MIM Notes 223   December 1, 2000

Does Henry Kissinger deserve the vote? 

In the course of editing the article on Massachusetts' prisoners 
losing the vote (previous page), a struggle developed between the 
original author and the MIM Notes editor over the question of 
disenfranchisement under the dictatorship of the proletariat. 

MIM's line is clear on this issue. As we stated in 1999: "The 
dictatorship of the proletariat is defined as a stage of struggle 
between capitalism and communism. The final goal of communism is 
the classless and stateless society. The dictatorship of the 
proletariat is also defined as organized force to protect the non-
negotiable interests of the people for food, clothing, shelter, 
medicine, and a pollution-free and militarism-free environment--
survival rights. The dictatorship of the proletariat is further 
defined by its repression of those who put property or profit 
rights or other exchange- value goals above the survival rights."

"Upon the successful completion of initial stages of revolution... 
a portion of imperialist country citizens will be deprived of 
citizenship rights completely."(1)

The original author of the Massachusetts' prisoner article argued 
that discussing this last point would open "an unnecessary can of 
worms... Call me an anti-Stalinist a la the Firestone article if 
you want (2), but I think disenfranchisement should be used to 
reign in disproportionate/unsafe reactionary power only. 
Reconstruction disenfranchisement was necessary 'cuz the 
confederacy was poised to come back. If it was just a few wackos, 
it would have been a different story. Outside of practical threats 
to maintaining the new order, we shouldn't use this weapon. 
Turning this into a principle that we endorse is a bad idea."

The editor replied: "Won't Amerikan imperialism be 'poised to come 
back' when it is first defeated? After we sieze state power in 
Amerika, will there be 'just a few wackos' who will be looking to 
restore imperialism? That is exactly the point of the dictatorship 
of the proletariat.

"We are not bourgeois democratic formalists, there is nothing 
sacred about 'one man, one vote.' In principle, we don't think 
disenfranchising people is so bad. WHO gets disenfranchised -- 
whatever that means in a given political system -- is what is 
important."

The original author then submitted a new draft which said we "may 
need" to disenfranchise those who profit at the cost of starvation 
and disease. S/he continued: "It will be absolutely critical that 
these reactionary relics be used as examples of the old ways of 
thinking and not allowed to exercise power disproportionate to 
their numbers."

The editor replied, "We WILL NEED to disenfranchise exactly those 
people. 

"And this is not about 'power disproportionate to their numbers.' 
You say 'let's not forget who the majority is in any political-
economic system: It's the prol. and the peasants.' But this is not 
about the relationship between the majority and minority; it's 
about the relationship between exploited and exploited.

"Here is Lenin in 'The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade 
Kautsky:'

BLOCK QUOTE

Kautsky argues as follows: "The exploiters have always formed only 
a small minority of the population." (P. 14 of Kautsky's 
pamphlet.) 

That is indisputably true. Taking this as the starting point, what 
should be the argument? One may argue in a Marxist, a socialist 
way; in which case one would take as the basis the relation 
between the exploited and the exploiters. Or one may argue in a 
liberal, a bourgeois-democratic way; and in that case one would 
take as the basis the relation between the majority and the 
minority. 

If we argue in a Marxist way, we must say: the exploiters 
inevitably transform the state (and we are speaking of democracy, 
i.e., one of the forms of the state) into an instrument of the 
rule of their class, the exploiters, over the exploited. Hence, so 
long as there are exploiters who rule the majority, the exploited, 
the democratic state must inevitably be a democracy for the 
exploiters. A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ 
from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, and a 
means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a 
class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from 
"democracy." 

If we argue in a liberal way, we must say: the majority decides, 
the minority submits. Those who do not submit are punished. That 
is all. Nothing need be said about the class character of the 
state in general, or of "pure democracy" in particular, because it 
is irrelevant; for a majority is a majority and a minority is a 
minority. A pound of flesh is a pound of flesh, and that is all 
there is to it...

[T]o assume that in a revolution which is at all profound and 
serious the issue is decided simply by the relation between the 
majority and the minority is the acme of stupidity, the silliest 
prejudice of a common or garden liberal, an attempt to deceive the 
masses by concealing from them a well-established historical 
truth. This historical truth is that in every profound revolution, 
a prolonged, stubborn and desperate resistance of the exploiters, 
who for a number of years retain important practical advantages 
over the exploited, is the rule. Never -- except in the 
sentimental fantasies of the sentimental fool Kautsky -- will the 
exploiters submit to the decision of the exploited majority 
without trying to make use of their advantages in a last desperate 
battle, or series of battles."

END BLOCK QUOTE

"For the record, when I've been talking about "disenfranchisment" 
I've been using it in the general sense of restricting democracy 
for the exploiters and their lackeys. This is the important point, 
and it is 100% correct. What this will look like -- whether it 
means taking away their vote, whatever the 'vote' might look like 
post-revolution -- we don't know. In fact, I think obsessing about 
the franchise per se is catering to bourgeois democratic 
prejudice."

Finally, another comrade chipped in a relevant historical example. 
"I definitely used to argue that without capital, the former 
capitalists could be allowed to vote as individuals on the 
assumption they would lose. This might have come from the 
Sandinistas, or maybe from their Amerikan supporters. (If that's 
true, maybe it's a case study for why this view is wrong, since 
they lost an election in the end.)

"But that's not a principle we want to stand on. The principle is 
their democracy is suppressed. Maybe they get to vote on some 
things, or some of the time, and maybe they don't. They will want 
to argue these details now, because -- as the debate raging now 
all over the country shows, that's how they think about political 
power -- but we need not."

Notes:

1. "Free speech" under the dictatorship of the proletariat, 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/freespeech.html

2. An article over the Firestone tire scandal sparked an argument 
over the punishment of criminally negligent managers under 
socialism. See MIM Notes 220, 221.

3. Foreign Language Press, 1965, pp. 30-31.