Communism vs. Democracy

I never thought about it like that Centroles.

But does that actually work for them? Or does the communist dictator just take all of the money for him/her self?


On an unrelated note, i think i will try to grow a mustach like Dudayev's, anyone know where I could get one of the hats that he's wearing in the first picture? :wink:

While I'd disagree with Centrole's comment something that seems much more important is your own here Kevin. "Communist dictator" is a bit of a misnomer.

doh

I though communist leaders were called dictators, what are they called?

In a truely Communist society there is no formal leader. As Celi alluded to earlier in this thread, a truely Communist society is also a truely Democratic society. If there was a need for someone to act as a representative the people would select someone.

There have certianly been dictators in nations that are commonly referred to as Communist but no nation has ever (at least not in industrial times) been a truely Communist nation either.

A Dictator is an absolute ruler. A 100% Communist society is based on equeal and distributed governence.

Presidents, prime ministers, party leaders (with various names for their positions), ... the whole spectrum plus a couple more :wink:

Stalin, e.g. was secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [1922-53] and premier of the Soviet state [1941-53].

An the other hand, although the German Democratic Republic was constitutionally a parliamentary democracy, decisive power actually lay with the SED and its boss, the veteran communist functionary Walter Ulbricht, who held only the obscure position of deputy premier in the government.

Actually, Fishin', you're ignoring the class aspect of the equation. LeBoeuf, upon whose life and ideas much of Marx's work was based, simply sought the equality of which you write. But Marx called for a dictatorship of the proletariat, thus marginalizing, or even actually eliminating any other classes, and in particular the class of bourgeois managers and merchants. It was under the guise of the dictatorship of the proletariat that Lenin and Trotsky took control of the Soldiers and Sailors Soviet (soviet=committee), and the Workers' Soviet, in order to challenge Karensky's feeble coalition government. Dugashvilli (Stalin), then used the same ruse to take control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and to use the fig leaf of the proletarian dictatorship to cover his naked grab for personal power.

Quite right: often the person with the most power was the person who headed the party, not the person who was the titular head of government. I believe that Alexei Kosygin was the Soviet premier during most of the 1960s-70s, but it was Leonid Brezhnev who wielded authority in the state (Brezhnev only became president of the Soviet Union in 1977, more than a decade after taking power from Khrushchev).

Ironically, much the same situation occurred in Chicago from 1931 to 1979. The chairman of the Democratic Central Committee of Cook County was the real power in the city. When the posts of mayor and the party chairman were split, the mayor typically took orders from the chairman.

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This post marks my 1000th contribution to Able2Know. In commemoration of the momentous occasion, I hereby offer a picture of a cat sticking out its tongue.


In addition for the rest of this week all of my posts will be written in haiku form.

The kitten is wise.
His tongue senses confusion.
He sticks it at you.

Congratulations - and here's your present:





Do you know the name of the party leader of the UK Labour Party? (Tony Blair is the leader of the National Executive Committee, Ian McCartney Oarty Chair and General Secretary is Matt Carter.)

(The German chancellor still is chairman of the SPD, but will leave this duty later this year [the until now General Secretary will be elected as party leader[chairman] then.)

About the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

If I remember my Lenin well, formal democracy is a method by which the Bourgoisie exerts its dictatorship in capitalist societies.
This means that "dictatorship" does not equate with "tyranny", but to the ultimate control of the State, the economic infrastructure and the cultural superstructure by a single class.
Under these theoretical circumstance, a dictatorship of the proletariat can be held by using different methods -one of which can be formal democracy-, but always if the State, the economic infrastructure are ultimately controlled by the proletariat.

These involves two sets of problems.
One: Who represents the proletariat?
Certainly not the workers themselves, since many of them have been infected by the bourgoise culture.
Lenin -interpreting Marx- distinguishes two proletariats, the class "in itself" and the class "for itself". Workers are the class "in itself". Marxists -or more specifically, the Party- are the class "for itself".
In historical terms, the class "for itself" is the true representative of the proletariat.

Two: Are Communism and formal democracy compatible?
Yes, while the "forces of progress" hold the majority and push class struggle toward higher goals.
If the majority of voters thinks otherwise, then the proletarians (the class "for itself": the Party) must resort to other methods.
An argument to support this view, very popular during the Cold War, is that capitalists (and the US) supported democracy, but only if the leftist didn't win (Nicaragua, Chile, Dominican Republic and probably Indonesia and Congo come to mind). In that case, the democratic facade of the Dictatorship of the Bourgoisie would fall.

Schröder gibt das Amt
Als Vorsitzender ganz auf,
Weil Hamburg schwarz ist.

Due to the many under 21's here on this site, I don't show any pic of Hamburg Reeperbahn as your award for that excellent German :wink:

Excellent analysis, Fbaezer. While i greatly enjoyed Ten Days that Shook the World, i was always amused by what i take to be John Reed's naivete about Lenin's underlying assumption (which i would call socialist central committee might makes communist right) that the ability to control the organs of government in the interest of the proletariat is more crucial than proletarian participation. That attitude of course fails whenever venality obtrudes. I do believe that Mr. Ullyanov was sincere, but with the likes of Dugashvilli waiting in the wings, any hope for a "virtuous" state control was vain.

Walter:
Haikus in German
Are difficult to write: too
Many syllables!

In einer Metrostation
Das Erscheinen dieser Gesichter in der Menge:
Blütenblätter auf einem nassen, schwarzen Zweig.

would be the translation of Ezra Pound's famous

In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Right you are!

I wish i spoke german... or anything other than english

Reds
I watched that film. It was truely sad what happened with the Russian Revolution. So many deaths, so much misery, so much delusion.

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Who said that?

I hate that quote, pistoff. There is nothing wrong with good intentions.

Except that most people seem to think their intentions are good, even when they aren't. Especially people that want to force their good intentions on others.

I have to agree that forcing good intentions on others is durned annoying. But I don't see how we can be expected to do more than have good intentions. I think the road to heaven is paved with good intentions. Of course, perhaps we have different definitions of the word "good." Either way, that saying is garbage IMHO.

Think about it.
Bernard of Clairvaux
(1091-1153) is attributed to the quote, "Hell is paved with good intentions and desires