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Etienne Balibar on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

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Etienne Balibar on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ETIENNE BALIBAR ON THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT Introduction by Afterword by Grahame Lock Louis Althusser First published as Sur La Dictature du Prol&eacutetariat by Fran&ccedilois Maspero, 1976 © Fran&ccedilois Maspero, 1976 This edition first published 1977 © NLB, 1977 [New Left Books] Translated by Grahame Lock Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, [email protected] (December 1997) [Transcriber's Note: The citations for all textual references to Lenin by the authors are to the 4th English edition of the Collected Works. In regard to this, there are two things that must be noted. First, in the vast majority of instances, when citing Lenin, the authors provide only the volume number and the page(s); seldom is the title of the text by Lenin provided. When it is not absolutely obvious which of Lenin's texts is being cited, I have inserted, in brackets ( [] ), the title of the text. Second, although all of Lenin's texts cited by the authors are available in FROM MARX TO MAO, the editions of Lenin's "classic" texts on the subject (The State and Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, and 'Left-Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder) are NOT from the 4th English edition. Accordingly, next to the titles of these texts, I have provided the page number(s) that correspond to the edition available at this site. With respect to providing "links" to the texts (not to the pages per se) cited by the authors, only a couple of texts are cited once, and the others so frequently that the reader will have ample opportunity to access any given text. I have, however, avoided providing a "link" at every mention of a specific title. -- DJR] file:///E|/My%20eBooks/etienne%20balibar/etienne%20balibar%20-%20on%20the%20dictaroship%20of%20the%20proletariat.html[23.02.2009 11:34:26] On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat Contents Introduction to the English Edition by Grahame Lock 7 Forward 34 I. Paris (1976) - Moscow (1936) 38 'Dictatorship or Democracy' 38 Three Simple and False Ideas 42 A Precedent : 1936 49 II. Lenin's Three Theoretical Arguments about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 58 III. What is State Power? 64 Marxism and Bourgeois Legal Ideology 66 Has the Proletariat Disappeared? 77 IV. The Destruction of ther State Apparatus 88 The Opportunist Deviation 88 The Organization of Class Rule 93 What Has to be Destroyed? 99 The Main Aspect of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 111 V. Socialism and Communism 124 The Historical Tendency to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 133 What is Socialism 139 The Real 'Problems of Leninism' 146 A Few Words in Conclusion 154 Dossier - Extracts from the Pre-Congress Debate and the Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of the French Communist Party (January - February 1976) 157 Georges Haddah On the Question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 159 Georges Marchais Liberty and Socialism 161 Georges Marchais Ten Questions, Ten Answers to Convince the Listener 165 Etienne Balibar On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat 168 Guy Besse On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Reply to Etienne Balibar ) 175 Georges Marchais In Order to Take Democracy Forward 182 to Socialism, Two Questions are Decisive file:///E|/My%20eBooks/etienne%20balibar/etienne%20balibar%20-%20on%20the%20dictaroship%20of%20the%20proletariat.html[23.02.2009 11:34:26] On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat Louis Althussier : The Historic Significance of the 22nd Congress 193 Etienne Balibar : Postscript to the English Edition 212 Index [Not available] 235 page 7 Introduction to the English Edition 'I think that it is out of place to go around shouting that this or that is real Leninism. I was recently re-reading the first chapters of The State and Revolution [. .] Lenin wrote: "What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of great revolutionary thinkers [. .] Attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names [. .] while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance." I think that this bitter quotation obliges us not to hide such-and-such of our conceptions behind the label of Leninism, but to get to the root of all questions. [. .] For us, as Marxists, truth is what corresponds to reality. Vladimir Ilyich used to say: Marx's teaching is all- powerful because it is true. [. .] The task of our Congress must be to seek for and to find the correct line. [. .] Bukharin has declared here with great emphasis that what the Congress decides will be correct. Every Bolshevik accepts the decisions of the Congress as binding, but we must not adopt the viewpoint of the English constitutional expert who took literally the popular English saying to the effect that Parliament can decide anything, even to change a man into a woman.' N. Krupskaya-Lenin, Speech to the 14th All-Union Communist Party Congress, 1925.[1] * * * No-one and nothing, not even the Congress of a Communist Party, can abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is the [1] Quoted by J.-M. Gayman, 'Les D&eacutebats au sein du parti bolchevik (1925-1928) in Cahiers de l'Institut Maurice Thorez, 1976, p. 311. page 8 most important conclusion of Etienne Balibar's book. The reason is that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a policy or a strategy involving the establishment of a particular form of government or institutions but, on the contrary, an historical reality. More exactly, it is a reality which has its roots in capitalism itself, and which covers the whole of the transition period to communism, 'the reality of a historical tendency', a tendency which begins to develop within capitalism itself, in struggle against it (ch. 5). It is not 'one possible path of transition to socialism', a path which can or must be 'chosen' under certain historical conditions (e.g., in the 'backward' Russia of 1917) but can be rejected for another, different 'choice', for the 'democratic' path, in politically and industrially 'advanced' Western Europe. It is not a matter of choice, a matter of policy: and it therefore cannot be 'abandoned', any more than the class struggle can be 'abandoned', except in words and at the cost of enormous file:///E|/My%20eBooks/etienne%20balibar/etienne%20balibar%20-%20on%20the%20dictaroship%20of%20the%20proletariat.html[23.02.2009 11:34:26] On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat confusion. Balibar spells out the reasons for this conclusion against the background of the 22nd Congress of the French Communist Party, which decided to 'drop' the aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat and to substitute the objective of a 'democratic' road to socialism. His concrete references are therefore usually to arguments put forward within the French Party. But it is quite obvious that the significance of the book is much wider, not least because, in spite of the important political and economic differences separating the nations of Western Europe, many of their Communist Parties are evolving in an apparently similar ideological direction, and indeed appear to be borrowing arguments from one another in support of their new positions. Yet in spite of these remarks, it is likely that the very idea of a debate on the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' may appear to many outlandish in the British situation. A book that argues, against the current, for the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat might therefore at first sight appear to border on the bizarre. For is it not at best a sign of eccentricity to invoke such an argument in a country without even a powerful Marxist presence in the labour movement, let alone a mighty revolutionary Party, and where the traditions of parliamentary government and so-called political moderation are so overwhelmingly strong? And if -- as the French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese Communist Parties, among others, believe -- there are in any case good reasons from a page 9 Marxist point of view for abandoning the dictatorship of the proletariat, then what possible reason could any British Communist have for disagreeing? But not only is the term dictatorship of the proletariat apparently old-fashioned and out-of-date; it is also distasteful. For how can the Left condemn the 'dictatorships' in Chile or Argentina, Iran or South Korea, etc., while proposing to instal its own dictatorship? And if the term dictatorship is unpleasant, its partner proletariat - - is seemingly plainly absurd (just try suggesting to a British factory worker that he is a 'proletarian' . .). It is therefore easy to imagine the relief with which Communists in Britain, perhaps even more than elsewhere, have learned that the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is on the agenda here, too (in the land where Karl Marx 'invented' it). If only things were so simple! But, unfortunately, they are not; and this book indicates at least some of the reasons why. It is not intended to resolve all the questions which it raises, but to contribute towards a genuine debate on these questions. This theoretical debate must take place, and it will necessarily be international in character, though of course it cannot and must not be regarded as an opportunity for any side to interfere in the decisions of another, foreign Communist Party. In spite of the major differences distinguishing the States of Western Europe, it is impossible, as I pointed out, not to have noticed that their Communist Parties have in many cases recently come to similar conclusions about the need to modify certain practical and theoretical positions which they have previously defended.
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