Workers Vanguard No. 1028	9 August 2013

TROTSKY

LENIN

On Bourgeois Justice

(Quote of the Week)

The following excerpt from The ABC of Communism, a textbook for the education of Communist cadres in the early Soviet workers state, explains how the ruling class in capitalist society uses its “justice” system to repress the working class and the oppressed, whatever democratic trappings that system is wrapped in.

Among the various institutions of bourgeois society which serve to oppress and deceive the working masses, must be mentioned bourgeois justice. This estimable institution is carried on under the guidance of laws passed in the interests of the exploiting class. Whatever the composition of the court, its decisions are restricted in accordance with the volumes of statutes in which are incorporated all the privileges of capital and all the lack of privileges of the toiling masses.

As far as the organization of bourgeois justice is concerned, this is in perfect harmony with the characteristics of the bourgeois State. Where the bourgeois State is comparatively frank in its methods, where it is free from hypocrisy in its determination that the decisions of the courts shall be favourable to the ruling class, there the judges are appointed from above; but even when they are elected, only the members of the privileged stratum are entitled to vote. When the masses have been sufficiently brought to heel by capital, so that they are duly submissive and regard the laws of the bourgeois State as their own laws, the workers are permitted to a certain extent to be their own judges, just as they are allowed to vote exploiters and their henchmen into parliament. Thus originated trial by jury, thanks to which legal decisions made in the interests of capital can masquerade as decisions made by the “whole people.”

—Nikolai Bukharin and Evgeny Preobrazhensky, The ABC of Communism (1920)

 

§ 23 The dictatorship of the proletariat

For the realization of the communist system the proletariat must have all authority and all power in its hands. The prolet ariat cannot overthrow the old world unless it has power in its hands, unless for a time it becomes the ruling class. Manifestly the bourgeoisie will not abandon its position without a fight. For the bourgeoisie, communism signifies the loss of its former power, the loss of its 'freedom' to extort blood and sweat from the workers; the loss of its right to rent, interest, and profit. Consequently the communist revolution of the proletariat, the communist transformation of society, is fiercely resisted by the exploiters. It follows that the principal task of the workers' government is to crush this opposition ruthlessly. Precisely because the opposition will inevitably be so embittered, it is necessary that the workers' authority, the proletarian rule, shall take the form of a dictatorship. Now 'dictatorship' signifies very strict methods of government and a resolute crushing of enemies. It is obvious that in such a state of affairs there can be no talk of 'freedom' for everyone. The dictatorship of the proletariat is incompatible with freedom for the bourgeoisie. This is the very reason why the dictatorship of the proletariat is needed: to deprive the bourgeoisie of freedom; to bind it hand and foot; to make it impossible for it to carry on a struggle against the revolutionary proletariat. The more vigorous the resistance of the bourgeoisie, the more desperate the mobilization of its forces, the more threatening its attitude, the sterner and harsher must be the proletarian dictatorship. In extreme cases the workers' government must not hesitate to use the method of the terror. Only when the suppression of the exploiters is complete, when they have ceased to resist, when it is no longer in their power to injure the working class, will the proletarian dictatorship grow progressively milder. Meanwhile the bourgeoisie, little by little, will fuse with the proletariat; the workers' State will gradually die out; society as a whole will be transformed into a communist society in which there will be no classes.

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat (a temporary institution) the means of production will from the nature of the case belong, not to society as a whole, but only to the proletariat, to its State organization. For the time being, the working class, that is the majority of the population, monopolizes the means of production. Consequently there does not yet exist communist production in all its completeness. There still exists the division of society into classes; there is still a governing class (the proletariat); all the means of production are monopolized by this new governing class; there is still a State authority (the proletarian authority) which crushes its enemies. But as the resistance of the sometime capitalists, landlords, bankers, generals, and bishops, is crushed, in like measure the system of proletarian dictatorship will without any revolution undergo transformation into communism.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is not only an instrument for the crushing of enemies; it is likewise a lever for effecting economic transformation. Private ownership of the means of production must be replaced by social ownership; the bourgeoisie must be deprived of the means of production and exchange, must be 'expropriated'. Who will and can do this? Obviously no isolated individual could do it, even if he should be of proletarian origin. If it were to be done by an isolated individual or even by isolated groups of individuals, at the best it would be nothing more than a dividing up, and at the worst it would be a mere act of robbery. We understand, therefore, why the expropriation of the bourgeoisie must be effected by the organized power of the proletariat. Now this organized power takes the form of the dictatorial workers' State.

Objections to the dictatorship of the proletariat arise from various quarters. First of all come the anarchists. They say that they are in revolt against all authority and against every kind of State, whereas the communist bolsheviks are the sustainers of the Soviet Government. Every kind of government, they continue, involves the abuse of power and the limitation of freedom. For this reason it is necessary to overthrow the bolsheviks, the Soviet Government, the dictatorship of the proletariat. No dictatorship is necessary, no State is necessary. Such are the arguments of the anarchists. Only in appearance is their criticism revolutionary. In actual fact the anarchists do not stand more to the left, but more to the right than the bolsheviks. Why, indeed, do we need the dictatorship? We need it for the organized destruction of the bourgeois régime; we need it that we may crush the enemies of the proletariat by force. Quite openly we say, by force. The dictatorship is the axe in the hands of the proletariat. Anyone who is opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat is one who is afraid of decisive action, is afraid of hurting the bourgeoisie, is no revolutionist. When we have completely vanquished the bourgeoisie, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat will no longer exist. But as long as the life-and-death struggle continues it is absolutely incumbent upon the working class to crush its enemies utterly. AN EPOCH OF PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP MUST INEVITABLY INTERVENE BETWEEN A CAPITALIST AND A COMMUNIST SOCIETY.

Next, as objectors to the dictatorship, come the social democrats, and in especial the mensheviks. These worthies have completely forgotten what they wrote about the matter in former days. In our old programme, drawn up by ourselves and the mensheviks together, it is expressly stated: 'An essential condition of the social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is to say the conquest of political power by the proletariat, which will enable the workers to crush all resistance on the part of the exploiters.' The mensheviks signed this statement. But when the time came for action, they raised a clamour against the crushing of the freedom of the bourgeoisie, against the suppression of bourgeois newspapers, against the bolshevist 'reign of terror', and so on. Even Plekhanoff, at one time, thoroughly approved of the most ruthless measures against the bourgeoisie, saying that we could deprive the bourgeois of their electoral rights, and so on. Nowadays the mensheviks have forgotten all this; they have taken refuge in the camp of the bourgeoisie.

Finally, a number of moral considerations are brought into the argument against us. We are told that we form our judgements like the savage Hottentots. The Hottentot says: 'When I steal my neighbour's wife, it is good; when he steals my wife, it is bad.' The bolsheviks, it is contended, resemble these savages, for they say: 'When the bourgeoisie uses force to crush the proletariat, it is bad; but when the proletariat uses force to crush the bourgeoisie, it is good.' Those who argue thus, do not know what they are talking about. In the case of the Hottentots we are concerned with two equal individuals who are stealing one another's wives for identical reasons. But the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are not on equal terms. Proletarians comprise an enormous class, bourgeois form a comparatively small group. The proletariat is fighting for the liberation of all mankind; but the bourgeoisie is fighting for the maintenance of oppression, wars, exploitation. The proletariat is fighting for communism, the bourgeoisie for the preservation of capitalism. If capitalism and communism were one and the same thing, then the bourgeoisie and the proletariat could be compared to the two Hottentots. The proletariat is fighting solely on behalf of the new social order. Whatever helps in the struggle is good; whatever hinders, is bad.