To the page “Social philosophy”
Dr. Sergey Zagraevsky
About
democracy and dictatorship
Almost the same – "About "democracy" and
dictatorship" – was the name of Vladimir Lenin's article, written in
December 1918. But we do not violate the
copyright of the creator of the Soviet state, as he wrote the word
"democracy" in quotes (now those quotes are not always reproduced in
Internet, but one who wants to make sure that they were, can watch either the
original publication in the newspaper "Pravda" ¹ 2 of January 3,
1919, or the official reprint of this article in the 37th volume of the
Complete collection of the works of Lenin).
The presence of quotation marks in the title of Lenin’s article is not
surprising, since he considered "pure democracy" or "democracy
in general" a bourgeois institution and hoped to replace it with
"dictatorship of proletariat". The latter concept he wrote without
quotes, and it is also not surprisingly, as it was one of the main statements
of his ideology. But we know what came out of this "dictatorship of
proletariat" (no wonder that this term ceased to be officially used even in
the Soviet times), so we shall write this "dictatorship" in quotes.
But does the word "democracy" need quotation?
Since the writing of the article "About "democracy" and
dictatorship" about a century has passed. During this time major changes occurred
in the world, and we can not consider ardent Lenin’s convictions like the
following: "To say about pure
democracy, about democracy in general, about equality, about freedom, about
allnationality, when the workers and all the working people are hungry, naked,
ravaged, exhausted not only by capitalist wage slavery, but also by 4-year-old
predatory war, and when the capitalists and speculators continue to hold the
stolen "property" and "ready-made" apparatus of state
power, – means to mock at the workers and exploited people…" as
actual for the developed (as is customary to speak, civil) societies.
Social stratification, of course, now also exists in all, even the most
developed countries, humanity can not live without it, and it is as far until
hypothetical "communism" promised Lenin’s as until "the
So let's talk about democracy and dictatorship from the view of modern
civil societies. First of all
we’ll agree on what we call democracy (without quotes), and what – dictatorship
(also without quotes).
Formally speaking, democracy is the power of people, and dictatorship –
the power of one person, or group of individuals, or even a of social layer –
remember Lenin's "dictatorship of proletariat". But neither democracy
nor dictatorship exist in their pure form,
since even in the most democratic countries people are manipulated by certain
social groups and individuals, and even in the countries with the most rigid
dictatorship the people's opinion is taken into account, because while the
power of the dictator is strong, it is based on the majority of the citizens,
even deceived or intimidated, and mostly indifferent in our time.
The situation is also confused by the fact that since the fall of
Ancient Rome where the dictatorship was an official state position in
"emergency situations", none of dictators referred to himself as
such. There were either absolute monarchs
(in the time of Lenin there was a lot of them, but now they are almost gone,
and in the modern world absolute monarchy can already be considered as one of
the varieties of dictatorship), or presidents, prime ministers, "general
secretaries", "leaders" and other heads of states who called
their reign "republican", acted on behalf of the people and declared
the things which we now would call "democratic values".
Accordingly, it was usually possible to recognize definitely the fact
that there was not democracy, but dictatorship in a country, either after the
fall of dictatorship or "aside" – from abroad. Most of the citizens could almost never understand
that really lived not under democracy, but under
dictatorship.
This situation is not to face to civil society, especially in our
"information epoch". So let’s give the simple definition of democracy and dictatorship,
based not on any philosophical, political or economical theory, but on the
specific feelings of specific people.
Under democracy the vast majority of
law-abiding citizens (according to Lenin – "the workers and of all working
people", in modern world they are referred to as "taxpayers")
feels that it is able to have influence on the election results and on strategy
and tactics of state power, and if this power (president, government,
legislature and judiciary branches, security forces, etc.) does something wrong,
it can be changed in a constitutional way, within the law.
And dictatorship is when the common
sense the vast majority of citizens is another: this power (i.e. the head of
the state or his successors, as well as their henchmen in all state branches)
is forever, and if it acts in some incorrect way, – we’ll argue, complain,
joke, at least go to a demonstration, or even take arms... But the constructive thoughts about
its change in a constitutional way even do not arise.
