TRUTH AND LIES ABOUT SOCIALISM:
ON THE SOCIALIST POWER.
Central Council of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE).
Published by Synchroni Epochi, 2013.
PART II: THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT:
A HIGHER FORM OF DEMOCRACY.
The leap that takes place during the socialist
construction, i.e. during the transition from
capitalism to communism, is qualitatively
higher than any previous one, since communist
relations, as non-exploitative, cannot be
formed in capitalism. The political revolution
is the precondition for these new relations to
be imposed and dominate, i.e. the conquest
of power by the working class and the establishment
of its own state, the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
This is a basic difference in the transition
to the communist socioeconomic formation
in relation with the previous. In the framework
of the transition from an exploitative
socioeconomic formation to another, the new
relations could be developed and dominate
first in the confines of the previous socioeconomic
formation and then, as the last part
of this process, the class that was the bearer
of the new relations struggled for and took
power. This happened for example in relation
to capitalism.
Capitalist relations were
first developed and dominated within the
confines of feudalism, which brought about
an unavoidable conflict between the rising
bourgeois class and the class of the feudalnobility
that was declining. The great bourgeois
revolutions completed the absolute
domination of the bourgeoisie through the
seizure of political power, which of course
was necessary in order for the capitalist relations
to dominate everywhere and become
fully developed.
But, communist relations are non-exploitative
relations. Only their preconditions are
developed within capitalism. Their appearance
and domination requires the abolition
of capitalist ownership of the means of
production, which can only be done after
having overthrown capitalist power and its
state.
Thus, the dictatorship of the proletariat has
a ‘’double’’ duty. On the one hand to suppress
and overcome the efforts of capitalists
to retake the power, on the other to form and
develop the new relations, a task that is longterm
and includes the whole period of the socialist
construction, which is the period of the
social revolution.
The task of the revolutionary workers’ power
is to deepen and expand the communist
relations in production
and distribution, to
form the new communist
consciousness, the
new man. This task is
complex and long-term
and includes economic,
political, cultural, educational
activity of the
dictatorship of the proletariat,
under the guidance of the Communist
Party.
The core of power and the character
of the organs of power.
Revolutionary workers’ power, the dictatorship
of the proletariat, expresses a higher form
of democracy, having as a basic feature the
active participation of the working class in the
construction of the socialist society.
Democratic centralism is a fundamental
principle in the formation and functioning
of the socialist state the direction of the production
unit, every social service. That is,
the united will and action of society in the
direction of socialist construction, the active
participation in making and implementing
decisions, the subordination of the will of
the minority to the will of the majority, the
ability to elect and recall the organs of power.
Revolutionary workers’ power will be based
on institutions that will be born from the revolutionary
struggle of the working class and
its allies. The bourgeois institutions will be
replaced, after being overturned, by the new
institutions of workers’ power.
The Communist Party of Greece through its
resolutions has set some
basic principles regarding
the characteristics
of the workers’ power,
the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
The representatives in
the organs of power will
be elected and recalled
(if necessary) by the assemblies
of the workers in the production
unit, decisions will be made, control will
be exercised . The representatives for the
intermediate institutions will be elected and
recalled directly ; there will be indirect representation
through the assemblies of the representatives
of the highest organs of power
(i.e. the representatives to the intermediate
organs will elect the representatives to the
highest organs of power). The representatives
will not have privileges, they will have
responsibilities and they will be accountable
‘’to those below’’.
The organs of power that are elected by
the workers in the production units have as
their tasks the specialization of the central
planning, the implementation of the tasks
of social production, the social services, the
cultural development, the protection of the revolution. There, at the level of the production
unit, the participation of the working class is
established and ensured, from the ‘’bottom’’
to the ‘’top’’, as is the exercise of workers’
control, the criticism of decisions and decrees,
complaints about arbitrary and subjective attitudes,
bureaucratic attitudes, weaknesses
and deficiencies that can appear during the
socialist period.
The workers’ collectives are accountable
and monitored in order to promote the
collective decisions of the higher organs of
the workers’ power, which have the overall
responsibility of guidance, specifying the
goals of each project that is decided on in
the context of central planning. The effectiveness
or otherwise of each project is associated
with the ability to understand the
scientific laws in order to produce for the
expanded satisfaction of social needs. The
effectiveness of the project is tested in life itself,
by practical experience itself. It is confirmed
by the participation of the working
masses in the control and the management
of power.
