114
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materialism) is to overlook a fundamental feature of these writings: the polemic against the negative sides of positivism. These negative qualities were brought out by Engels with great clarity. *Anti-Dühring,* the notes for the *Dialectics of Nature*, the final part of *Ludwig Feuerbach* and many pages of *The Origin of the Family* are designed to oppose, on the one hand, 'an empiricism which as far as possible itself forbids thought' and precisely for that reason leaves itself open to religious or even superstitious meanderings, and, on the other, the claim of German vulgar materialism to 'apply the nature theory to society and to reform socialism'.(1) With Dühring — an adversary too insignificant in and of himself to merit such a thorough refutation, as Engels himself well knew — Engels argued against the fallacies and superficial eclecticism typical of a great deal of the positivism of the second half of the nineteenth century.
>It is, therefore, too simplistic to say that Engels rejected, in the name of the Hegelian dialectic, 'real materialism, i.e. modern science' as a form of metaphysics. Between Marxism and the science of the second half of the nineteenth century there were the Dührings, i.e. the slipshod and incompetent philosophic interpreters of the great scientific achievements. And at times the scientists and the Dührings were united in the same persons. Among the scientists themselves there was a tendency to dismiss philosophy which resulted in an inability to parallel the great advances of the natural sciences with an equally 'revolutionary' development in the social sciences. This explains Engels's warning that the scientists who 'abuse philosophy most are slaves to precisely the worst vulgarized relics of the worst vulgar philosophers'.
Lukacs, in spite of his political failings, left behind several important arguments in favor of the dialectics of nature which he never abandoned. Close attention should be paid to *Tailism & the Dialectic,* which lacks the fragile criticisms Lukacs makes against Engels, who he alleges recedes into Hegelianism not because of his dialectics of nature, but because of a perceived conflation of Logic (in the Hegelian sense) and history, in *The Ontology of Social Being.*
And yet time and time again, Lukacs was a defender of the legacy of Engels, no matter what the "Western Marxist" interpretation claims.
(1) [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch07b.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch07b.htm) An example of Engels directly opposing the thought u/hnnmw prescribed to the "Engelsian" dialectic of nature.
https://redd.it/1qd6tpk
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problem'.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1j3tary/lukacs_and_the_accounting_problem/) That being, that to assert that the ontological leap that occurs with the onset of the teleological projection in labor means to already have bitten the bullet and implicitly accepted dialectics. This leap itself is a dialectical law. The contradiction ran into is the exact one outlined in *Anti-Dühring:* the impossibility of explaining how motion begins from stillness. The jump from non-dialectics to dialectics will always remain *"somewhat in the dark"* per the accounting problem.
u/hnnmw treated this pretty dismissively.
>Your "accounting problem" is solved in the first two sections of the *Prolegomena*.
He provided me with some sections he claims go against my own. I pointed out what I saw as a consistent problem in his quoting, but I didn't challenge everything he wrote. But I'll point out some of his own quotations from the *Prolegomena.*
>Lukács' arguments are in the first few sections of the *Prolegomena*, and in the volume on Marx. In the first sections of the *Prolegomena* he talks about the processes of nature in terms of dynamic, interactions, *Wechselbeziehungen*, ... -- but *not* as dialectics. The "truly dialectical processes" of social being only arise (leap forth) with human praxis: the teleological *Setzungen* in labour. Only then we have
>"nicht bloß kontrollierenden, sondern zugleich neue, **wirklich dialektische Prozesse** \[...\] Gerade die ontologische Zentralstelle der Praxis im gesellschaftlichen Sein \[ = *Setzungen* in labour \] bildet den Schlüssel zu seiner Genesis aus der der Umgebung gegenüber bloß passiven Anpassungsweise in der Seinssphäre der organischen Natur."
This crushes a couple of quotes together so here's the pre-elliptical part in its context. The second is not relevant.
>Schon diese konsequent zu Ende geführte Priorität der Geschichtlichkeit in ihrem konkreten Geradesosein als reale, weil real prozessierende Seinsweise des Seins ist eine spregende Kiritik jeder Verabsolutierung des Alltaglebens. Denn jedem Denken er Welt auf diesem Niveau pflegt — schon wegen der vorherrschenden Unmittelbarkeit dieser Seinweise — die Tendenz innezuwohnen, die unmittelbar gegebenen Tatsachen zu perennieren. Jedoch die kritische Ontologie von Marx bleibt bei dieser schöpfertischen, weil nicht bloß kontrollierenden, sondern zugleich neue, wirklich dialektische Prozesse aufdeckenden Kritik nicht stehen.