Our definitions of democracy
and dictatorship allow to give everyone the opportunity to understand which of
these two social and political systems prevails in his country.
We provide our readers to make themselves conclusions about the
countries in which they lived and live. For example, in the times of Leonid
Brezhnev a few people liked his ruling, but nobody thought about such a simple
and purely legal way of its change, as a vote against Brezhnev and his henchmen
at the elections (I testify it as a witness of those times). At that "dear
Leonid Ilyich" was a "soft" ruler by Soviet standards, so
"soft" that nobody considered him as a dictator, despite the invasion
into
Now we can move to the issues of comparison of effectiveness of
democracy and dictatorship.
Efficiency of a socio-political system is a relative concept, and it is
extremely difficult to assess its impact on modern life in the country. In the last decades the term "quality of
life" is often used, and it includes "living standards" (i.e. material
prosperity), health of people, life expectancy, environmental conditions, food,
household and psychological comfort, social environment, cultural and religious
needs satisfaction, political freedoms etc. Basing on
these factors (also very relative) various international organizations expect
the "indexes of quality of life".
These "indexes" of course are also very approximate since they
are formed by various factors which are conditional either individually or in
the aggregate. Moreover, in many countries reports and statistics are
falsified. But on their basis it is possible to give a general assessment like
the following: “The level of "quality of life” of an average American is
much higher than that of an average Nigerian" (though the proverbial
"average Nigerian" believes in the opposite: that's what I also
testify as a witness, because once I had a chance to visit
Therefore, we are entitled, without having to go into any subtleties, to
try to determine on the basis of general analysis, which of these two systems –
democracy or dictatorship – affects "quality of life" positively and
which – negatively. In other words, which of these systems is more efficient.
We can say it even more simply: "Which one is better?".
There is a misconception, which is shared by many. It is the opinion
that the state power is supposedly stronger under dictatorship than under
democracy. It is often said: "The country needs order and a strong
hand," and some form of dictatorship is usually meant.
In any case we will not argue that each country needs order and
"strong hand". State power must be strong. But why must we
consider that the "strong hand" is necessarily dictatorship?
Democracy and spineless, democracy and weakness, democracy and
instability, democracy and unpredictability, democracy and the lack of order,
democracy and anarchy, even democracy and liberalism, – are not the same
things. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Franklin
Roosevelt, Gustav Mannerheim, Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Margaret
Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Ariel
Just near one "strong hand" there must always be other
"strong hands" – oppositional social movements and figures,
restraining and correcting "the strongest", and competing with it.
After all, "the strong hand" is not omniscient, not omnipotent and
not infallible (people could think and tell so about pharaohs, popes, emperors,
Stalin or Hitler, but today someone can hardly be seriously convinced in it).
But if, for example, "a strong hand" – has long been weak?
What to compare it with? Only with other "strong hands", nothing
else.
Therefore, the main,
fundamental difference of democracy from dictatorship is not strength or
weakness of the state power, but the presence of real (not declarative) public
control over
it. Otherwise the probability of the fact that even the
most brilliant ruler, even the most professional government commit particular
errors, increases substantially. And human destinies are the cost of any error
of the power.
To say it even more simply: democracy is the mind of millions,
dictatorship is the mind of units. And even if not one, but several persons
reign in a country, even if they are united by common interests and common
understanding of strategy and tactics, and even if they resolve issues in their
small circle in the most democratic way, – compared to the millions of citizens they are
still a notorious unit. Therefore for simplicity we will further talk about
dictators in the singular, implying that in fact he can have associates and a
"team".
Yes, for huge and powerful, but inert and clumsy “mind of millions"
it is much more complex to take decisions than for the "mind of
units." But if it turns out, then the efficiency of results increases
greatly. It is much easier but far more dangerous to trust to one person
commitment and uncontrolled decisions on the lives of millions.
