If We Are Not Fighting for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; We Are Not Fighting to Win!

By Tom “Big Warrior” Watts

12/20/2016

“If there is democracy for the bourgeoisie, there is no democracy for the proletariat and other working people.” – Mao Tse-tung

In the Epoch of Exploitation, all States are class dictatorships. As Lenin explained; “A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power.”1 Where there is exploitation, there will be oppression and there will be resistance. The State exists because of the irreconcilable contradiction between the exploiting and exploited classes. In each stage in the evolution of human society under the Epoch of Exploitation, the form of the State will change corresponding to changes in the relationship of the base and the superstructure:

Simply put, base refers to the forces and relations of production—to all the people, relationships between them, the roles that they play, and the materials and resources involved in producing the things needed by society.

Superstructure, quite simply and expansively, refers to all other aspects of society. It includes culture, ideology (world views, ideas, values, and beliefs), norms and expectations, identities that people inhabit, social institutions (education, religion, media, family, among others), the political structure, and the state (the political apparatus that governs society). Marx argued that the superstructure grows out of the base, and reflects the interests of the ruling class that controls it. As such, the superstructure justifies how the base operates, and in doing so, justifies the power of the ruling class.2

“In The German Ideology, written with Friedrich Engels, Marx explained that society is divided into two realms: the base, and the superstructure. He defined the base as the material aspects of society: that which allow for production of goods. These include the means of production–factories and material resources–as well as the relations of production, or the relationships between people involved, and the distinct roles they play (like laborers, managers, and factory owners), as required by the system. Per his historical materialist account of history and how society functions, it is the base that determines the superstructure, whereby the superstructure is all other aspects of society, like our culture and ideology (world views, values, beliefs, knowledge, norms and expectations); social institutions like education, religion, and media; the political system; and even the identities we subscribe to.”3

“When looking at society this way, Marx saw that the distribution of power to determine how society functioned was structured in a top-down manner, and was tightly controlled by the wealthy minority who owned and controlled the means of production. Marx and Engels laid out this theory of class conflict in The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. They argued that the ‘bourgeoisie,’ the minority in power, created class conflict by exploiting the labor power of the ‘proletariat,’ the workers who made the system of production run by selling their labor to the ruling class. By charging far more for the goods produced than they paid the proletariats for their labor, the owners of the means of production earned profit. This arrangement was the basis of the capitalist economy at the time that Marx and Engels wrote, and it remains the basis of it today. Because wealth and power are unevenly distributed between these two classes, Marx and Engels argued that society is in a perpetual state of conflict, wherein the ruling class work to maintain the upper-hand over the majority working class, in order to retain their wealth, power, and overall advantage.”4

“In The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels explained that the rule of the bourgeoisie is achieved and maintained in the realm of the superstructure. That is, the basis of their rule is ideological. Through their control of politics, media, and educational institutions, those in power propagate a worldview that suggests that the system as it is is right and just, that is is designed for the good of all, and that it is even natural and inevitable. Marx referred to the inability of the working class to see and understand the nature of this oppressive class relationship as ‘false consciousness,’ and theorized that eventually, they would develop a clear and critical understanding of it, which would be ‘class consciousness.’ With class consciousness, they would have awareness of the realities of the classed society in which they lived, and of their own role in reproducing it. Marx reasoned that once class consciousness had been achieved, a worker-led revolution would overthrow the oppressive system.”5

The Liberal Democratic Revolutions by which the bourgeoisie overthrew the old feudal order in the West, introduced the bourgeoisie’s conception of democracy; as Lenin explains: “Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state.”6 Of course this ideal only serves to conceal the reality of class dictatorship exercised by the bourgeois ruling class. That is to say: “Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society.”7

The proletariat, on the other hand, has a very different—and very materialist—conception of democracy, which is only attainable under the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Lenin explained:

“The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists.”8

In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat enabled the oppressed and exploited class to expropriate the wealth and power of the capitalist ruling class and seize control of the basic means of production and exercise “all-round dictatorship” over the overthrown bourgeoisie so the masses can systematically every aspect of society and carry out full socialist reconstruction of society based upon principles of equality and social justice, eliminating classes and class exploitation.

