I. Politics Under Communism

  A. In talking about communism, Marx often distinguishes between the first stage of communism, which takes place immediately after the revolution and continues for some time, and the second stage of communism, when the transformation of political and social life is complete and  the productive capacities of human beings have been  dramatically expanded. In order to understand Marx’s view of politics under communism, it will be helpful to observe this distinction.

  B. Politics in the first stage of Communism

  1. In The Communist Manifesto, at the end of the section called “Proletarians and Communists,” Marx describes the political life of the revolution in this way:

  a) “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

  b) The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.”

  2. This passage suggests that, over time, the proletariat can use democratic means to attain their aims. But what is required in order to do this, the first paragraph says , is to “win the battle of democracy.” That is, the proletariat must create a true democracy where one does not yet exists.

  a) There were two  barriers to full democracy, at the time Marx wrote.

  (1) First, universal suffrage, even for adult, white, males could be found only in a very few countries and not even in England. 

  (a) And in most countries on the continent of Europe, parliamentary sovereignty over the monarch had not been established.

  (2) Second, in the variety of ways we have described in the section on politics under capitalism, Marx and Marxists argue that even universal suffrage is not enough to overcome the political power of the bourgeoisie.

  b) So the first task of the proletariat is to create democratic institutions.

  (1) In some cases, Marx suggests, that the proletariat will join with the bourgeoisie to establish representative democracies.

  (2) Where such institutions already exist, Marxists will work to expand the suffrage.

  (3) And, where the suffrage is already universal, Marxists would presumably work to overcome the barriers to political equality.

  (a) Marx did not make as much of these barriers as later Marxists, in large part because he believed that the proletariat would be so dominant a part of the political community, and so unified, as to be irresistible.

  3. Democracy is not important for Marx as a means, but as an end. From his earliest writings, such as On The Jewish Question, Marx emphasized the importance of democracy.

  a) Given Marx’s account of alienation, the centrality of democracy to him should be clear.

  b) It is only in a democratic that human beings can

  (1) Collectively control the common conditions under which they live and work.

  (2) Develop and exercise their talents for self-rule. That is, political activity itself is an activity that human beings can find stimulating, challenging and fulfilling.

  (3) Overcome the separation of one human being from another. It is only in politics that people are forced to take up the point of view of other people and defend their views in terms of some conception of the common good.

  (4) Come to understand their own essence.

  c) Thus political activity is necessary for human beings if they are to be freed of alienation. The four points above refer to alienation from product, productive activity, man, and species being. (Moreover, point 1 is that, by controlling the means of production, human beings could develop their faculties and capacities at work.

  4. In The Civil War in France Marx describe the structure and fate of the Paris Commune, the revolutionary working class government of Paris that developed in the course of the 1871 revolt against the regime of Louis Napoleon following the defeat of France by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War. The commune was in existence between March 26 and May 29, 1871 when it was then brutally crushed by the French army. The real interest of this piece for us is that, as Engels says in his introduction, it gives an example of what Marx called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

  a) The Paris Commune was a radical democracy. The aim was to create a government that directly and immediately responded to the will of the majority. The Commune aimed to prevent the government from

  (1) becoming oppressive of the majority or minority and

  (2) from becoming independent of the people.

  (3) From becoming divided by factions

  b) The form of the Paris Commune.

  (1) The highest body of government was the municipal council.

  (2) The councilors were elected for short terms and could be recalled.

  (3) There was universal suffrage. Everyone could vote.

  (4) The council was a “working body.” Executive tasks were largely carried out by committees, drawn from the members of the council and elected by the council as a whole.. Thus there was full parliamentary sovereignty.

  (a) Parliamentary sovereignty arises when the Prime Minister and other ministers are no longer just the choice of the Monarch but must be approved by the parliament. The attainment of parliamentary sovereignty was a decisive moment at which European governments turned in a democratic direction.

  (b) Of course there was no monarch ruling in Paris during the time of the commune.

  (5) While working men dominated the council, there was a bourgeois opposition group. And, by the way, the Marxists were in a minority in the council.

  (6) The councilors and all other officials were paid workmen’s wages.

  (a) The aim was to prevent a separate class of political officials developing.

  (7) Other important officials, such as the judges, the head of the police, were elected for short terms and recallable.

  c) The policy of the Paris Commune.

  (1) Rights to freedom of speech and assembly were protected.

  (2) The Catholic Church was disestablished and freedom of religion was guaranteed.

  (3) Educational institutions were made separate from both church and state. Free education was available to all.

  d) The commune drafted a plan for the government of the whole nation of France that would have followed this model.