The democratic system is often accused of manipulating the minds of the people,
especially before elections. Vladimir Lenin also wrote about it in his article
"About "democracy" and dictatorship": "The present "freedom of assembly and
freedom of the press" in "democratic" (bourgeois-democratic)
German Republic is false and hypocritical, because in fact it is freedom
for the rich to buy and to bribe the press, freedom for the rich to solder people by bourgeois newspaper
lies, freedom for the rich to
keep their "ownership" on the best buildings, etc."… "The
bourgeoisie, of course, likes to call the elections, produced under such
conditions, "free", "equal", "democratic",
"popular",
because these words serve to conceal truth".
In this Lenin, as other critics of democracy, is right by and large. So it
was, so it is, and so, unfortunately, will be in foreseeable future. But this
does not mean that dictatorship is free of these global disadvantages. On the
contrary – since dictators are much more interested in keeping their power than
democratic rulers, they have greater success in "buying and bribing"
(and also in dominating, intimidating or closing) of media, "soldering people by lies,"
"keeping in property" of funds and production and natural resources
of the country, and everything they want, just because they are dictators.
The typical example: even in 1937-1938, at the height of Stalin's
terror, though the majority of the Soviet people intuitively felt that
something was going wrong and terrible in the country, but under the influence
of official propaganda blamed it on "aggravation of class struggle"
and "the enemies of the people". The similar situation at that time
took place in
The world is imperfect, and any socio-political system is imperfect. But
dictatorship has its "own" global, systemic weaknesses, which in a
democracy (respectively, under effective public control) could have been
avoided.
First of all let us note
that any dictatorship is characterized by the degeneration of administrative
staff. Each dictator gradually becomes surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, the
vast majority of which can be summarized as follows: or thieves, or puppets, or
both.
And the fight against corruption in these conditions will always be
inefficient, since these courtiers have "psychology of short-timers".
Say, the mood of the chief will change, we shall be dismissed without reasons,
explanation and severance pay, so we must hurry to steal more!
And really, they can be dismissed in any moment and without severance
pay, because dictatorship and legality are incompatible in principle.
Since dictatorship as a form of government is illegal on its own, as it
contradicts with many articles of the constitutions, which almost in all modern
countries declare the democratic form of state power. And it never happens that
there is no legitimacy at the highest levels of power, but somewhere below it
suddenly appears.
And the lack of law in the country leads to lack of confidence of
officials (and other citizens) in their future. And the consequences are
the same: to steal as more as possible as soon as possible, while there is the
chance.
Personal fairness of a dictator is not a guarantee of successful
struggle against corruption and other evils of society, because he can not keep
everything under control himself.
Even in small
The governance of the country under the dictatorship degenerates into
"raids". The most typical one: the dictator decides to solve some problem,
excoriates and punishes the guilty officials, and then switches to other
things, which he has more than enough to do. What quality of control, what kind
of stability can we speak about? Guilty officials are not stupid, too, and
understand that there is still very long time before the next supervisory visit... By the same token, they assume quite
reasonably that the dictator could just be in a bad mood that day...
Theoretically, of course, corrupted officials, non-reliable security
forces and careless "working people" can be intimidated by terror,
and some dictators were and are tempted to use this method as a tool for
achieving of certain "order". But the problem is that even if we do
not touch any moral aspects, terror is an ineffective and short-living tool.
Let’s explain. The declared purpose of terror is the freeing of the
society from criminals, so the improving of safety of citizens. So to say, let’s jail or execute all the corrupted
officials, killers, terrorists, crooks, spies, bunglers, deadbeats, bums, drug
addicts, alcoholics and others similar, and then the honest citizens, who
faithfully perform their official and off-duty responsibilities, will feel
well.
This declaration sounds very impressive, but there is a problem: it is
impossible to make unambiguous distinction between honest and dishonest
citizens, and especially among diligent and unscrupulous attitude to one’s
duties. And this leads not only to the fact that millions of innocent people
are sent to prisons of to death, and the number of victims of the terror is
higher than the number of victims of all criminals. There are other negative
consequences of the terror.
Citizens, indeed, begin to be afraid. This fear paralyzes them, they
begin to look at the power like rabbits at a boa, and there is a “vicious
circle": citizens under terror increasing feel less and less safe,
though safety, in fact, was the declared purpose of the terror.
