The dictatorship of the proletariat : Marxism's theory of socialist democracy /

With the overthrow of so-called Marxist regimes in Eastern Europe in the name of democracy, an analysis of Marx and Engels's position toward democratic practices is relevant and timely. In this context, Ehrenberg (Long Island University) provides a much-needed investigation into classical Marxism's conception of democracy, arguing that it is concisely articulated in Marx, Engels, and Lenin's notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Distancing his position from those that present Marx and Engels as liberal democrats in disguise, or as antidemocratic Jacobins, Ehrenberg shows their deep attachment to a socialist democracy whose success is coextensive with the implementation of "the dictatorship of the proletariat": a state apparatus held accountable by workers on the local level that would be resolute enough to institute communism in the interests of the majority of society. Through a close, if sometimes repetitious, analysis of relevant texts, Ehrenberg has provided a detailed and convincing characterization of classical Marxism's conception of democracy, in the process dispelling many misunderstandings surrounding the notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat." Upper-divison undergraduate and graduate students. B. J. MacDonald; University at North Carolina-Greensboro