ETIENNE BALIBAR

ON THE
DICTATORSHIP
OF THE
PROLETARIAT

 

Introduction by
Grahame Lock

Afterword by
Louis Althusser


 
First published as Sur La Dictature du Prolétariat
by François Maspero, 1976
 
© François Maspero, 1976
 
This edition first published 1977
© NLB, 1977 [New Left Books]

Translated by Grahame Lock
 


Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@cruzio.com (December 1997)
(Corrected and Updated July 2015)

[Transcriber's Note:
    The citations for all textual references to Lenin by the authors are to the 4th English edition of the Collected Works. In regard to this, there are two things that must be noted.
    First, in the vast majority of instances, when citing Lenin, the authors provide only the volume number and the page(s); seldom is the title of the text by Lenin provided. When it is not absolutely obvious which of Lenin's texts is being cited, I have inserted, in brackets ( [] ), the title of the text.
    Second, although all of Lenin's texts cited by the authors are available in FROM MARX TO MAO, the editions of Lenin's "classic" texts on the subject (The State and Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, and 'Left-Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder) are NOT from the 4th English edition. Accordingly, next to the titles of these texts, I have provided the page number(s) that correspond to the edition available at this site.
    With respect to providing "links" to the texts (not to the pages per se) cited by the authors, only a couple of texts are cited once, and the others so frequently that the reader will have ample opportunity to access any given text. I have, however, avoided providing a "link" at every mention of a specific title. -- DJR]





Introduction to the English Edition by
Grahame Lock


7

Forward

34

I.

Paris (1976) - Moscow (1936)

38

'Dictatorship or Democracy'
Three Simple and False Ideas
A Precedent : 1936

38
42
49

II.
 

Lenin's Three Theoretical Arguments
about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat


58

III.

What is State Power?

64

Marxism and Bourgeois Legal Ideology
Has the Proletariat Disappeared?

66
77

IV.

The Destruction of the State Apparatus

88

The Opportunist Deviation
The Organization of Class Rule
What Has to be Destroyed?
The Main Aspect of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

88
93
99
111

V.

Socialism and Communism

124

The Historical Tendency to the Dictatorship of the
  Proletariat
What is Socialism
The Real 'Problems of Leninism'


133
139
146

A Few Words in Conclusion

154


Dossier - Extracts from the Pre-Congress Debate
and the Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of the
French Communist Party (January - February 1976)


 
 
157


Georges Haddad  On the Question of the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat

Georges Marchais  Liberty and Socialism

Georges Marchais  Ten Questions, Ten Answers to
Convince the Listener

Etienne Balibar  On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Guy Besse  On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
(Reply to Etienne Balibar )

Georges Marchais  In Order to Take Democracy Forward
to Socialism, Two Questions are Decisive


159

161

 
165

168

 
175

 
182

Louis Althussier : The Historic Significance
of the 22nd Congress


193

Etienne Balibar : Postscript to the
English Edition


212

Index [Not available]

235




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