Accordingly, people fade away will, abilities, talents, entrepreneurial
initiative, business rots disappears, productivity reduced, families are not
created, the birth rate falls, national income decreases...
Then it remains for the dictator only to "militarize" his
people (examples – Stalin's Soviet Union or modern
But under the most brutal terror, during the most bloody war
professional criminals (including corrupted officials), who are not so timid
and helpless as honest and respectable citizens, find a way not to fall into
the hands of police. Characteristically, Stalin in 1937-1938, despite millions
of innocent victims of the terror, was not able to defeat real crime: numerous
bands like the famous mafia gang “Black cat" (which, by the way, acted
under the cover of a number of corrupted public officials) hided only temporary,
but at the first opportunity,
during the World war, raised their heads again.
But impossibility of victory over corruption and other crimes is not the
most serious of the problems experienced by any dictatorship. It is even more
serious that between people and leaders an overwhelming gap appears, and it
prevents citizens of the sense of partnership with the government. And that
deprives people of overall, global interest in the results of their work. Only
to earn money, as more as possible!
And taxes paying, environment and monuments protection, streets cleanliness
observation etc. – all this is somewhere "beyond". They say that
their supreme ruler is smart, let him think about all that...
In each society citizens must sacrifice some part of their wealth for a
common cause. Democracy gives them desire to do this, dictatorship – doesn’t. Can
a person feel involved in some higher and inexplicable things which the living
god – the dictator – is doing somewhere far away?
And it is already impossible to transform modern people into dumb and
obedient herd, even purposefully stultifying them be the Ancient Roman
principle "Bread and circuses". So, the people begin to live their
own life and to work only for themselves. And it follows inevitably that in the country dominated by dictatorship
there will always be deep social stratification, low pensions, poverty, dirt,
high mortality, lack of competitive production, bad roads, low education level,
looting of national resources, destruction of monuments of architecture,
thoughtless urban development and, of course, already mentioned crime and
corruption with all range of its negative consequences. In
short, the proverbial "quality of life" will steadily decline.
Global problems in foreign policy are also very closely associated with
dictatorship. Partly because of unpredictability of dictatorial regimes (we
have already mentioned "raids" and mood swings of the dictators), and
partly due to the fact that for most
developed countries, which determine global politics, democracy is something
like a “sacred cow”. And if there is no democracy, then such country is
not perceived as an equal partner.
And in multinational countries dictatorial regimes threaten the
integrity of the state. In modern conditions, when around the world even small
nations without autonomous territory claim for self-determination, a
considerable part of the peoples is just doomed to separatism. And the exit of
a particular territory from some country (and moreover the disintegration of
the country into several independent states) always means blood, refugees,
broken destinies, the gap of economic ties, many years of instability...
So, it is necessary to struggle against these separatist tendencies.
Dictatorship can effectively use primarily
force methods of struggle – to send representatives to autonomies, to keep
there troops, etc. (But democracy can do this, too, – we have said that it must
not be confused with softness).
All other methods can be based only on the desire of a national
autonomy to be a part of a state. And it is very difficult to create this
desire, which can be either economic interest, or a good attitude to the
central power.
Neither of these conditions are possible under dictatorship. The first –
because, as we have shown above, dictatorship is always less efficient
economically than democracy. The second – because the residents of national
territorial entities can have no warm feeling to the infinitely distant
dictator, alien for them by blood, religion and mentality.
Hope for good attitude to the central government was more or less
(rather less than more) live in the time of Lenin due to the dominance of
“supranational” Communist ideology in some countries, and “supranational"
religions in some others. But now it is another epoch, and in the absence of an
ideology and a state religion only one instrument of the state unity cementing
remains for the dictator – force. And this means eternal undeclared war,
because the rebellious nation can not be defeated completely, even if the
methods of genocide are used (let us recall the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks or Crimean Tatars
and other peoples relocation to Siberia by Stalin).
And the radical solution of these issues is possible only under the
condition of development of democracy
which gives each person feeling of
involvement in the management of the state and the impact on the events in it.