So we see that Lukacs claims not that the teleological project of labor begins truly dialectical processes, but instead that it makes it possible to uncover them.
I'm going to move on from *The Ontology of Social Being* and its *Prolegomena,* two texts that were clearly victims of butchered misquotations and misreadings as well as mistranslations by u/hnnmw, and return to *Tailism & the Dialectic* to shed some light on the actual theory Lukacs is outlining. I again recommend my own thread on the accounting problem above for my exegesis of the basis argument, but now I'm going to point to the argument it makes that contradicts u/hnnmw's, affirms my own, and has continuity with *The Ontology of Social Being.*
What does it mean for the teleological project of labor to uncover truly dialectic processes? Lukacs has it covered:
>It would appear that the mere mention of a 'change in thought' is enough to awaken the noble indignation of Comrade Rudas, and in his noble indignation he does not even notice that the vilified 'change of thought' is seen here as an effect, indeed as an effect of the objective reality that exists outside the thought (the reality underlying the categories). Thus the sentence means that a change in material (the reality that underlies thought) must take place, in order that a change in thought may follow. It might be an unpleasant fact for Comrade Rudas that humans are necessary for *thought,* that in their heads reality takes on a conscious form, for he obviously as much wishes to eliminate human activity from politics as he hopes to eliminate the human processes of thought
"CP of Iran": "Statement of the Workers' Councils of Arak: All power to the councils!"
https://cpiran.org/statement-of-the-workers-councils-of-arak-all-power-to-the-councils/
https://redd.it/1qd1td1
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How To Respond to Possible Yankee Imperialist Aggression | UOC(MLM)
https://revolucionobrera.com/editorial/como-responder-a-la-posible-agresion-imperialista-yanqui/
https://redd.it/1q734xc
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does not possess, of employing force against the working class as a whole, violates the elementary requirements of correct mutual relations between the vanguard and the class, between the Party and the proletariat.
Thus, we have come right up to the question of the mutual relations between the Party and the class, between Party and non-Party members of the working class.
Lenin defines these mutual relations as “mutual confidence** between the vanguard of the working class and the mass of the workers” (see Vol. XXVI, p. 235).
What does this mean?
It means, firstly, that the Party must closely heed the voice of the masses; that it must pay careful attention to the revolutionary instinct of the masses; that it must study the practice of the struggle of the masses and on this basis test the correctness of its own policy; that, consequently, it must not only teach the masses, but also learn from them. It means, secondly, that the Party must day by day win the confidence of the proletarian masses; that it must by its policy and work secure the support of the masses; that it must not command but primarily convince the masses, helping them to realise through their own experience the correctness of the policy of the Party; that, consequently, it must be the guide, the leader and teacher of its class.
To violate these conditions means to upset the correct mutual relations between the vanguard and the class, to undermine “mutual confidence,” to shatter both class and Party discipline.
It is impossible to counterpose the dictatorship of the proletariat to the leadership (the “dictatorship”) of the Party. It is impossible because the leadership of the Party is the principal thing in the dictatorship of the proletariat, if we have in mind a dictatorship that is at all firm and complete, and not one like the Paris Commune, for instance, which was neither a complete nor a firm dictatorship. It is impossible because the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leadership of the Party lie, as it were, on the same line of activity, operate in the same direction.
“The mere presentation of the question,” says Lenin, “‘dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship of the class? dictatorship (Party) of the leaders or dictatorship (Party) of the masses?’ testifies to the most incredible and hopeless confusion of thought. . . . Everyone knows that the masses are divided into classes. . . ; that usually, and in the majority of cases, at least in modern civilised countries, classes are led by political parties; that political parties, as a general rule, are directed by more or less stable groups composed of the most authoritative, influential and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions and are called leaders. . . . To go so far . . . as to counterpose, in general, dictatorship of the masses to dictatorship of the leaders is ridiculously absurd and stupid” (see Vol. XXV, pp. 187, 188).
That is absolutely correct. But that correct statement proceeds from the premise that, correct mutual relations exist between the vanguard and the masses of the workers, between the Party and the class. It proceeds from the assumption that the mutual relations between the vanguard and the class remain, so to say, normal, remain within the bounds of “mutual confidence.”
