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Marxist theory envisions that a new democratic society would rise through the organized actions of the internationalworking class, enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by thelabour market.[1][2] There would be little, if any, need for astate, the goal of which was to enforce thealienation of labour;[1] as such, the state would eventuallywither away as its conditions of existence disappear.[3][4][5]
Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels stated inThe Communist Manifesto (1848) and later works that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise theproletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy", anduniversal suffrage being "one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat".[6][7][8] As Marx wrote in hisCritique of the Gotha Programme (1875), "betweencapitalist andcommunist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionarydictatorship of the proletariat".[9] He allowed for the possibility ofpeaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands) but suggested that in other countries in which workers can not "attain their goal by peaceful means", the "lever of our revolution must be force" on the grounds that the working people had theright to revolt if they were denied political expression.[10][11]
In response to the question "What will be the course of this revolution?" inThe Principles of Communism (1847),Friedrich Engels wrote: "Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat."[12] WhileMarxists propose replacing thebourgeois state with a proletarian semi-state through revolution (dictatorship of the proletariat), which would eventually wither away,anarchists warn that the state must be abolished along with capitalism. Nonetheless, the desired end results (a statelesscommunal society) are the same.[13]
Marx criticizedliberalism as not democratic enough and found the unequal social situation of the workers during theIndustrial Revolution undermined the democratic agency of citizens.[14] Some argue democratic decision-making consistent with Marxism should include voting on howsurplus labor is to be organized.[15]
Marxists differ in their positions towards democracy;[16][17] in the words of Robert Meister, "controversy over Marx's legacy today turns largely on its ambiguous relation to democracy."[18] The stance onpolitical violence varies been Marxists, while Marx saw peaceful means possible,[19] Lenin affirmed political violence andpolitical terror.[20]
In the 19th century,The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels called for the international political unification of the Europeanworking classes in order to achieve acommunist revolution. It also proposed that since the socio-economic organization ofcommunism was of a higher form than that ofcapitalism, a workers'revolution would first occur in the economically advanced industrialized countries. Marxistsocial democracy was strongest in Germany throughout the 19th century, and theSocial Democratic Party of Germany inspiredVladimir Lenin and other Russian Marxists.[21]
During the revolutionary ferment of theRussian Revolution of 1905 and 1917, there arose working-class grassroots attempts ofdirect democracy withsoviets (Russian forcouncil). According to Lenin and other theorists of theSoviet Union, the soviets represent the democratic will of the working class and are thus the embodiment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin and theBolsheviks saw the soviet as the basic organizing unit of society in a communist system and supported this form of democracy. Thus, the results of the long-awaited1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, which Lenin'sBolshevik Party lost to theSocialist Revolutionary Party, were nullified when theAll-Russian Constituent Assembly was disbanded in January 1918.[22]
Russian historianVadim Rogovin attributed the establishment of theone-party system to the conditions which were "imposed on Bolshevism by hostile political forces". Rogovin highlighted the fact that the Bolsheviks made strenuous efforts to preserve the Soviet parties such as the Socialist-Revolutionaries, theMensheviks, and other left-wing parties within the bounds of Soviet legality and their participation in the Soviets on the condition of abandoning armed struggle against the Bolsheviks.[23] Similarly, British historianE. H. Carr drew attention to the fact "the larger section of the party (the SR party – V.R) had made a coalition with the Bolsheviks, and formally broke from the other section which maintained its bitter feud against the Bolsheviks."[24]
Functionally, the Leninistvanguard party was to provide the working class with thepolitical consciousness (education and organisation) and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism inImperial Russia.[25] After theOctober Revolution of 1917,Leninism was the dominant version of Marxism in Russia; in establishingsoviet democracy, the Bolshevik régime suppressed socialists who opposed the revolution, such as the Mensheviks and factions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.[26]Leon Trotsky argued that he and Lenin had intended to lift the ban on theopposition parties such as the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries as soon as the economic and social conditions ofSoviet Russia had improved.[27]
