The dictatorship of a class, not a party, Luxemburg writes, is but "a clique," not a majority and not for the majority since it is the "clique" of leaders who determine if, when, and where citizens may assemble to meet or protest grievance with the government. Otherwise, the majority is no more than spectators, alienated from the activities of the so-called peoples' government.
In the Lenin-Trotsky narrative, democracy is eliminated! No Shays' Rebellion here!
Luxemburg:
To be sure, every democratic institution has its limits and shortcomings, things which it doubtless shares with all other human institutions. But the remedy which Trotsky and Lenin have found, the elimination of democracy as such, is worse than the disease it is supposed to cure; for it stops up the very living source from which alone can come the correction of all the innate shortcomings of social institutions.
She adds:
That source is the active, untrammeled, energetic political life of the broadest masses of the people.
The question is not one of tactics employed by the protesters, Luxemburg explains, "but of the capacity for action of the proletariat, the strength to act, the will to power of socialism as such." The battle between capital and labor "could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future everywhere belongs to "Bolshevism.'"
"I embrace you a thousand times, your R."
[1] "The Russian Revolution" was published by Luxemburg's lawyer, Paul Levi, after his expulsion from the SPD in 1922. See The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, editors Peter Hudis and Kevin Anderson, 2004.
[2] Lenin: "The parties affiliated to the Communist International must be built up on the principle of democratic centralism. In the present epoch of acute civil war of the Communist party will be able to perform its duty only if it is organized in the most centralized manner, only if iron discipline bordering on military discipline prevails in it, and if its party center is a powerful organ of authority, enjoying wide powers and the general confidence of the members of the Party" ("Organization," (Lenin Reader, editor, Stephan T. Possony, Henry Renery Co., 1966).
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
