First Published: Theoretical Review Vol. 1, No. 2, November-December 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Etienne Balibar. On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (New Left Books, 1977).
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The concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was born in the ruins of the Paris Commune of 1871. It was developed in the midst of World War I and the Bolshevik revolution in the struggle against the Social Democratic betrayals of Marxism. Again in the 1960’s the concept was a central focus in the polemics between the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the significance of modern revisionism. Currently the Euro-communist movement has as one of its central points the rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Through all these debates the dictatorship of the proletariat remains one of the basic concepts of scientific socialism. Most U.S. Marxist-Leninists, if asked, would probably recognize Lenin’s remark: “Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Unfortunately however, there are very few who can go beyond this statement, who have an understanding of Lenin’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is why the publication in English of Etienne Balibar’s book is so important. Balibar, a communist militant, who teaches at the Sorbonne, has produced a systematic presentation of the Leninist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat which is at the same time a sharply worded polemic against Euro-communism.
Balibar effectively illuminates the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat by means of three theoretical arguments or theses, which briefly stated are:
1. State power is always the political power of a single class. The only possible historical alternative to the state power of the bourgeoisie is the equally absolute hold on state power by the proletariat.
2. State power can be realized only through the development and function of the state apparatus. The overthrow of the state power of the bourgeoisie is impossible without the destruction of their state apparatus.
3. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a form of “transition to socialism” nor is it a “road to socialism.” It is identical with socialism itself, it is the transition period between capitalism and communism.
Let us examine each of these arguments in more detail.
The problem of state power is not one which can be settled once and for all by its seizure. Instead it is a problem for the entire transition period during which the threat of capitalist restoration remains. A number of lessons can be drawn from this. First, the problem of state power cannot be reduced to a question of tactics, for the maintenance of state power must always be confronted as long as classes continue to exist.
Second, “the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat has nothing essentially to do with the conditions and forms of the ’seizure of power.’ But is ultimately linked to the question of holding power which in practice determines the whole course of the revolution.” (page 65-66) Third, state power is not the power of a party or a group of individuals. On the contrary it is the domination of a class, and the product of the class struggle.
How does the problem of state power manifest itself today in the advanced capitalist countries? The present imperialist state is not merely the product of the historical class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It is also the product of the present historical conjuncture and the specific forms the class antagonism takes in an epoch which can be characterized as an era of revolution and counter-revolution. Thus the bourgeois state of today is, to use Balibar’s words, “expressly organized as the state of pre-emptive counter-revolution.”(page 86)
At the same time the proletariat of today is in the process of constituting itself as a class, a process which is counter-acted by contemporary capitalism. The process can be completed only when the proletariat seizes state power, through the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat presents this paradox: while it alone can complete the constitution of the proletariat as a class, at the same time that the proletariat becomes the ruling class it also begins to cease being a class as it puts an end to class society itself. The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is thus inextricably linked to the question of the character of the proletarian class. To abandon the dictatorship of the proletariat, says Balibar, is to cause the concept of the proletariat itself to disappear.
Every mode of production and every great historical period (feudalism, capitalism, etc.) has its own organic form of the state, and a definite form of the state apparatus is an organic product of capitalism. It institutionalizes structures and relationships which correspond to capitalist social relations of production and reproduction.
Consequently the working class cannot simply take hold of and use this state apparatus for itself because this apparatus is structurally incapable of serving the proletariat. The capitalist state apparatus must destroyed and in its place a new state apparatus and new forms of proletarian political power constructed. This new apparatus, this new type of state, the dictatorship of the proletariat must serve at the same time the training of the proletariat to rule and the organizing of the class struggle against bourgeois practice and relations. It can only do so by creating institutions which reflect political relations necessary for the transition to communism. The foremost of these institutions and relations must be mass proletarian democracy. Only when the masses intervene in person on the political scene, only when they have proletarian mass organizations, does the dictatorship of the proletariat, the new type of state, exist.
As stated before the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a “road to socialism” but it is identical with socialism itself, it is the transition period between capitalism and communism. Therefore the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be defined in relation to itself, to socialism, it can only be defined in relation to communism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a general historical tendency toward communism which, under capitalism, manifests itself in increasing socialization of production on the one hand and the class struggle of the proletariat on the other.
And inasmuch as socialism is a transition period, embodying within it elements of its past (capitalism) and its future (communism) the dictatorship of the proletariat exists to the degree that the class struggle of the proletariat serves the strengthening of the communist elements at the expense of the capitalist ones. As long as commodity relations and commodity forms continue to exist, the elements of an antagonistic division of labor will continue, and with them relations of capitalism will continue and what is more reproduce themselves. Until the material (economic, political, and ideological) basis for communism exists, these elements of capitalism will be unavoidably present in socialist society. Only the dictatorship of the proletariat can insure that these elements are progressively eliminated not by any smooth “natural” process but by the correct conduct of the class struggle.
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These three arguments, Balibar insists, summarize the Leninist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Modern revisionism in general and Eurocommunism in particular, by their rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat have effectively denied Marxism-Leninism itself. Let us take only one example of the strategic and tactical errors which flow from this rejection and which Balibar discusses in his postscript to the English edition: the theory of state monopoly capitalism.
The proponents of this theory argue that state power is in the hands of the monopoly fraction of the bourgeoisie which rules on its own behalf alone, thus antagonizing all other sections of society including non-monopoly capital. Therefore an anti-monopoly coalition of all these forces excluded from state power, including the non-monopoly sections of the bourgeoisie is possible, and indeed strategic.
This theory flatly contradicts the Leninist conception of state power as the power of an entire class. The monopoly fraction of the bourgeoisie may indeed actually exercise state power, but it does so on behalf of the entire class, with its consent, in one form or another. Different fractions of the bourgeoisie may quarrel over this or that issue but the whole bourgeoisie is united in its desire to maintain state power in its own hands. The correct Leninist strategy can only aim at the overthrow of the capitalist class as a whole because it recognizes the actual relationship between the different fractions of the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the class character of state power on the other.
Balibar’s book includes an appendix which contains extracts from the debate which preceded the Twenty-Second Congress of the Communist Party of France at which the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was removed from the Party statutes. Also included is a speech by Louis Althusser on the Congress and its meaning. The volume is prefaced by an introduction by Graham Lock, the translator, who discusses extremely important historical antecedents in the Soviet Union in the 1930’s which laid a basis for the later abandonment of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the world communist movement. He also deals with certain revisionist arguments against the dictatorship of the proletariat being disseminated in the Communist Party of Great Britain.
The foundation of a genuine communist party in the U.S. will only be possible on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles, free from dogmatist and empiricist deviations. Balibar’s volume is an invaluable source not only for its elucidation of the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, free from revisionist and dogmatist conceptions, but it is also a sophisticated and lucid presentation of the rudiments of Marxist-Leninist political theory in the present context.