Comrade Stalin on the Totalitarian state

[Laika]

I found this quote and I am just curious to see people's reactions to it as an intellectual justification for the totalitarian state (the soviet model):

"We are in favour of the withering away of the state, and at the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most powerful and mighty of all forms of the state which have ever existed up to the present day. The highest possible development of the power of the state, with the object of the withering away of the state: that is the Marxist formula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory". But this is a living contradiction and wholly reflects the Marxist dialectic." (Stalin, June 1930).

For those of you who have not mastered Marxist dialectic/double think, the active role of the state serves to consolidate its economic basis, so the strengthening of the state serves to abolish class struggle as the source of social conflict under socialism, thereby eliminating the necessity for the state as a precondition for it withering away as an apparatus of class rule.

If you don't under stand that, repeat after me: 2+2=5

If a politician in your country made such a pronouncement of the necessity of "the highest possible development of the power of the state" how would you React? Does Comrade Stalin have a point? Or would you need to answer that question from a safe distance or in the bathroom after using the facilities?

 

[Sunstone]

I don't know nearly as much about Marxism as I would like to know, but it seems to me it rests on the notion that human nature (and hence, human behavior) can be fundamentally altered by altering economic relationships or conditions. I see human nature as deeply rooted in human genetics, however, and I don't believe it can be so easily altered as I take it that Marxism does. So, for instance, I would not expect a dictatorship to lead to the withering away of the state merely because the dictatorship was of the proletariat.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

For those of you who have not mastered Marxist dialectic/double think, the active role of the state serves to consolidate its economic basis, ...

At this point I know more than enough to discount the post as worthless.

For those interested in the Marxist-Leninist view of the state, let me suggest reading State and Revolution.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The DOTP must always be ...

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is a political fiction. Talking about what it "must always be" is a bit like making a definitive claim about how far Superman must be from Kryptonite before harm occurs.

 

[YmirGF]

The dictatorship of the proletariat is such a loaded statement, especially coming from Stalin. What an odd idea to come from a man who usurped this dictatorship of the proletariat and seized it for himself. His actions certainly demonstrated his impatience with the so-called proletariat.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The dictatorship of the proletariat is such a loaded statement, especially coming from Stalin. What an odd idea to come from a man who usurped this dictatorship of the proletariat and seized it for himself. His actions certainly demonstrated his impatience with the so-called proletariat.

Hence Trotsky.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Marxism is a failure and a mess. The end.

 

[Twilight Hue]

You don't have to look twice to see what that ideology actually does to people whenever it's implemented.