“Why did Lenin speak of exercising dictatorship over the bourgeoisie? It is essential to get this question clear. Lack of clarity on this question will lead to revisionism… Lenin said that ‘small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale.’ They are also engendered among a part of the working class and of the Party membership. Both within the ranks of the proletariat and among the personnel of state and other organs there are people who take to the bourgeois style of life.“

The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat has long been the focus of the struggle between Marxism and revisionism. Lenin said, ‘Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ And it is precisely to enable us to go by Marxism and not revisionism in both theory and practice that Chairman Mao calls on the whole nation to get clear on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat…. Chairman Mao says, ‘Lack of clarity on this question will lead to revisionism.’”9

As Lenin explained: the working class must break up, smash the “ready-made state machinery,” and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it.10 The old bourgeois state; the army and the police, cannot be trusted to defend the interests of the people’s democracy and revolution. Moreover, there is danger, even in the state constituted by the proletariat, to become an entrenched bureaucracy and a base for the emergence of a new bourgeoisie that will attempt to hold back socialist transformation and restore capitalism in its own class interests. Therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be simply a state function but must be led by the proletariat from below.

“Power to the People!” must be the watchword for a fairly long period until the conditions are ripe for the state to wither away. In contradiction to the revisionist line of the withering away of class struggle, we must uphold the line of the intensification of class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat until class struggle negates itself by the elimination of classes, and the Four Alls: “the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, and to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.”11

“False consciousness” is theoretically linked with the concepts of the dominant ideology and cultural hegemony, and to a lesser extent with cognitive dissonance.12 In The German Ideology (1845), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said that: “The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas” applied to every social class in service to the interests of the ruling class. Hence, in the revolutionary practice, the slogan: “The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class” summarizes its function as a revolutionary basis.13 In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that their imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.14

In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time; performs an action that is contradictory to their beliefs, ideas, or values; or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values.15 In particular, the third definition applies when the masses are confronted with new information that contradicts a lifetime of social programming.

As Frantz Fanon expressed in Black Skins White Masks (1952):

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”

According to the theory proposed by Social Psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957:

Dissonance is particularly acute when at least one of the following is true:

• the idea and new information are opposites of each other, if one is true the other Must be false

• the idea is very important to the individual

• the idea and the new information are equally significant

• There is a conflict between a person’s beliefs and their actions

• Dissonance is most distressing when the conflict pertains to an individual’s self-image ex: I am a good person but I poisoned my neighbor’s dog.

To eliminate or reduce the feeling of dissonance the individual will do at least one of the following

• Introduce a third idea that eliminates the contradiction

• Alter the significance of either their idea or the new information, either increasing or decreasing

• Look for information that will Justify their idea or contradict the new information

• Ignore, avoid, or refuse to accept the new information

• Change their idea or behavior

According to Festinger, people will go to great lengths to avoid experiencing dissonance. Individuals are least likely to respond to new information by changing their ideas or behavior.

However, when there is a contradiction between the individual’s actions and ideas and the action has already been performed. i.e. it cannot be undone. Then the individual will change their ideas to justify that action.

Hence, “actions speak louder than words.” As Black Panther leader Fred Hampton explained:

“Let me give you an example of teaching people. Basically, the way they learn is observation and participation. You know a lot of us go around and joke ourselves and believe that the masses have PhDs, but that’s not true. And even if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference. Because with some things, you have to learn by seeing it or either participating in it. And you know yourselves that there are people walking around your community today that have all types of degrees that should be at this meeting but are not here. Right? Because you can have as many degrees as a thermometer. If you don’t have any practice, they you can’t walk across the street and chew gum at the same time.”16

Huey Newton, taught:

“I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.”17

Huey recognized that the best way to promote socialist ideas was to involve the masses in organizing “Serve the People” programs in their communities. He took to heart the words of African freedom fighter, Amilcar Cabral:

“Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.”18

The dictatorship of the proletariat produces real and tangible improvements in the lives of the people because they decide what changes are a priority to them and they organize to make them a reality. As Mao taught: “The masses have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy; they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being.”19

Dead-end reformism keeps the masses tied to the system that exploits and oppresses them, keeps them begging hat in hand for the basics they need to survive and keeps the exploiting class in positions of power, instead of the people. If we are not fighting for the dictatorship of the proletariat we are not fighting to win, we are selling-out the people to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

DARE TO STRUGGLE DARE TO WIN….

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!