But what if the correct mutual relations between the vanguard and the class, the relations of “mutual confidence” between the Party and the class are upset?
What if the Party itself begins, in some way or other, to counterpose itself to the class, thus upsetting the foundations of its correct mutual relations with the class, thus upsetting the foundations of “mutual confidence”? Are such cases at all possible?
Yes, they are.
They are possible:
1) if the Party begins to build its prestige among the masses, not on its work and on the confidence of the masses, but on its “unrestricted” rights;
2) if the Party’s policy is obviously wrong and the Party is unwilling to reconsider and rectify its mistake;
3) if the Party’s policy is correct on the whole but, the masses
the leading role of the Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Although the Party carries out the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in this sense the dictatorship of the proletariat is, in essence, the “dictatorship” of its Party, this does not mean that the “dictatorship of the Party” (its leading role) is identical with the dictatorship of the proletariat, that the former is equal in scope to the latter. There is no need to prove that the dictatorship of the proletariat is wider and richer in its scope than the leading role of the Party. The Party carries out the dictatorship of the proletariat, but it carries out the dictatorship of the proletariat, and not any other kind of dictatorship. Whoever identifies the leading role of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat substitutes “dictatorship” of the Party for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Secondly. Not a single important decision is arrived at by the mass organisations of the proletariat without guiding directives from the Party. That is perfectly true. But does that mean that the dictatorship of the proletariat consists entirely of the guiding directives given by the Party? Does that mean that, in view of this, the guiding directives of the Party can be identified with the dictatorship of the proletariat? Of course not. The dictatorship of the proletariat consists of the guiding directives of the Party plus the carrying out of these directives by the mass organisations of the proletariat, plus their fulfilment by the population. Here, as you see, we have to deal with a whole series of transitions and intermediary steps which are by no means unimportant elements of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Hence, between the guiding directives of the Party and their fulfilment lie the will and actions of those who are led, the will and actions of the class, its willingness (or unwillingness) to support such directives, its ability (or inability) to carry out these directives, its ability (or inability) to carry them out in strict accordance with the demands of the situation. It scarcely needs proof that the Party, having taken the leadership into its hands, cannot but reckon with the will, the condition, the level of political consciousness of those who are led, cannot leave out of account the will, the condition, and level of political consciousness of its class. Therefore, whoever identifies the leading role of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat substitutes the directives given by the Party for the will and actions of the class.
Thirdly. “The dictatorship of the proletariat,” says Lenin, “is the class struggle of the proletariat, which has won victory and has seized political power” (see Vol. XXIV, p. 311). How can this class struggle find expression? It may find expression in a series of armed actions by the proletariat against the sorties of the overthrown bourgeoisie, or against the intervention of the foreign bourgeoisie. It may find expression in civil war, if the power of the proletariat has not yet been consolidated. It may find expression, after power has already been consolidated, in the extensive organisational and constructive work of the proletariat, with the enlistment of the broad masses in this work. In all these cases, the acting force is the proletariat as a class. It has never happened that the Party, the Party alone, has undertaken all these actions with only its own forces, without the support of the class. Usually it only directs these actions, and it can direct them only to the extent that it has the support of the class. For the Party cannot cover, cannot replace the class. For, despite all its important leading role, the Party still remains a part of the class. Therefore, whoever identifies the leading role of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat substitutes the Party for the class.
Fourthly. The Party exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat. “The Party is the direct governing vanguard of the proletariat; it is the leader” (Lenin). In this sense the Party takes power, the Party
Thoughts on this interpretation of "Religion as opiate"
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5y5aURu/
https://redd.it/1q3rrrf
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What's Your Line? in the 2020's - MIM(Prisons)
https://www.prisoncensorship.info/wyl/
https://redd.it/1q36um7
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«Oscar Figuera (PCV): A political proposal is needed that rejects foreign intervention and Maduro’s continuity»
https://www.idcommunism.com/2025/12/oscar-figuera-political-proposal-is-needed-that-rejects-foreign-intervention-and-maduros-continuity.html
https://redd.it/1pjb4q0
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ICE’s Arsenal and the Logic of Domestic Militarization
https://classpartisan.wordpress.com/2025/10/28/ices-arsenal-and-the-logic-of-domestic-militarization/
https://redd.it/1ppc5ld
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US imperialism has launched a regime change war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/breaking-us-launches-attack-against-venezuela/
https://redd.it/1q2r30j
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US imperialism has launched a regime change war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/breaking-us-launches-attack-against-venezuela/
https://redd.it/1q2r30j
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Communist opinion about Kemalism
What's the modern communists opinion about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his ideology which was originally some kind of national-bolshevism ?
