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People's democracy is a theoretical concept of Marxism–Leninism that advocates the establishment of a multi-class and multi-party democracy during the transition from capitalism to socialism. People's democracy was developed after World War II and implemented in a number of European and Asian countries as a result of the people's democratic revolutions of the 1940s.
The idea of a multi-party people's democracy was first publicized during the popular front period against fascism. Prior to the development of fascism, communist parties had advocated for soviet republics to be implemented throughout the world, such as the Chinese Soviet Republic or William Z. Foster's book Toward Soviet America. However, after the development of fascism and the creation of the more broadly-based popular front governments in France and Spain, the Comintern and its Bulgarian Communist official Georgi Dimitrov began to advocate for a multi-party united front of the communist and social democratic parties as opposed to the one-party proletarian dictatorship of the Soviets.
History
György Lukács was one of the first to suggest the possibility of communists working for a democratic republic in his Blum Thesis of 1929. Lukacs recounted in 1967:
It is hard for most people to imagine how paradoxical this sounded then. Although the Sixth Congress of the Third International did mention this as a possibility, it was generally thought to be historically impossible to take such a retrograde step, as Hungary had already been a soviet republic in 1919.
Joseph Stalin, who had been in Soviet administration throughout the Russian Civil War and its aftermath, well remembered how the attempt to fight Bolshevik-style revolutions throughout Europe during and after World War I—the revolutions of 1917–1923—had mostly failed. Many Old Bolsheviks had thought at the time that these revolutions were the beginning of world revolution, but the latter never materialized. It was this very reality that had caused the development of the idea of socialism in one country as Soviet policy.
With such historical lessons in mind, Stalin suggested to the officials of Eastern European communist parties at the end of World War II that they should present themselves as advocates of a people's democracy. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies in Eastern Europe, Marxist–Leninist theoreticians first began expanding the idea of a possible peaceful transition to socialism, given the presence of the Soviet Red Army. In most areas of Eastern Europe, the Communist Parties did not immediately take power directly but instead worked in Popular Coalitions with progressive parties. Unlike the USSR, which was officially a one-party state, a majority of people's democracies of Eastern Europe were theoretically multi-party states. Many of the ruling Marxist–Leninist parties no longer termed themselves Communist in their official title as they had during the 1930s. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) for instance was ostensibly a union of the SPD and the Communist Party of Germany. Many of the other European states were ruled by Worker's or Socialist Parties. In the Eastern Bloc, people's democracy was a synonym for socialist state.
The origins of the idea of people's democracy can be traced back to both the idea of popular front governments, which were coalitions of anti-fascist parties, such as the one that existed in Spain. The theory was perhaps first articulated by Bulgarian Communist Georgi Dimitrov.
Scholars have argued that the emergence of the theory acted as a way for the USSR to legitimize its establishment of Socialist States, as well as the method by which they would be established. For one, the USSR had to justify the creation of Soviet-aligned governments to the existing, non-Communist, political parties within Eastern European countries. The theory of people's democracy allowed the USSR to assuage the concerns of such parties, as people's democracies were to be governed by a coalition of Anti-fascist parties. By creating a theory which contrasted the peaceful nature by which Socialism would be established in Eastern European countries with the violent nature it was established in the USSR, the USSR was able to ease fears that many in anti-fascist parties had of a Bolshevik-style revolution.
Many Scholars and Historians have argued that the theory of people's democracy grew out of a need for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to justify in terms of Marxist–Leninist theory the different circumstances by which Socialism would emerge in Eastern Europe. For example, Ruth Amende Rosa stated:
the U.S.S.R. apparently felt obliged to establish its own position of ideological "leadership" in eastern Europe and, simultaneously, to fit the concept of "people's democracy" into the body of orthodox Marxist-Leninist doctrine.
— Ruth Amende Rosa, "The Soviet Theory of 'People's Democracy'," in World Politics Vol. 1, No. 4 (Jul. 1949): 489
The work of Marxian economist Eugen Varga was of particular importance to the development of the theory of people's democracy. His work entitled Changes in the Economy of Capitalism Resulting from the Second World War gave an explanation as to why newly emerging States were different from the Soviet model while still interpreting them as a transition stage facilitating the emergence of Socialism within the dominant Soviet theory of Marxism–Leninism. However, in 1949, Varga recanted his ideas, and many high ranking Communists, including Dimitrov, suggested that people's democracies actually were similar to the USSR. This represented the changed opinion within the USSR that the character of the people's democracies was identical to that of the USSR itself.
The theory of people's democracy underwent a considerable change. In its initial conception, the theory stated that the newly emerging Soviet-aligned states were totally different in character than the USSR, whereas by its later conception they were quite similar to the Soviet model. The reason for this change is debatable. While Richard F. Staar argues that the initial instance of the theory was used to conceal the true intentions of establishing a one-party dictatorship in the model of the Soviet Union, other scholars have suggested that the uncertain nature of the time when the original theory was formulated help to account for why the theory underwent change once power was consolidated.
Mao Zedong proposed a similar idea of a cross-class New Democracy in the 1940 essay On New Democracy. In 1949, he would make a speech on the people's democratic dictatorship. The people's democratic model would later be applied to socialist states in Asia, including China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.
