Marxisms in the 21st Century. John Saul

Socialism, and Democracy ([1942] 1975) in which he argues that democracy is not a theory of particular ideals or ends, but rather, is a political method with certain institutional arrangements for arriving at political decisions. Like the scholars he later influenced, Schumpeter (269) looked suspiciously on a participatory and decision-making role for the people and preferred to support the idea that a democratic method was defined by competition for votes among leaders.⁵ Schumpeter’s characterisation of the democratic method and the dangers of popular participation were widely accepted by the 1950s tradition, which built an entire canon of scholarship on these basic principles (Pateman [1970] 1999: 5). The disregard for popular participation ultimately bifurcated democratic politics into representative and vanguard democracies, both of which rely on elites – elected officials or advanced working class – as the guiding force in society. In many ways, the apartheid state adopted the liberal cold-war view of Marxism, though it was not itself liberal.

      One of the most influential statements of the inherent dangers of mass participation and its links with communist totalitarianism was Talmon’s The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952), in which he traces the history of what he calls ‘totalitarian democracy’ and is interested in showing how representative democracy and totalitarian democracy, while originating from similar traditions of eighteenth-century political theory, ultimately diverged in opposite directions (3). Demonstrating his distrust of popular participation, Talmon (250) argues that direct democracy, unlimited sovereignty and egalitarian social ideals hold within them the tendency toward totalitarian control of society. He further argues that the modern abstraction of human beings from their social relations (that is classes), which he sees at the core of the Marxian tradition, is a powerful vehicle for totalitarianism. For Talmon, communism is inherently totalitarian and popular participation in politics lends itself toward this end.

      Shifting from the political implications of popular participation, the liberal tradition drew a link between individual psychology and vulnerability to communist manipulation (see for example, Almond 1954). Again strongly influenced by the liberal political tradition, scholars were increasingly concerned about the lack of capacity of the general population for democratic politics. Political sociology provided prolific empirical studies into political attitudes that summarised the primary characteristics of citizens from the lower socioeconomic categories as not only displaying a lack of interest in politics, but, more importantly, harbouring ‘widespread non-democratic or authoritarian attitudes’ (Pateman [1970] 1999: 3). This led many in the liberal tradition to conclude that the ‘classical’ view of a democratic person (capable of participating in decision-making processes) was unrealistic and increased participation would lead to instability of the current system (see for example, the work of Almond, Seymour Martin Lipset and Schumpeter). The liberal tradition, therefore, drew a link between the ‘authoritarian’ personality traits in the ‘masses’ and the attraction to communism. For example, Lipset’s Political Man (1963) adumbrates the link between education, socio-economic status and national development and a tendency toward authoritarianism and an attraction to communist ideology. The average person on the street was, the argument suggests, simply not equipped for participation in the political system.

      In general, with their focus on the totalitarian character of Marxist-inspired communist experiments and their juxtaposition of totalitarian communism with representative democracy, these scholars challenged Marxism’s relevance in democratic conceptions of social transformation. One of the enduring legacies of the liberal tradition’s treatment of Marxism is that it narrowed the discussion of democracy to mean representative, electoral democracy, conflating participatory democracy with vanguard democracy and thus dismissing it as a form of authoritarianism. While the liberal tradition’s positioning of communism against representative democracy was largely an ideological tool to delegitimate Marxism, it also served to highlight the contradictory notion of democracy within the Marxist tradition. It also had the further effect of appropriating representative democracy as a liberal invention, distancing representative democracy from radical, egalitarian politics. The liberal characterisation, however, provoked responses from a range of scholars within the Marxist tradition that provided critique of Marxism (and communism) and reintroduced the importance of democracy for Marxism.

      Marxist Critiques of Twentieth-Century Soviet Communism

      Liberal scholars were not the only critics of Marxist-inspired Soviet communist experiments. Indeed, a whole generation of Marxist intellectuals devoted a significant amount of intellectual energy to distancing Marxism from twentieth-century communism (for example, Theodor Adorno, Claudin, Max Horkheimer, Lukács, Herbert Marcuse and Palmiro Togliatti). ‘Western Marxists’, from Antonio Gramsci and Lukács to the Frankfurt School’s critical theory to Jürgen Habermas’s communicative action, pried open the ideological straightjacket of vanguard party politics to allow theoretical engagement with Marxism to include culture, epistemology, aesthetics and reconciliation (rather than domination) with nature (Anderson 1976; Jay 1984; Therborn 2008: 87–91).

      While not explicitly a Marxist, but still critical of the Soviet Union’s ‘communism’, Arendt saw the demise of class society, which she linked to a sense of hopelessness among the populace, providing the basis for totalitarianism. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) Arendt (313–314) argues that totalitarianism occurs when class society (and the concomitant institutions in civil society such as parties and labour organisations) breaks down and mass society develops in its stead. Because membership in a class is the primary integrative mechanism linking the individual to civil society, its demise causes people to lose their last remaining link to society, which ultimately makes them particularly susceptible to feelings of anomie (317). She thus shares in the liberal assumption about the psychological basis for attraction to totalitarian communism. For Arendt (351–352), the appeal of totalitarianism is its offer of consistency, predictability, organisation and a vision of the future, which is infinitely more attractive than the uncertainty of reality. Thus, the separation of individuals from meaningful social relations creates the conditions for the emergence of totalitarianism (315–317). Further challenging the liberal tradition, in The Human Condition (1958) Arendt develops her conception of the political in which she draws heavily on the participatory democratic tradition. Her critique of communism as totalitarian is fundamentally different from others in the 1950s in that she is interested in counterposing totalitarianism (which she sees as possible in both communism and liberal democracy) against a more direct and participatory democratic conception of politics. While the liberals see representative democracy as integrating people, Arendt (1951: 312) thinks it facilitates societal breakdown by excluding the majority of the population from politics and by weakening civil society as it separates people from each other. Arendt’s critique echoes Karl Marx’s (1967: 226–227) own critique as he argues that ‘liberal’ democracy results in alienation and the ‘separation of man from his community, from himself, and from other men’. Humans become separated from their communities to such a degree that society comes to exist outside of human beings rather than being integrally connected to the very essence of what it means to be human (Femia 1993: 25).

      Similarly, Claudin’s monumental two volumes provide an incisive challenge to the liberal rendition of communism by offering his own critique from within the movement. While certainly critical of the totalitarian character of the International Communist Movement, Claudin differs from the liberal tradition in that he does not equate totalitarianism with