirty use that is more and more being made of it, means "power belonging not to one but to all classes". For this historical reason, just as we reject "bourgeois democracy" and "democracy in general" (as Lenin also did), we must politically and theoretically exclude, as a contradiction in terms, "class democracy" and "workers' democracy".

So, is Bordiga arguing that democracy should be opposed if we are talking about democracy meaning the "power of all classes" or arguing that voting itself is wrong? I thought from reading Bordiga's other writings he wasn't against soviet democracy (votes) in deciding things and claiming the soviets were genuine organs of proletariat power? Bordiga goes on later to say that the remnants of the bourgeoisie will never be given political rights in the proletariat dictatorship such as the right to vote, so does this imply the proletariat do have the right to vote?

What does Bordiga mean in this next part?

But even the relationship between the worker - a recognised and active member of the class in power - and the state apparatus will no longer retain that fictitious and deceitful characteristic of a delegation of power, of a representation through the intermediary of a deputy, an election ticket, or by a party. Delegation means in effect the renunciation to the possibility of direct action. The pretended "sovereignty" of the democratic right is but an abdication, and in most cases it is an abdication in favour of a scoundrel.

The working members of society will be grouped into local territorial organs according to their place of residence, and in certain cases according to the displacements imposed by their participation in a productive mechanism in full transformation. Thanks to their uninterrupted and continuous action, the participation of all active social elements in the mechanism of the state apparatus, and therefore in the management and exercise of class power, will be assured. To sketch these mechanisms is impossible before the class relationships from which they will spring have been concretely realised.

Is Bordiga saying that proletariat democracy is a mechanism used in the process of centralization, but that the mechanism of formal votes is not reliable to measure the consciousness of the proletariat because this has more to do with material conditions than it does with individual opinion?

So, is Bordiga arguing that democracy should be opposed if we are talking about democracy meaning the "power of all classes" or arguing that voting itself is wrong?

I think he's saying two things in the passage you cited. Firstly, he's rejecting the notion that the Party must receive a statistical majority in "popular elections" before taking state power as, for example, Daniel De Leon argued. Secondly, he's talking about the meaninglessness of the term "democracy" if understood in its original, literal, and etymological sense as meaning "power of the people." Terms such as "bourgeois democracy," "proletarian democracy," and "class democracy" are contradictions in terms, while "democracy in general" is an impossibility in any society stratified into classes.

I thought from reading Bordiga's other writings he wasn't against soviet democracy (votes) in deciding things and claiming the soviets were genuine organs of proletariat power?

Bordiga was very much in favor of soviets as authentic organs of proletarian rule. (If you ask me, Bordiga is kind of guilty of fetishizing soviets.) I don't think Bordiga was criticizing voting as a means of decision-making but criticizing the notion that the Party must remain a statistical majority of support in "popular elections," which he calls an "old bourgeois trap."

Bordiga goes on later to say that the remnants of the bourgeoisie will never be given political rights in the proletariat dictatorship such as the right to vote, so does this imply the proletariat do have the right to vote?

Yes. The proletariat would be allowed to vote and play an active role in the administration of the proletarian dictatorship. The former ruling class(es) and counter-revolutionaries would be excluded from this.

It's possible that the proletariat wouldn't be the only class allowed voting rights. In the Russian soviets, for example, peasants were allowed to vote, but their votes counted for less than that of a worker's.

What does Bordiga mean in this next part?

I think he's saying that instead of power being largely delegated, the proletariat, through its local soviets, will play an active role in the administration of the state apparatus.