Ideology
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While people's democracies were considered a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, classes such as the peasantry, petite bourgeoisie and progressive bourgeoisie were allowed to participate. Nikita Khrushchev explicitly stated that the possibility of peaceful transition to people's democracy was predicated on the global strength of the USSR as a superpower.
The Soviet Textbook A Dictionary of Scientific Communism defined people's democracy as follows:
People's Democracy, a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat established in several European and Asian countries as a result of popular-democratic revolutions in the 1940s which developed into socialist revolutions. It emerged at a new stage in the world revolutionary process and reflected the specific way in which the socialist revolution was developing at a time when imperialism was weakened and the balance of world forces had tipped in favour of socialism. The common features characteristic of people's democracy as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat were determined by the broad social base underlying the socialist revolutions that occurred in the European and Asian countries after World War II, their relatively peaceful development and the assistance and support rendered to them by the Soviet Union. Yet, in each particular country, people's democracy has its own distinctive features, since the socialist changeover took place there under specific historical and national conditions. Unlike the Soviet Union, where a single-party system emerged in the course of history, in most of the countries under people's democratic rule, a multi-party system was formed. The parties united in the Popular Front to fight fascism and imperialism; under these conditions, the multi-party system helped to expand the social base of the revolution and better fulfil the tasks facing it. Leading positions were held by Communist and Workers' Parties (this was the case in the East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia). To strengthen cohesion within the ranks of the working class, the Communist and Workers' Parties in several European countries of P.D. merged with Social-Democratic parties on the basis of Marxism-Leninism (q. v.), while in Hungary and Romania the multi-party system was replaced by a single-party one.
Trotskyists and other dissident anti-Stalinist Communists were against the idea of people's democracy which they considered as denying the Leninist insistence on the class essence of all state power.
The Marxists Internet Archive dictionary critiques people's democracy as follows:
Stalin fully intended to establish Popular Front-type governments, that is multi-class governments, states representing an alliance between the working class and the Bourgeoisie. It was quite explicitly envisaged that capitalist property would be protected.
When no bourgeois party could be found with whom to form a 'popular front' the Communist Party created their own. Artificial 'parties' were created to represent the various social classes who were 'invited' to form coalition governments. The presence of 'deputies' representing absolutely impotent 'parties' in rubber-stamp 'parliaments' does not make a two-class or three-class state.
The 'Peoples Democracy' program proved unworkable however. The combination of the pressure of the working class and peasantry in favour of expropriation of the capitalists and landowners and the inability of the Soviet bureaucracy to manage a capitalist economy forced Stalin into a policy that he never anticipated.
In Soviet-occupied Europe, the Red Army was the State. The social relations of production upon which the Red Army rested, i.e. the political-economy of the Soviet Union, imposed themselves upon the countries it occupied. Stalin's diplomacy could not eradicate the fundamental antagonism between the workers' state and international capitalism.
The same policy was carried in China under the banner of "Bloc of Four classes".
See also
- Democratic socialism
- Front organization
- People's republic
- Social democracy
- Bloc party
- Dominant-party system
- National Front (Czechoslovakia)
- National Front (GDR)
- Democratic Front of Albania
- Front of National Unity
- Patriotic People's Front
- Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego
- People's Democratic Front
- Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy
- Fatherland Front (Bulgaria)
- United Front (China)
- People's Front of Yugoslavia
- Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea
- Vietnamese Fatherland Front
- Lao Front for National Development
- People's Multiparty Democracy
References
- Butenko, A. P. (1979). "People's Democracy". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
- Dimitrov, Georgi (1972). Selected Works. Vol. 2. Sofia Press.
- ^ Nation, R. Craig (1992). Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991. Cornell University Press. pp. 85–6. ISBN 978-0801480072. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
- ^ Rieber 2009, p. 123.
- Rieber 2009, p. 108.
- ^ Rosa, Ruth Amende (July 1949). "The Soviet Theory of 'People's Democracy'". World Politics. 1 (4): 489–512. doi:10.2307/2008834. JSTOR 2008834.
- Rieber 2009, p. 125.
- Skilling, H. Gordon (July 1951). "'People's Democracy' in Soviet Theory I". Soviet Studies. 3 (1): 16–33. doi:10.1080/09668135108409801. JSTOR 149146.
- ^ Rieber 2009, p. 127.
- Staar, Richard F. (1 December 1956). "Theory of the Polish People's Democracy". Western Political Quarterly. 9 (4): 835. doi:10.1177/106591295600900403. ISSN 0043-4078. S2CID 154298952.
- Mastny, Vojtech (1984). "Stalin and the Militarization of the Cold War". International Security. 9 (3): 113. doi:10.2307/2538589. ISSN 0162-2889. JSTOR 2538589. S2CID 155081034.
Bibliography
- Rieber, Alfred (2009). "Popular Democracy: An Illusion?". In Tismaneanu, Vladimir (ed.). Stalinism Revisited - The Establishment of Communist Regimes in East-Central Europe. Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9776-55-5.
Further reading
- People’s Democracy; A Contribution to the Study of the Communist Theory of State and Revolution, a 1968 book in PDF format
- "General Theory of People's Democracy". Revolutionary Democracy. Retrieved 22 August 2014.