https://redd.it/1pw88qe
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I realized why many libs sometimes quote Marx and Engels
They see them as harmless famous philosophers that will make them sound smart but when it comes to Lenin someone who has actually applied their ideas they foam at the mouth. It's also an issue with baby leftists but less severe
https://redd.it/1ppewau
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from thought, but it cannot be changed. **That objective dialectics are in reality independent of humans and were there before the emergence of people, is precisely what was** ***asserted*** **in this passage; but that for** ***thinking the dialectic,*** **for the dialectic as knowledge, (and that and that** ***alone*** **was addressed in the remark), thinking people are necessary.**
Isn't it refreshing for someone to quote without ellipses that obliterate specificity? It cannot be clearer. Lukacs upheld the separation of objective from subjective dialectics from Engels' *Dialectics of Nature.* To prove that he departed from this position will take a lot more than claiming it simply occurs in an untranslated German text (which, I'm telling you, it doesn't). We can even see that Lukacs, in this piece, roots his analysis in the same basis of social being.
>Our consciousness of nature, in other words our knowledge of nature, is determined by our social being. This is what I have said in the few observations I have devoted to this question; nothing less, but also nothing more.
And he even denies the onset of a dialectics of nature not only where quoted in my thread on the accounting problem but also here:
>Let us presuppose that I do maintain **(I will show in a moment that it is actually the opposite case)** that is the dialectic is a product of historical development. Even in this case, the dialectic would not be a 'subjective' thing.
Wowzers. What a departure from u/hnnmw's post!:
>You can think about it in terms of the dialectic of objectivity and subjectivity. If we assume a dialectics of nature: what is nature's subjectivity? If there is no subjectivity, how can there be negativity? If there is no negativity, how can there be dialectics?
Lukacs attributes both objectivity and subjectivity to nature, and his explanation for that is in *Tailism & the Dialectic.* Instead of summarizing it, I'll just ask another question. Let's assume there's no dialectics of nature: what is nature's subjectivity? How can something be only one side of a dialectic (object), but never subject? Is there a possible claim that adheres to a dialectical conception of the interpenetration of opposites?
An objection may be raised. Subject and object do interpenetrate in nature, so long as nature is a product of human consciousness which apperceives it dialectically. To that: the resolution to the accounting problem is nowhere to be found in the *Prolegomena,* and claiming it does will not make it appear. Much less can we see how this is not a regression into the existence of a thing-in-itself.
As Lukacs says in the *Prolegomena,*
>Only when the ontology of Marxism is capable of consistently implementing historicity as the basis of every understanding of being in the spirit of Marx's prophetic program, only when, with the recognition of certain and demonstrably unified ultimate principles of every being, the often profound differences between the individual spheres of being are correctly understood, does the "dialectics of nature" no longer appear as a uniformizing equalization of nature and society, which often distorts the being of both in different ways, but rather as the categorically conceived prehistory of social being.
Despite u/hnnmw's attempts to vulgarize this into a rejection of the dialectics of nature, it is nothing more than the continuation of his own polemic against a "simple, vulgar materialist transfer of natural laws to society". That the laws of nature do not transfer to society Engels and everyone else agrees. It takes an unusually mechanical mindset to believe that a dialectics of nature and a dialectics of society = the governance of nature and society by identical natural laws. This is something Sebastiano Timpanaro, in his book *On Materialism,* points out was the position Engels was fighting *against* in *Dialectics of Nature.*
>To regard the writings devoted by Engels to the philosophy of nature as a mere banalized repetition of Hegel's philosophy of nature (or as a partial capitulation by Engels before vulgar
The dialectics of nature in Lukacs' Ontology of Social Being
A long while ago, u/hnnmw and I [had an argument](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/1lc56e7/comment/my01o21/) over Lukacs' position on the dialectics of nature in two of his works, *Tailism & the Dialectic* and *The Ontology of Social Being.* I argued that his position between these two works is a consistent one in favor of the existence of a dialectic in nature independent of human thought. I don't want to misrepresent u/hnnmw, so I'll recommend you read his posts yourself. At the time of the conversation, though, I believed that he was either arguing that (a) Lukacs had abandoned his earlier position, or (b) his position between the two works was consistent, and stood against the notion of a dialectics of nature independent of human thought.
