scholarly journals Democracia e ditadura na teoria política de Marx e Engels | emocracy and dictatorship in the political theory of Marx and Engels

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (41) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theófilo Codeço Machado Rodrigues

O presente artigo analisa a forma como Marx e Engels, teóricos da política, inseriram-se no debate contemporâneo sobre a democracia no século XIX. Passada a Revolução Francesa de 1789, a democracia tornou-se o grande tema da agenda teórica do século XIX. Mas as interpretações foram, decerto, distintas. De modo bem diferente de seus contemporâneos liberais, Marx e Engels compuseram a justificativa teórica para a ação dos trabalhadores para além da democracia burguesa. Transitando entre temas como a “verdadeira democracia”, a “emancipação humana”, o “comunismo” e a “ditadura do proletariado”, os dois autores formularam teorias que não apenas informaram a grande polarização do século XX, mas que ainda referenciam debates sobre as possibilidades de uma alternativa ao capitalismo no século XXI. A hipótese aqui apresentada é a de que a tensão entre democracia e ditadura na obra dos dois permite interpretações díspares, o que garante sua permanência no debate atual.Palavras-Chave: teoria política; democracia; ditadura do proletariado; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels.  Abstract − This article analyses how Marx and Engels, political theorists, entered the contemporary debate on democracy in the 19th century. After the French Revolution of 1789, democracy became the great theme of the theoretical agenda of the 19th century. But interpretations were certainly disparate. In a very different way from their liberal contemporaries, Marx and Engels composed the theoretical justification for the action of workers beyond the bourgeois democracy. Transitioning between topics such as “true democracy,” “Human Emancipation,” “communism,” and “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the two authors formulated theories that not only informed the great polarization of the 20th century, but which still are reference to debates about the possibilities of an alternative to capitalism in the 21st century. The hypothesis presented here is that the tension between democracy and dictatorship in the work of the two authors allows different interpretations that guarantee its permanence in the current debate.Keywords: political theory; democracy; dictatorship of the proletariat; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels.

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Adam Wielomski

DIALECTICS ‘WE’–‘ALIENS’ IN RIGHT-WING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1789–1945 The aim of the author of this text is to polemicize with the stereotype according to which nationalism is a synonym of the “extreme right.” For this purpose the method of historical exemplification was used. Part I of this text is devoted to defining the concept of the “right” and to present the supporters of the French Revolution and other 19th-century revolutions, their idea of nationalism, the nation-state and sovereignty of the nation. This presentation shows that up to 1890 nationalism is located in the revolutionary left. The first nationalists are Jacobins. The counter-revolutionary right is opposed to nationalism. For this right, nationalism is combined with the idea of empowering nations to the rights of self-determination, which is closely connected with the idea of people’s sovereignty. This situation persists until 1870–1914, when the ideas of national sovereignty are implemented in the politics of the modern states. However, the liberal state does not meet the expectations of nationalists, because it neglects the interests of the nation as the highest value. That is the cause for them moving from the political left to the right part of the political scene, replacing the legitimist right. The latter is annihilated with the decline of aristocracy. In the 19th century, the left is nationalistic and xenophobic. We find clear racist sympathies on the left. The political right does not recognize the right of nations to self-determination, the idea of ethnic boundaries. It is cosmopolitan.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ardis Travis Eakin

This dissertation reviews the life and political impact of Friedrich Gentz, who was born in Breslau, Prussia, in 1764, and died in Vienna, Austria, in 1832. Though remembered today as only a second- (or even third)- tier statesman alongside such luminaries of his day as Napoleon, Metternich, Wellington, and others, Gentz was nonetheless of importance in the shifting tides of late 18th and early 19th-century politics in Europe. The German translator of Edmund Burke, he was instrumental in bringing the conservative thinker's ideas into the conversations of Central Europe, while his writings against first the French Revolution, then Napoleon, marked him as one of the leading opponents of revolutionary ideology, and led the French emperor to dub him "that miserable scribe." But Gentz was important even beyond his anti-revolutionary polemics. As a product of the Enlightenment, he had some sympathy with the forces of modernity, and his career reflected the struggle to combine an openness to reform with hostility to revolution. In his later collaboration with Metternich to forge what became known as the Restoration, we can see just how much the post-Napoleonic conservative order in Europe was built upon a specific vision, one that rejected the quasi-feudal patterns of the ancien regime just as firmly as it did the democratic radicalism of its own day. Though it ultimately did not last, Gentz's work is clearly visible in the political contours of the 19th century. From the Enlightenment salons of Berlin to the dazzling Congress of Vienna and beyond, Between the Old and the New traces the eventful career of one of the most interesting men of letters in Revolutionary-era Europe.