In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management.[28] In December 1917, Sovnarkom established aSupreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade.[29] Adopting aleft-libertarian perspective, both theleft communists and some factions in the Bolshevik Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia.[30] Internationally, some socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishingsocialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, andindustrial democracy.[31]
FollowingJoseph Stalin's consolidation of power in the Soviet Union and static centralization of political power, Trotsky condemned theSoviet government's policies for lacking widespread democratic participation on the part of the population and for suppressingworkers' self-management and democratic participation in the management of the economy. Because these authoritarian political measures were inconsistent with the organizational precepts of socialism, Trotsky characterized the Soviet Union as adeformed workers' state that would not be able to effectively transition toMarxist socialism. Ostensiblysocialist states where democracy is lacking, yet the economy is largely in the hands of the state, are termed byorthodox Trotskyist theories asdegenerated or deformed workers' states and not socialist states.[32] Trotsky andTrotskyists have associated democracy in this context withmulti-party socialist representation, autonomous union organizations (economic democracy), internal party democracy, and the mass participation of the working masses.[33][34]
Mao Zedong put forward the concept ofNew Democracy in his early 1940 textOn New Democracy,[35]: 36 written while theYan'an Soviet was developing and expanding during theSecond Sino-Japanese War.[36]: 60–61 During this period, Mao was concerned about bureaucratization and sought to develop a culture of mass politics.[36]: 61 In his view, mass democracy was crucial but could be guaranteed only to the revolutionary classes.[36]: 61–62 In the concept of New Democracy, the working class and thecommunist party are the dominant part of a coalition including progressive intellectuals andbourgeois patriotic democrats.[37] Led by a communist party, a New Democracy allows for limited development of national capitalism as part of the effort to replace foreignimperialism and domesticfeudalism.[37]
TheChinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was the primary government body through which theChinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to incorporate non-CCP elements into the political system pursuant to principles of New Democracy.[38]: 43 On 29 September 1949, the CPPCC unanimously adopted theCommon Program as the basic political program for the country following the success of theChinese Communist Revolution.[39]: 25 The Common Program defined China as a new democratic country, which would practice apeople's democratic dictatorship led by theproletariat and based on an alliance of workers and peasants that would unite all of China's democratic classes (defined as those opposing imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism and favoring an independent China).[39]: 25
From 2007 to 2009,CCP general secretaryHu Jintao promoted intra-party party democracy (dangnei minzhu, 党内民主) in an effort to decrease the party's focus on top-down decision-making.[40]: 18 TheCore Socialist Values campaign, which was introduced during the18th National Congress in 2012,[41] promotes democracy as one of its four national values.[42]: 204 CCP general secretaryXi Jinping'sadministration promotes a view of consultative democracy (xieshang minzhu 协商民主) rather than intra-party democracy.[40]: 18 This view ofsocialist democracy emphasizes consulting more often with society at large while strengthening the leading role of the party.[40]: 18
Beginning in 2019, the party developed the concept of "whole-process democracy", which by 2021 was namedwhole-process people's democracy (the addition of "people's" emphasized a connection to theMaoist concept of themass line).[43] Under this view, a "real and effective socialist democracy" can be presented as a series of four paired relationships: 1) "process democracy" (过程民主) and "achievement democracy" (成果民主), 2) "procedural democracy" (程序民主) and "substantive democracy" (实质民主), 3) "direct democracy" (直接民主) and "indirect democracy" (间接民主), and 4) "people’s democracy" (人民民主) and the "will of the state" (国家意志).[44] Whole-process people's democracy is a primarilyconsequentialist view, in which the most important criterion for evaluating the success of democracy is whether democracy can "solve the people's real problems", while a system in which "the people are awakened only for voting" is not truly democratic.[43] As a result, whole-process people's democracy critiquesliberal democracy for its excessive focus on procedure.[43]