Since this conversation, I've wavered on whether I was correct or not in my position. I finally decided on a whim to just reread both works. At the time of the conversation, I was familiar with *Tailism & the Dialectic* but had only read through the second volume of *The Ontology of Social Being* specifically because u/hnnmw recommended it. After this reread, I've come out understanding that I was indisputably correct, although I had several errors in my form of presentation. I'll be rectifying this and providing a defense of the late Lukacs' conception of the dialectics of nature.
The disagreement between us centered on this passage:
>Above all, social being presupposes in general and in all specific processes the existence of inorganic and organic nature. Social being cannot be conceived as independent from natural being and as its exclusive opposite, as a great number of bourgeois philosophers do with respect to the so-called 'spiritual sphere'. Marx's ontology of social being just as sharply rules out a simple, vulgar materialist transfer of natural laws to society, as was fashionable for example in the era of 'social Darwinism'. The objective forms of social being grow out of natural being in the course of the rise and development of social practice, and become ever more expressly social. This growth is certainly a dialectical process, which begins with a leap, with the teleological project *(Setzung)* in labour, for which there is no analogy in nature. This ontological leap is in no way negated by the fact that it involves in reality a very lengthy process, with innumerable transitional forms. With the act of teleological projection *(Setzung)* in labour, social being itself is now there. The historical process of its development involves the most important transformation of this 'in itself' into a 'for itself', and hence the tendency towards the overcoming of merely natural forms and contents of being by forms and contents that are ever more pure and specifically social.
I would like to add that the nature of this *Setzung* is explained in chapter 7 of Capital, Vol. 1. Explaining it is outside of the scope of this post, and I'll assume that someone unfamiliar with it wouldn't learn much from this post anyway.
This is u/hnnmw on the passage:
>But Marx' science is *not* the science of a nature only in-itself. It is only after Lukács' "dialectical leap", after the *Setzungen* of consciousness, that nature becomes dialectical.
...
>No, the *Setzungen* are the leap, which "begin" Marxist dialectics.
...
>Because of course dialectics *has no beginning*, yet it must have a beginning, to allow for the transformation of nature in-itself to nature for-itself: the *Wachstum* of the objective forms of social being,
If I'm correct, the claim is that Lukacs believes that the dialectics of nature only begin once humanity has evolved enough to work upon nature in the conscious, teleological sense described by Marx. This creates a particular dialectic that gives rise to social being, which retroactively creates a dialectics of nature in its interpretation of the exchange of matter between nature and society.
My response, at the time, relied upon [what I outlined in my thread on the 'accounting
Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 11)
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are not yet ready to make it their own, and the Party is either unwilling or unable to bide its time so as to give the masses an opportunity to become convinced through their own experience that the Party’s policy is correct, and seeks to impose it on the masses.
The history of our Party provides a number of such cases. Various groups and factions in our Party have come to grief and disappeared because they violated one of these three conditions, and sometimes all these conditions taken together.
But it follows from this that counterposing the dictatorship of the proletariat to the “dictatorship” (leadership) of the Party can be regarded as incorrect only:
1) if by dictatorship of the Party in relation to the working class we mean not a dictatorship in the proper sense of the word (“power based on the use of force”), but the leadership of the Party, which precludes the use of force against the working class as a whole, against its majority, precisely as Lenin meant it;
2) if the Party has the qualifications to be the real leader of the class, i.e., if the Party’s policy is correct, if this policy accords with the interests of the class;
3) if the class, if the majority of the class, accepts that policy, makes that policy its own, becomes convinced, as a result of the work of the Party, that that policy is correct, has confidence in the Party and supports it.
The violation of these conditions inevitably gives rise to a conflict between the Party and the class, to a split between them, to their being counterposed to each other.
Can the Party’s leadership be imposed on the class by force? No, it cannot. At all events, such a leadership cannot be at all durable. If the Party wants to remain the Party of the proletariat it must know that it is, primarily and principally, the guide, the leader, the teacher of the working class.