Workers’ participation in the control and the management of the power is guaranteed
by the reduction of working time, which
enables the development of the cultural and
educational level of the workers. Besides, the
dictatorship of the proletariat means just that:
The state of the workers is based on the organization
of the working masses and their
participation in the management, the organisation
of the production and all services, the
control of the administrative machinery, planning
and its implementation.
With special provisions, it the participation
in the organs of power for sections of the
population who are not in the process of the
production will also be ensured. For example,
young men and women who are still out of
production because they are in the educational
process will take part in the election of
representatives through the educational units.
In a similar manner the participation of the
non-working women, the pensioners, will be
guaranteed etc.
The highest organ of workers’ power is an
organ of workers. It legislates and administers
at the same time, within its framework
there is a division between legislative, executive,
supervisory and disciplinary powers. It
is not a parliament. The representatives that
participate are not permanent but subject to
recall, they don’t have financial or other benefits,
they are not cut off from production, from
their work, but they are detached for the duration
of their term.
On the basis of the new relations of production,
social ownership, central planning,
workers’ control, a new revolutionary constitution
and legislation is formed to correspond
to these new social relations and defend them.
Similarly the entire legal system, all the legal
establishment of the new social relations is
also formed. A new judicial system is established,
which is based on revolutionary popular
institutions of justice. The new courts are
under the direct responsibility of the organs of
the workers’ power. They consist of people’s
judges that will be elected and recalled by
the people itself, and by a permanent judicial
staff that will be accountable to the institutions
of workers’ power.
The revolutionary workers’ power replaces
all the old mechanisms of administration that
receives with new ones, corresponding to the
character of the proletarian state.
The new organs of the revolutionary protection
and defence are based on the workers’
and peoples’ participation, but also on
permanent professional personnel. In place
of the bourgeois army and the repressive
forces new institutions are created on the
basis of the armed revolutionary struggle in
order to crush the resistance of the exploiters
and to defend the revolution and socialist
construction.
Historical experience of the USSR.
The new state power that emerged from the
October Revolution had to face a lot of problems
and complex conditions; the working
class was a minority within a population of
farmers that were in a state of political and
cultural backwardness. It was from the very
first moment encircled by the counter-revolutionary
activity and imperialist attack. A huge
part of the vanguard of the working class was
lost because of the imperialist intervention
and the civil war. Initially, it had to utilize
sections of the old bureaucracy and bourgeois specialists in sectors of the economy, production
and administration, while the kulaks (the
bourgeoisie in the villages) maintained great
power in the countryside; they even had the
control of the rural soviets. The establishment
and stabilization of soviet power was not an
easy or quick task.
The new power was based on the institutions
that were borne from its revolutionary
struggle. The institutions of socialist power
were the soviets, the councils of the workers
representatives, the representatives of military
and afterward the farmers’ soviets, hence the
name Soviet Union.
The new state that was constructed was
the revolutionary workers’ power, the dictatorship
of the proletariat. Based on the social
ownership of the concentrated means of production
and on the cooperative of peasants
from the 1930’s onwards, it expressed the
interests of the majority of the exploited that
overthrew the power of the minority of the
exploiters. The dictatorship of the proletariat
proved to be a superior form of democracy,
since workers’ power led the working
masses into participation, control and administration
of the power and of the social
life in general, it drew the masses from the
sidelines. Through the organization of power
in the production unit, the working class was
able to develop organization and discipline.
Through participation in the control and administration
of the production unit, there
had been steps in order to change the consciousness,
in order to put the social interest
above the individual.
Apart from the institutions of the workers’
power, the soviets, a vast number of mass organizations
were also developed; trade unions,
cultural, educational, women’s, youth, where
the majority of the population was organized
and participated.
The direct participation of workers took
place until 1936 through the nuclei of the
workers’ power at the factory, the production
unit, the village, but also through the
function of a series of mass organizations.
During the procedures for the approval of significant state laws, i.e. the constitutional
amendments, assemblies of the nuclei of the
workers’ power were held, where the workers
expressed their opinion and, through
voting, their position.
The direct participation of workers was accompanied
by the indirect election in the representative
bodies as was established in the
first Constitution of the USSR in 1924. The representatives
were accountable and the collective
unit had the right to recall them and
elect others in their position. The indirect
electoral representation ensured the will and
participation of workers in the institutions of
the soviet power. In that way the will of the
majority was established.
