The Setting Of The Problem

I. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

NOTHING is so treacherous as the obvious. Events during the past twenty or twenty-five years have taught us to see the problem that lurks behind the title of this part. Until about 1916 the relation between socialism and democracy would have seemed quite obvious to most people and to nobody more so than to the accredited exponents of socialist orthodoxy.

It would hardly have occurred to anyone to dispute the socialists’ claim to membership in the democratic club. Socialists themselves of course—except a few syndicalist groups—even claimed to be the only true democrats, the exclusive sellers of the genuine stuff, never to be confused with the bourgeois fake. Not only was it natural for them to try to enhance the values of their socialism by the values of democracy; but they had also a theory to offer that proved to their satisfaction that the two were indissolubly wedded.

According to this theory, private control over the means of production is at the bottom both of the ability of the capitalist class to exploit labor and of its ability to impose the dictates of its class interest upon the management of the political affairs of the community; the political power of the capitalist class thus appears to be but a particular form of its economic power. The inferences are, on the one hand, that there cannot be democracy so long as that power exists—that mere political democracy is of necessity a sham—and, on the other hand, that the elimination of that power will at the same time end the “exploitation of man by man” and bring about the “rule of the people.”

This argument is essentially Marxian of course. Precisely because it follows logically—tautologically in fact—from the definitions of terms in the Marxian schema, it will have to share the fate of the latter and in particular the fate of the doctrine of “exploitation of man by man.” 1 What seems to me a more realistic analysis of the relation between socialist groups and the democratic creed will presently be offered.

But we also want a more realistic theory of the relation that may exist between socialism and democracy themselves, that is to say, of the relation that may exist, independently of wishes and slogans, between the socialist order as we have defined it and the modus operandi of democratic government. In order to solve this problem we must first inquire into the nature of democracy. Another point however calls for immediate clarification.

Socialism in being might be the very ideal of democracy. But socialists are not always so particular about the way in which it is to be brought into being. The words Revolution and Dictatorship stare us in the face from sacred texts, and many modern socialists have still more explicitly testified to the fact that they have no objection to forcing the gates of the socialist paradise by violence and terror which are to lend their aid to more democratic means of conversion. Marx’s own position concerning this matter is no doubt capable of an interpretation that will clear him in the eyes of democrats.

In Part I it was shown how his views on revolution and evolution may be reconciled. Revolution need not mean an attempt by a minority to impose its will upon a recalcitrant people; it may mean no more than the removal of obstructions opposed to the will of the people by outworn institutions controlled by groups interested in their preservation. The dictatorship of the proletariat will bear a similar interpretation. In support, I may again point to the wording of the relevant passages in the Communist Manifesto where Marx talks about wresting things from the bourgeoisie “by degrees” and about the disappearance of class distinctions “in the course of development”—phrases which, the emphasis on “force” notwithstanding, seem to point toward a procedure that might come within the meaning of democracy as ordinarily understood.2 But the grounds for this interpretation, which all but reduces the famous social revolution and the no less famous dictatorship to agitatorial flourishes intended to fire the imagination, are not quite conclusive. Many socialists who were, and many others who declared themselves to be, disciples of Marx were of a different opinion. Yielding to the authority of the true scribes and pharisees who should know the Law better than I do, and to an impression based upon perusal of the volumes of the Neuc Zeit, I must admit the possibility that, if he had had to choose, Marx might have put socialism above the observance of democratic procedure.

In that case he would no doubt have declared, as so many have done after him, that he was not really deviating from the truly democratic path because in order to bring true democracy to life it is necessary to remove the poisonous fumes of capitalism that asphyxiate it. Now for the believer in democracy, the importance of observing democratic procedure obviously increases in proportion to the importance of the point at issue.

Hence its observance never needs to be more jealously watched and more carefully safeguarded by all available guarantees than in the case of fundamental social reconstruction. Whoever is prepared to relax this requirement and to accept either frankly undemocratic procedure or some method of securing formally democratic decision by undemocratic means, thereby proves conclusively that he values other things more highly than he values democracy. The thoroughgoing democrat will consider any such reconstruction as vitiated in its roots, however much he might approve of it on other grounds. To try to force the people to embrace something that is believed to be good and glorious but which they do not actually want—even though they may be expected to like it when they experience its results—is the very hall mark of anti-democratic belief. It is up to the casuist to decide whether an exception may be made for undemocratic acts that are perpetrated for the sole purpose of realizing true democracy, provided they are the only means of doing so. For this, even if granted, does not apply to the case of socialism which, as we have seen, is likely to become democratically possible precisely when it can be expected to be practically successful.

In any case however it is obvious that any argument in favor of shelving democracy for the transitional period affords an excellent opportunity to evade all responsibility for it. Such provisional arrangements may well last for a century or more and means are available for a ruling group installed by a victorious revolution to prolong them indefinitely or to adopt the forms of democracy without the substance.