  (1) Every village and town would have its own council, modeled after the Paris commune.

  (2) Each local council would elect representatives to a regional council. These representatives would hold office for a short term, would be recallable and would be instructed by the local council as to how they should vote. 

  (3) Each regional council would send representatives to a national parliament. These representatives would also hold office for a short term, would be recallable and would be instructed by the local council as to how they should vote.

  C. The process of revolution: how would a revolution occur?

  1. Marx suggests that, in some circumstances, the revolution would have to begin with violence

  a) This would be necessary where a democratic parliament, parliamentary sovereignty, and freedom of the press had not been established.

  b) Marx suggests, as we saw, that in such circumstances, the proletariat might first have to help the bourgeoisie establish their own power and representative political institutions before using these institutions in a democratic way to create a revolution.

  c) In either case, the first point of violent revolution would be to create democratic government and freedom.

  (1) Marx did not believe that a revolution could, should or would have to be carried by a minority of the population against the people.

  (a) It would not have to be carried out by a minority because the proletariat would soon come to become a majority.

  (b) It should not because, if the proletariat is not a majority and democratic support for communism cannot be found, communism cannot be created.

  (i) As we saw above, democracy is not a means to an for Marx but at the center of communism.

  (c) It could not be carried out because the it would lack the ultimate weapon of the proletariat, their numbers.

  (2) Early in his career, Marx associated with other communists who favored revolution by a dedicated minority. And, some of his writings, papered over the conflict between Marx and these other communists. But Marx pretty clearly did not share these views but, rather, held that in Germany, where capitalism was undeveloped and the proletariat small, a long period of time would pass before a communist revolution could be carried out.

  (a) In his March 1850 Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, he wrote,

  (i) “…[t]the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development”

  (b) In July 1850, Marx wrote in a letter than

  (i) “communism could only be introduced after a series of years, that it must pass through several phases, and that it can only be introduced by way of education and gradual development”

  2. Marx argued that in regimes that had representative democracy, more or less adult manhood suffrage, and civil liberties, the revolution could, at least  initially, take place through peaceful and electoral means.

  a) In an interview with a newspaper called The New York World in 1871 Marx said that “In England, for instance, the way to show political power lies open to the working class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more swiftly and surely do the work. In France, a hundred laws of repression and a mortal antagonism between classes seem to necessitate the violent solution of social war. The choices of that solution is the affair of the working classes of that country. The International does not presume to dictate in the matter and hardly to advise. But to every movement it accords its sympathy and its aid within the limits assigned by its own laws.”

  b) In a speech in September 1872 Hague Congress of the International Workingman’s Association Marx said, “The workers will have to seize power one day in order to construct the new organization of labor; they will have to overthrow the old politics which bolster up the old institutions…We do not claim, however, that the road leading to this goal is the same everywhere…We know that heed must be paid to the institutions, customs and traditions, of the various countries and we do not deny that there are countries, such as England and America, and if I were familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goals by peaceful means. That being the case, we must recognize that in most continental countries the lever of revolution will have to be force; a resort to force will be necessary one day in order to set up the rule of labour.”

  3. But he also pointed out that, even where democratic institutions existed, the bourgeoisie might be unwilling to allow the proletariat to take power without armed struggle. He held, that is, that the capitalists would be likely to use violent means against a democratic communist revolution.

  a) In that same interview with in 1871, Marx said that “The English middle class has always shown itself willing enough to accept the verdict of the majority, so long as it enjoyed the monopoly of the voting power. But, mark me, as soon as it finds itself outvoted on what it considers vital questions, we shall see here a new slaveowners's war.”

  D. In various of his works, Marx talked about a communist revolution brining in a dictatorship of the proletariat. Most interpreters agree, however, that, in using this phrase, he did not mean to argue in favor of an authoritarian regime, one that was non-democratic and that limited the rights to free speech, association and so forth. In talking about a dictatorship of the proletariat Marx seems to have been making one or both of the following claims:

  1. All politics prior to the full attainment of communism is the dictatorship of one class over another.

  a) In the Communist Manifesto, Marx claims that

  (1) “Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another.”

  b) Thus, even when the bourgeoisie exercise power by means of their influence over a representative democratic form of government, Marx  might well claim that they exercise a dictatorship of bourgeoisie.

  c) Similarly, when the proletariat takes power, it will exercise a dictatorship of the proletariat even if the form of government is a representative democracy. For, so long as the bourgeoisie continues to exist, there will be class struggle and the government will side with one class or another.

