# Would Karl Marx have supported the actions of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 24, 2015, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694 "2015-08-24T05:31:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694/21 "2015-08-28T13:48:02Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#):
>
> Marx opined that in some countries, such as Britain and Holland, people might have be able to use the electoral process to move to socialism without violence. In the last years of his life, he was very interested in developments in Russia and suggested that the peasantry would be an important factor in any transformation to socialism. By the “dictatorship of the proletariat” Marx meant nothing like Stalin or Pol Pot, more like workers using the state–the judicial system, armed forces–the way capitalists use it to protect themselves. Any violence, he argued, was essentially in self-defence, and likely to result because those in power would be reluctant to give it up. The difference, in Marx’s view, is that workers make up the vast majority of the population, and so their use of the state would be more democratic than its use by capitalists. That is, for the first time, the state would be used by the majority to enforce the will of the majority, not the small minority of capitalists. And it would be decentered and localized: see his writings on the Paris Commune, which he argued was the model for socialism. It makes more sense to see Marx as someone who believed democracy should be extended to all spheres of life, especially work, than as a proto-dictator.
>
> But the fact is, Marx wrote very little on what socialism would look like or how it would come to be. Mostly he criticized economists for justifying capitalism and the exploitation of workers and presented another way to understand how the economy worked, a way that justified workers’ resistance.
Agree-none of the examples given were anything like what Marx envisioned. capitalism was to be a transitional phase, and the “Dictatorship of the proloteriat” was supposed to be freedom. The examples given were all repressive dictatorships, of a small elite with no concern for the common people.
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### Author:  [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694/22 "2015-08-29T19:00:04Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> […] the “Dictatorship of the proloteriat” was supposed to be freedom.
Dictatorship is defined as a situation in which people’s liberties are limited due to the absolut control exercised by an entity that enjoys illimitable power. Who was the dictatorship of the proletariat supposed to be freedom for?
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### Author:  [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694/23 "2015-08-30T03:20:47Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#):
>
> Dictatorship is defined as a situation in which people’s liberties are limited due to the absolut control exercised by an entity that enjoys illimitable power. Who was the dictatorship of the proletariat supposed to be freedom for?
The proletariat, that is, the great majority of people. The notion is that it would be a highly democratic state, using the power of the state to assert and protect the majority from the minority who were upset because they were no longer in control of the means of production or the state. It is a very different concept than that applied by Lenin, where the party replaced “the people” and used the power of the state to protect itself against the people.
It’s also worth repeating that Marx did not do much with this idea and offered very little in the way of tactics and strategy for revolution. Reading his work on the Paris Commune, one might conclude that he would have been appalled by Lenin etc.
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### Author:  [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694/24 "2015-08-30T06:46:16Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#):
>
> The proletariat, that is, the great majority of people.
The question still remains. Is the dictatorship of the proletariat a well-thought concept? I strongly doubt it.
In a less developed state, like the empire that was the first to put Marx’s theory into practice, most of the people are peasants. Revolutions are often carried out in their name too, but peasants never get to really enjoy its benefits. Quite on the contrary, given the forced collectivization.
In a developed economy, the kind of which Marx may have envisioned, the proletariat may be numerous but doesn’t represent the majority of the population either even if industry is the main activity of the country due to the people engaged in the public sector, health system, education and so on.
A genuine dictatorship, during which the opinions and interests of large portions of the society are stifled, will never allow these opinions and interests to play a role in the society lest they damage the social, political, economic and cultural fabric that the dictating entity has forced upon the entire population.
Marx claimed this could happen because the proletariat and the entire population of the society resulting from a communist revolution would enjoy a really high moral sense. Marx believed the law of social progress applies to humans’ conscience as well, and that’s probably the core of his pipe dream.
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### Author:  [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-karl-marx-have-supported-the-actions-of-stalin-mao-pol-pot-etc/728694/25 "2015-08-30T20:28:56Z")
i agree, Marx did not much talk about “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” and so it is not very useful to blame him for Lenin and Stalin. He did not use the term in anything like the way Lenin and others did, and so it is a mistake to presume he meant by the phrase the horrors of the soviet and other states.
It is a very common mistake to presume that by “the proletariat” Marx meant “industrial workers.” He noted that capitalism in England started in agriculture,and knew full well that the largest single occupational category in England was domestic service, that is, the 19th century equivalent of the service sector. He believed people in that sector were also workers, that is, proletarians.
Nor did he believe that morality was the key to communism. He explicitly denied that morality was the basis of his criticism of capitalism. It would be more accurate to say he believed that the fabulous productive power of capitalism meant that humanity had solved the problem of scarcity. Therefore, we no longer needed classes and exploitation. Since there would be no mechanism for exploitation–no bosses, no government–people might still be jerks, but they would not be able to oppress others. They may or be not be better people, but they would not be able to dominate and control and exploit others.
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