The soviets were not only responsible for
the decision making but also for their application.
During the assemblies, the nuclei of
the workers’ power discussed the central and
particular plans of the branches, the decisions
that they made, they implemented them as
working organs, with delegates that were not
cut off from production.
In the Constitution of 1936, direct electoral
representation was established through geographical
electoral wards (and not through
the production unit). As it is stated in the Resolution of the 18th Congress of the KKE: “The
critical approach to these changes focuses on
the need to study further the functional downgrading
of the production unit as the nucleus
of organisation of workers’ power, due to the
abolition of the production unit principle and
of the indirect election of delegates through
congresses and assemblies. We need to study
its negative impact on the class composition
of the higher state organs and on the application
of the right of recall of delegates (which
according to Lenin constitutes a basic element
of democracy in the dictatorship of the proletariat).”
After the 20th Congress of the CPSU in
1956 and under the weight of more general
weaknesses, a deviation, a retreat in the Party’s
perception was expressed, regarding the
class-oriented revolutionary character of the
state and the rejection of the scientific law for
the continuation of the class struggle during
socialist construction.
Nevertheless, in the USSR the institutions’
functioning expressed an unprecedented
participation of the masses in political action.
According to statistical data of 1977,
the local organs of state-power (i.e. the
soviets of representatives) were more than
50,000 all over the country. In these soviets
there were more than 2,200,000 elected
representatives, namely around 1% of
total population of the Soviet Union. It is
also estimated that within 41 years, from
the Constitution of 1936, more than 25 million
people participa- ted in the soviets. In
addition, it is estimated that in the organs of people’s control, at the production units,
the services and the kolkhozes (production
cooperatives) were elected every 2 years at
the workers’ assemblies and that about 9.2
million workers participated in these organs.
Comparing to this, the bourgeois parliamentary
democracy seems like a joke…
In the soviet constitution, despite any criticism
that may be made, the nature of the
organs was safeguarded. For example, even
in the Constitution of 1977 (a period in which
the opportunist turn of the CPSU was already
a fact and there are serious problems in its
strategic and the socialist construction), article
104 described the non-professional nature
for the elected delegates and their exclusion
from privileges: “Deputies shall exercise their
powers without discontinuing their regular
employment or duties”. In addition, article
107 specified the obligation of the deputies to
report on their work and the possibility to be
recalled; “Deputies shall report on their work
and on that of the Soviet to their constituents,
and to the work collectives and public
organisations that nominated them. Deputies
who have not justified the confidence of their
constituents may be recalled at any time by
decision of a majority of the electors in accordance
with the procedure established by
law.”
However, in that process there were some
weaknesses. The procedure of the socialist
construction constantly creates new problems
that seek new solutions, and this is
when the ability of the workers’ power is
judged. First of all, is judged the ability of
the CP to lead in accordance with the scientific
laws.
In the Soviet Union, the legacy of the old
social system weigh heavy, as the new one
Assembly of women in a village of the Soviet Union. 1920.
Soviet power had been proved a superior form of democracy. It drew the masses from the sidelines and
led them to participation, control and administration.
44
emerged from its bowels For example, from
the first years of the social construction
problems of detachment from the interests
of the working class arose re employees
of the state mechanism and especially by
those who came from the old, tsarist state
mechanism.
The adoption of the thesis concerning the
“state of the whole people” (consolidated in
the constitutional revision of 1977) cancelled
out the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat
as workers’ power, rejected the vanguard
role of the working class as the bearer
of communist relations.
The sharpening of the problems in soviet
power was a consequence of the weakening
of the socialist economy through the adoption
of the market reforms (q.v. first part of
the publication “Truths and Lies About Socialism”),
which led to the reinforcement of
the individual and group interests vis-a-vis
the overall interests of society. As a result, the
forces that had an interest in the overthrow
of socialism and the restoration of capitalism
gained strength.
This development influenced the structures
of power and the workers’ control which had
attained a formal character. In the decade of
the 1980s, through perestroika, which was
the final attack by the counter-revolution, the
soviet system degenerated into a bourgeois
parliamentary organ with a division of the
executive and legislative functions, a permanence
of office holders, an undermining of
the right to recall, high remuneration, etc.
I.e. everything negative that was developed
was an element of the forms of the bourgeois
power.
