louis p. writes: > Okay, I don't think it is helpful when the SR [Socialist Register] trudges out old arguments about how we have to transcend ideologies about the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc....
> As far as I am concerned, it is this sort of thing that typifies [a bunch of > folks]. You have all sorts of powerful critiques of the capitalist system > but a deep discomfort with the one thing that defines Marxist *politics*, > namely how to seize power and maintain it. If anything, we need more > attention paid to Lenin's "State and Revolution," not less.< One thing that should be emphasized is that in Marx's time, the word "dictatorship" had a different meaning than nowadays. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" translates into "workers' democracy" nowadays. The workers need to control the state in a democratic way, getting rid of bourgeois control. But calling it "democracy" loses an important point: the state, by its very nature, is a dictatorship (monopolizing the legitimate control and use of the means of violence in a given geographical area, to paraphrase Weber, who paraphrased Trotsky). The end-goal is the abolition of the state, i.e., its subordination with -- and merger with -- civil society. > Furthermore, the article proposes that the left spend more time thinking in > utopian terms. I don't think this would be a good idea at all. For that > matter, the academic left is far too consumed with questions about what > socialism will look like or how it should work. This is an obstacle to > thinking politically about strategy and tactics, matters that SR tends to > disdain altogether.< the key is to think in utopian terms (where we want to go) _and_ how to get there (tactics, strategy) and to remember that the means to the end often determined the end actually achieved. BTW, Lenin's STATE AND REVOLUTION has often been criticized, if not denounced, as "utopian." -- Jim Devine "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