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governs the country. But this must not be understood in the sense that the Party exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat separately from the state power, without the state power; that the Party governs the country separately from the Soviets, not through the Soviets. This does not mean that the Party can be identified with the Soviets, with the state power. The Party is the core of this power, but it is not and cannot be identified with the state power.
“As the ruling Party,” says Lenin, “we could not but merge the Soviet ‘top leadership’ with the Party ‘top leadership’—in our country they are merged and will remain so” (see Vol. XXVI, p. 208). This is quite true. But by this Lenin by no means wants to imply that our Soviet institutions as a whole, for instance our army, our transport, our economic institutions, etc., are Party institutions, that the Party can replace the Soviets and their ramifications, that the Party can be identified with the state power. Lenin repeatedly said that “the system of Soviets is the dictatorship of the proletariat,” and that “the Soviet power is the dictatorship of the proletariat” (see Vol. XXIV, pp. 15, 14); but he never said that the Party is the state power, that the Soviets and the Party are one and the same thing. The Party, with a membership of several hundred thousand, guides the Soviets and their central and local ramifications, which embrace tens of millions of people, both Party and non-Party, but it cannot and should not supplant them. That is why Lenin says that “the dictatorship is exercised by the proletariat organised in the Soviets, the proletariat led by the Communist Party of Bolsheviks”; that “all the work of the Party is carried on through** the Soviets, which embrace the labouring masses irrespective of occupation” (see Vol. XXV, pp. 192, 193); and that the dictatorship “has to be exercised . . . through** the Soviet apparatus” (see Vol. XXV1, p. 64). Therefore, whoever identifies the leading role of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat substitutes the Party for the Soviets, i.e., for the state power.
Fifthly. The concept of dictatorship of the proletariat is a state concept. The dictatorship of the proletariat necessarily includes the concept of force. There is no dictatorship without the use of force, if dictatorship is to be understood in the strict sense of the word. Lenin defines the dictatorship of the proletariat as “power based directly on the use of force” (see Vol. XIX, p. 315). Hence, to talk about dictatorship of the Party in relation to the proletarian class, and to identify it with the dictatorship of the proletariat, is tantamount to saying that in relation to its class the Party must be not only a guide, not only a leader and teacher, but also a sort of dictator employing force against it, which, of course, is quite incorrect. Therefore, whoever identifies “dictatorship of the Party” with the dictatorship of the proletariat tacitly proceeds from the assumption that the prestige of the Party can be built up on force employed against the working class, which is absurd and quite incompatible with Leninism. The prestige of the Party is sustained by the confidence of the working class. And the confidence of the working class is gained not by force—force only kills it—but by the Party’s correct theory, by the Party’s correct policy, by the Party’s devotion to the working class, by its connection with the masses of the working class, by its readiness and ability to convince the masses of the correctness of its slogans.
What, then, follows from all this?
From this it follows that:
1) Lenin uses the word dictatorship of the Party not in the strict sense of the word (“power based on the use of force”), but in the figurative sense, in the sense of its undivided leadership.
2) Whoever identifies the leadership of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat distorts Lenin, wrongly attributing to the Party the function of employing force against the working class as a whole.
3) Whoever attributes to the Party the function, which it
Useful Passages From "The Party and the Working Class in the System of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat"
I wanted to share those passages because I thought they are useful for understanding the relation between the Soviets and the Party, which could be understood as the relation between people's organisations and the vanguard in general. I would like to hear your ideas on the topic. These passages are taken from "Concerning Questions of Leninism" by Joseph Stalin. Words/Sentences that have a "***" next to them are sentences that were underlined by Stalin.
The text:
The highest expression of the leading role of the Party, here, in the Soviet Union, in the land of the dictatorship of the proletariat, for example, is the fact that not a single important political or organisational question is decided by our Soviet and other mass organisations without guiding directives from the Party. In this sense it could be said that the dictatorship of the proletariat is, in essence, the “dictatorship” of its vanguard, the “dictatorship” of its Party, as the main guiding force of the proletariat. Here is what Lenin said on this subject at the Second Congress of the Comintern:
“Tanner says that he stands for the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the dictatorship of the proletariat is not conceived quite in the same way as we conceive it. He says that by the dictatorship of the proletariat we mean, in essence,** the dictatorship of its organised and class-conscious minority.