  2. In the process of making a revolution, extra-constitutional means would be necessary.

  a) Our word “dictatorship” comes from the Latin “dictatura.” The dictatorship was a institution of the Roman  Republic. Dictators were appointed to exercise temporary one-man rule during times of emergency. The powers of the dictator was limited by the constitution: he could suspend but neither enact nor repeal laws.

  b) During the French revolution, the idea of dictatorship was revived and partly transformed. It came to mean rule by an emergency government. Such a government would be extra-constitutional, in that it would hold and exercise power outside of the usual constitutional provisions. And it would have wide powers that might include suspending the usual—and perhaps even natural rights—of human beings. As with the Roman notion, the French notion of dictatorship was that of a temporary form of government that is needed in times of emergency. It is needed for two reasons.

  (1) First, in the course of revolution an old (and presumably unjust) form of government must be overthrown. And a new government must be established. From the point of view of the old institutions, the new government is unconstitutional. Moreover, before a new constitution can be established in the proper way—presumably through a referendum of the people—a temporary form of government must rule. This temporary form of government is a dictatorship

  (2) Second, revolutions are, of course, born in times of violence. If the revolution itself is not made violently, it is often the object of counter-revolutionary violence. A dictatorship, then, is organized to defend the revolution against counter-revolutionary violence. And that it is why it must suspend certain rights until the threat to the revolution is overcome.

  c) As we saw above, Marx expected that, even when a communist revolution is made through peaceful and democratic means, it would be likely to face counter-revolutionary violence. So, in calling for a dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx is perhaps pointing out that an emergency form of government would have to be created to defend the revolution against its opponents.

  d) Thus, on this understanding of dictatorship of the proletariat, the dictatorship is a relatively short-lived institution.

  E. Politics in the second stage of communism

  1. With the end of the bourgeoisie, Marx argues that political power, in the sense of class rule, will be eliminated. He writes in The Communist Manifesto that,

  a) “If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”

  b) In some of his works, Engels talks about the “withering away of the state.”

  2. While governance lose political character in that there is no dictatorship of a class, there would still be public decisions to be made. Presumably there will be common decisions about public goods, that is, about education, recreation facilities and parks and so forth.

  a) Trotsky once said that, come the revolution, political disputes will still arise about what architectural style to use in building a new city hall.

  3. How extensive political decision-making must be depends upon how one understands the nature of politico-economic coordination under communism. Marx and other Marxists have had little to say about this.

  a) Why were they so reticent?

  (1) Marx claims, at times, that he cannot foresee the precise development of the communist mode of production. He distinguishes his scientific analysis of how and why communism will come about from the utopian socialists who develop plans for a future regime but have no notion of how to achieve their ideals. Marx does not want to develop plans and then appeal to the ideal of people but, rather, to rely on what he thinks is a more or less inexorable historical process.

  (2) Another possibility is that Marx did not have a good idea of how a communist political community would work.

  b) What are the alternatives?

  (1) One is to eliminate all market relationships and have the government directly coordinate economic activity through a an authoritative planning or command system

  (a) Marx seems to have had enormous faith in the capacity of the rational planning of political and social life once class divisions are eliminated.

  (b) It is hard to see how a fully planned political economy could work while at the same time allowing each person the complete freedom to choose what work they will do. And this freedom is very important to Marx.

  (i) He, somewhat satirically, tells us that,  come communism, men will hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and be critics at night.

  (ii) And, in The Communist Manifesto he writes, “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

   (c) Presumably, then, there would have to be some means by which men and women could choose to do different kinds of work and yet their choices would somehow be coordinated so that efficient production was the result.

  (i) Perhaps Marx envisaged such a dramatic increase in the productive capacity of human beings that we would not have to worry about efficiency.

  (ii) Maybe he suspected that machines could do most of the work now done by human beings. In his later work, he calls for a drastic diminution of the length of the working day.

  (2) Another possibility is that Marx expected markets, subject to government regulation, to continue to be a main means of economic coordination.

  (a) Business enterprises, however, would be under the control of the workers.

  (b) Capital and consumer markets would exist more or less as they do now, although presumably a wide range of goods would be paid for by common funds.

  (i) Such as education, child care, health care and perhaps a basic allowance for everyone.

  (c) Some kind of labor market that allowed men to choose what work to do would continue to exist.

  (i) Perhaps imagined that, with the transformation of work, men and women could do a variety of unalienating jobs and that the labor market would allow for some flexibility in what they did at any one time.

  (ii) While this is more or less conceivable, it is hard to square with Marx’s notion of distributive justice under communism. For labor markets cannot function without some wage differentials.