Separatism is psychologically linked
primarily with the fact that people in the province say: "I’m a respected human
in my native village (city, region, national autonomy), but a null in the
capital". So, if each “provincial” human has at least an illusion of the
fact that in the capital he is respected as a full citizen, who is able with
millions of other full citizens to influence the course of events in the
country, one of the main reasons for separatism disappears.
In connection with all said above, we can draw a fundamental conclusion:
democracy is always better than dictatorship. And if society is not
“developed enough" for democracy – it is necessary to understand it and
seek the ways for development, but not to turn the word "democracy"
into some expletive, as it occurred in the article by Vladimir Lenin. If
underdevelopment of a society requires absolute and unquestioned authority of a
dictator (either a president or an emperor or a tribal leader), it is not an
excuse, but a problem that should be solved on the way to more effective
socio-political system – democracy.
– Well, okay, – I
can hear. – It is difficult to argue that in our epoch dictatorship is worse
than democracy, it no wonder the latter is recorded almost in all constitutions
of the world, at least as some ideal. But how to move from dictatorship to
democracy? It's not easy...
It is not easy, indeed. From
democracy to dictatorship, if there are no the age-old democratic traditions
and so effective public control, – very easy: for example, any democratically
elected president during his first cadenza can put his henchmen to all key
positions including the election commissions and the courts, and at the next
elections regardless from the real results of the vote it will "turn
out" that the majority of the people is again
“pro” him and his henchmen. And then the people can become so accustomed to him
that will not be able to imagine other leaders, and democracy quietly, without
any violent seizure of power, will turn into dictatorship.
But on the way back – from dictatorship to democracy – there are much
more difficulties. First of all, such transition is contrary to the basic
instinct formulated by Friedrich Nietzsche: the desire for unlimited power over
people. And for the dictator and the ruling elite it is very difficult
psychologically to share power, and moreover to abandon it.
Besides this, modern dictators are usually closely related to the
oligarchs, for whom the power change may mean the loss of a considerable part
of income, and even the responsibility for abuses. The same applies to numerous
henchmen of this dictator in government structures and bureaucratic apparatus.
In a little bit stable countries with dictatorial regimes it is no
reason to expect that the masses will struggle for democracy. As we have
already shown, dictatorship is usually based on the majority of citizens who
believe that they live well, and are afraid to change something. Why would
these people vote against the ruler, join an opposition party, participate in
protest demonstrations? Everyone wants the quiet life...
And a "vicious circle" is obtained: serious people under
dictatorship do not join the opposition, so there is no real opposition, and a
country without real opposition is literally doomed to dictatorship. So, the modern dictators have no need to arrange a bloody
terror, no need to ban opposition parties, no need to prosecute anyone for
political beliefs, no need to close any newspapers and Internet sites, no need
to disperse anti-government demonstrations, and at a certain stage even the
falsification of the election results becomes unnecessary: if the situation is
let to take its course, the opposition will quietly disappear itself.
Of course, the protest movements exist in all countries. But if they are
not caused by little-understood democratic ideals, not by hunger or poverty,
they can not be mass. And then it is easy to handle with them...
Is all this so hopeless?
No, because we remember that dictatorship is objectively worse than
democracy. So, in historical perspective all these problems are surmountable,
and every dictatorship is not eternal. The only question is when and how it
will give way to democracy. Either it will cease within the life of its
creator, or in the time of his weaker successors. Either it will disappear
"good" – if, for example, the dictator retires or dies, having
prepared democratic institutions. Or it will collapse "bad" – for
example, overthrown by the people who are driven to despair by wars, unleashed
by dictator, and economic difficulties, typical for any dictatorship. There are
many options, and we can only hope that the laws will be observed and no blood
will be shed.
Democracy will sooner or later triumph over dictatorship in any country,
and there is no doubt. Less efficient
social and political systems are gradually replaced by more efficient ones. This is the
inexorable course of history.
Dr. S. V. Zagraevsky (c), 2010
© Sergey Zagraevsky
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