“And, as a matter of fact, in the era of capitalism, when the masses of the workers are continuously subjected to exploitation and cannot develop their human potentialities, the most characteristic feature of working-class political parties is that they can embrace only a minority of their class. A political party can comprise only a minority of the class, in the same way as the really class-conscious workers in every capitalist society constitute only a minority of all the workers. That is why we must admit that only this class-conscious minority can guide the broad masses of the workers and lead them. And if Comrade Tanner says that he is opposed to parties, but at the same time is in favour of the minority consisting of the best organised and most revolutionary workers showing the way to the whole of the proletariat, then I say that there is really no difference between us” (see Vol. XXV, p. 347).
But this, however, must not be understood in the sense that a sign of equality can be put between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the leading role of the Party (the “dictatorship” of the Party), that the former can be identified with the latter, that the latter can be substituted for the former. Sorin, for example, says that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is the dictatorship of our Party.” This thesis, as you see, identifies the “dictatorship of the Party” with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Can we regard this identification as correct and yet remain on the ground of Leninism? No, we cannot. And for the following reasons:
Firstly. In the passage from his speech, at the Second Congress of the Comintern quoted above, Lenin does not by any means identify the leading role of the Party with the dictatorship of the proletariat. He merely says that “only this class-conscious minority (i.e., the Party—J. St.) can guide the broad masses of the workers and lead them,” that it is precisely in this sense that “by the dictatorship of the proletariat we mean, in essence**, the dictatorship of its organised and class-conscious minority.”
To say “in essence” does not mean “wholly.” We often say that the national question is, in essence, a peasant question. And this is quite true. But this does not mean that the national question is covered by the peasant question, that the peasant question is equal in scope to the national question, that the peasant question and the national question are identical. There is no need to prove that the national question is wider and richer in its scope than the peasant question. The same must be said by analogy as regards
Statements from the communist parties of Venezuela, Brazil, Palestine, Greece and others regarding US aggression against Maduro government
https://emdefesadocomunismo.com.br/partidos-comunistas-se-manifestam-sobre-a-agressao-dos-eua-na-venezuela/
https://redd.it/1q3ixgm
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PDC: Chicago: Resisting Operation Midway Blitz
https://classpartisan.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/chicago-resisting-operation-midway-blitz/
https://redd.it/1phnh84
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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (December 14)
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https://redd.it/1plzw3a
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Polish Communist Party splits, anti-revisionists post open letter on party website
https://kom-pol.org/?fbclid=Iwb21leAO0bBNjbGNrA7RsDmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHq-uqWGTUxfOQNdPxaF464tKV-iUgAz7nx2LFnliUIaRDU-4vP_atMKuq9Ho_aem_2SK_rgMb1i3hz8q9M1JnnQ
https://redd.it/1przfb6
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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (December 28)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
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https://redd.it/1pxckrz
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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (December 28)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
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https://redd.it/1pxckrz
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Polish Communist Party splits, anti-revisionists post open letter on party website
https://kom-pol.org/?fbclid=Iwb21leAO0bBNjbGNrA7RsDmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHq-uqWGTUxfOQNdPxaF464tKV-iUgAz7nx2LFnliUIaRDU-4vP_atMKuq9Ho_aem_2SK_rgMb1i3hz8q9M1JnnQ
https://redd.it/1przfb6
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ICE’s Arsenal and the Logic of Domestic Militarization
https://classpartisan.wordpress.com/2025/10/28/ices-arsenal-and-the-logic-of-domestic-militarization/
https://redd.it/1ppc5ld
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Serious Only Can we discuss the Revolutionary Communists of America?
I am asking these questions out of curiosity and not attacking RCA in any way. I do not have any contacts with the RCA so their goals feel very opaque to me. I am asking so that I have a better understanding of the RCA. Many of the US based socialist / communist political parties feel like multi-level marketing scams from the outside.
Their site says that they are Trotskyists. Does this mean that they want to do the permanent revolution thing and muddy the waters to prevent actual change? Or is this a new generation of revolutionaries actually distinct from 20th century Trotskyists? What part of Trotskyism are they locked to?
How are they working to accomplish any of the goals listed on their site:
https://communistusa.org/program/
Please do not start any arguments in this thread.
I have zero interest in attacking RCA members or denigrating them even if they have views that I don't agree with. This post isn't to convince anyone of anything, just a discussion to learn about the RCA. Also, I don't mind being wrong.
Any RCA members hanging around here? Looking to have a public discussion.
https://redd.it/1pljlm9
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