Emil Lederer, Communism (1926)

Emil Lederer’s encyclopaedia entry examines modern communism as a revolutionary movement within socialism, concentrating on its Russian development, its theory of dictatorship, and the concessions imposed by governing. Its central distinction concerns the means of emancipation: socialism and communism share the aim of abolishing class stratification through the destruction of private ownership of productive resources, but communism makes revolution and coercive transition indispensable. Lederer’s scope is the movement deriving from Marx and Engels, rather than earlier religious or utopian communities. His account follows the tension between its universal emancipatory promise and the exclusive political institutions through which it proposes to realise that promise.

Revolution is not rejected by Socialism as a last resort for overcoming historical and social obstacles; but communism regards revolution as necessary and a period of the dictatorship of the proletariat based on open terror as the only means of creating the socialist economic and social system.

The opening distinction supplies the framework for “Modern Developments.” Russia has made communism a governing practice and an international force, while introducing features Lederer regards as departures from Marxian socialism. Particularly important is the claim that revolution can begin in any capitalist country, irrespective of its economic development, and subsequently spread worldwide. Revolutionary initiative thus takes precedence over the historical maturation of productive conditions. The Paris Commune and the Russian revolution of 1905 become precedents for proletarian economic emancipation and necessary civil conflict.

Lederer clarifies this activism through comparison with syndicalism. Both movements elevate direct action and accept the temporary destruction of productive forces as a cost of overcoming capitalism. Both treat struggle as formative, preparing workers to control society. Yet communism requires at least majority acquiescence secured through propaganda, whereas syndicalism glorifies the militant minority. Their relation to centralised authority also differs: syndicalism rebels against central control, while Russian communism builds institutions capable of exercising it. The comparison distinguishes a shared revolutionary disposition from divergent principles of organisation.

The decisive problem is how proletarian representation becomes party dictatorship. Communist theory, as Lederer reconstructs it, denies that workers initially constitute a politically homogeneous class. Workers in technically advanced industries can understand the revolutionary situation; those in less developed forms of production remain less able to recognise their interests. Bourgeois domination operates through ideas and aspirations as well as economic dependence and policing. Consequently, even a franchise confined to workers might reproduce the influence of the old order.

According to Russian communist theory the working classes as such are quite capable of seizing the power of the State, but not of maintaining it with success.

This distinction between conquest and maintenance justifies the Communist party’s role as an acting committee for the class. Lederer traces its institutional consequences: public voting, controlled candidate lists, indirect elections to higher Soviets, and the exclusion of other classes as exploiters. Councils originating in democratic ideas become instruments for ensuring communist authority. The party remains deliberately restricted in membership to preserve its fighting capacity. Nevertheless, Lederer distinguishes this justification from an inherent belief in minority superiority: communists contend that existing democratic forms conceal capitalist power and that unrestricted political expression during transition would enable counter-revolution. Democracy is promised after socialism has removed its material obstacles.

“The Theory of the Dictatorship” grounds this argument in the Marxian conception of the state. Rather than embodying universal law or standing above society, the state organises class domination and represses the exploited. Proletarian victory is held to differ from earlier transfers of power because it emancipates the lowest class and therefore leaves no subordinate class awaiting liberation. The resulting state is supposed to eliminate the social conditions that make a coercive state necessary.

Then government over persons is replaced by the administration of things and the control over productive processes.

The sentence marks the conceptual passage from political repression to collective economic administration. Freedom belongs to the eventual classless society, not immediately to the seizure of government. Until that transformation is accomplished, workers must retain the state’s repressive machinery against the bourgeoisie. Lederer therefore presents dictatorship and the eventual disappearance of the state as successive moments within the same doctrine: coercion is justified as the means of abolishing its own class basis.

“Practical Modifications” shifts from theoretical necessity to the pressures of rule. War Communism has yielded to the new economic policy, including private trade and peasants’ freedom to dispose of their produce subject to taxation. Such concessions make Russia’s condition transitional and render its designation as communist debatable.

Faced with reality, principles melt like snow in the sun.

This pointed formulation captures the distance between doctrinal commitment and economic necessity without implying that the movement has lost its international significance. Communist thought abroad remains strongly shaped by Lenin and the Third International despite changes in Russian practice. Lederer compares the Russian Revolution’s prospective economic repercussions with the French Revolution’s political legacy: its ideas could retain historical force even if capitalism were restored in Russia. Communist strength abroad varies with economic distress, while continued international propaganda reflects Russian insecurity and dependence on world revolution. The entry’s lasting relevance lies in joining ideology to institutional mechanisms and economic constraints, showing how a programme of universal emancipation authorises restricted representation while governing conditions compel departures from its declared principles.