Author(s):  
Michael Newman

‘Socialist traditions’ looks at the early forms of socialism that arose in reaction to the poverty and inequality caused by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Three key socialist theories—utopianism, anarchism, and Marxism—are explored. The utopians pioneered the idea of communes, anarchists and collectivists encouraged distrust in authority and hierarchy, and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels introduced their concept of socialism as a result of the conflicts inherent in the capitalist system. Leninism in Russia was not a fully-fledged philosophical or political movement, but it was shaped by a socialist belief in the workers’ right to control their fate.


2020 ◽  
Vol - (5) ◽  
pp. 60-72
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Yermolenko

The author of the article puts a question about the limits of the 20th century individualism. He expresses a hypothesis about the cyclic nature of the cultural and political theory. In particular, he draws attention to the rhythm of changes of the hedonistic and ascetic ep- ochs, spiritualist and materialist epochs, individualist and holist epochs. The author ana- lyzes holistic doctrines of the 19th century: philosophies of Fabre d’Olivet, Auguste Comte, Pierre Leroux. Although today almost forgotten, the ideas of these authors can be revived again in the 21st century, he says. Based upon the analysis of the 19th century holism which the author did in his book Liquid ideologies, the author makes a hypothesis that the 21st century is becoming much less individualistic and much less materialistic than the 20th century. The metaphors of the “collective body” and “absolute spirit” are coming back in the 21st century, in the new form of the digital reality.


Author(s):  
José Paulo Pietrafesa ◽  
Amone Inácia Alves ◽  
Pedro Araújo Pietrafesa

This study presents an analysis of the course of the agrarian conflicts that existed in Brazil, from 1940 to 2015, which placed the political-ideological centrality of the forces existing in the Brazilian rural sphere. The study is divided into two issues. a) The first, Social division of labor (Mészáros 2004) in the rural area due to the expansion of big rural properties, transforming the land for work into a land for business, opening a sequence of conflicts with peasants. b) The second refers to the analysis of data collected and organized by the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT in Portuguese), identifying agrarian conflicts in Brazil since 1985. The data offered until the year 2015 served as a meeting point to the history of Brazil, marked by its contradictions and memories, which at the same time, remaining alive, as if it is willing to continue to be an eternal present (Jameson 2002), through its structures of spoliation and conflict. Brazil entered the 21st century with large debts to be paid related to the 19th century. One of the biggest debits is the land issue. A question derived from these struggles, and not very simple to answer, is: does the number of families and areas involved in the conflicts change the national land structure in its productive and political aspects? Nowadays, these actions are organized by historical subjects, transforming individual demands into collective proposals in which social subjects perceive themselves as a political force and consolidate knowledge in a permanent educational process. Conflict data registered by the CPT (1985-2016) indicate that there was no change in popular demands for land property and use, and this may also indicate that there was no change in the Brazilian land structure


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 140-155
Author(s):  
Dmitry A. Badalyan

“Zemsky Sobor” was one of the key concepts in Russian political discourse in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. It can be traced to the notion well-known already since the 17th century. Still in the course of further evolution it received various mew meaning and connotations in the discourse of different political trends. The author of the article examines various stages of this concept configuring in the works of the Decembrists, especially Slavophiles, and then in the political projects and publications of the socialists, liberals and “aristocratic” opposition.


2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Russ ◽  
Gary J. Previts ◽  
Edward N. Coffman

Canal companies were among the first enterprises to be organized in the corporate form and to require large amounts of capital. This paper examines the stockholder review committee of a 19th century corporation, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (C&O), and discusses how the C&O used this corporate governance structure to monitor and improve financial management and operations. A major strength was the concern and dedication of the stockholders to the company, while a major weakness was the political control exerted by the State of Maryland. The paper provides an historical perspective on corporate governance in the 19th century. This research contributes to the literature by providing detailed workings and practices of a stockholder review committee. The paper documents corporate governance efforts in archival sources that provide an early example of accountability required in a corporate charter and the manner in which the stockholders carried out this responsibility.


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