[lbo-talk] Cultural Change? ( Marxist democracy)

Todd Archer todda39 at hotmail.com
Thu May 6 13:46:50 PDT 2004


Charles Brown seemingly gave two different, but related, general examples of the acts carried out by a proletarian dictatorship.

This one:


>What I am trying to say is that a likely interpretation of Marx's use of
>the term "dictatorship" is that he meant that masses and majorities of
>uncoerced, self-determining working people would support and endorse and
>carry out (!) , yes, mass repression in class warfare with the bourgeoisie
>and its allies.

and this, more explicitly violent one:


>There is a nuanced possibility ,probability even, that Marx anticipated a
>mass and even majority of working people who would be repressively and
>murderously hostile toward resistent owning classes , including petit
>owning classes, intellectual strata, AND THAT THIS DICTATORIAL ATTITUDE
>WOULD BE SUBTANTIALLY RATIONAL and democractic in the full historical
>context and in face of the murderous and repressive resistance of the
>bourgeoisie to
>peaceful socialist revolution.

Which one are you arguing against, Ted? It seems like the latter. Your examples from Marx's Civil War in France all have to do with outright physical bloodshed, which is what Charles talks about in his second example.

What about Charles' first example? Are you arguing against that one too?

Todd

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