Human Rights under State Socialism
| Published date | 01 September 1984 |
| Date | 01 September 1984 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1984.tb01531.x |
| Author | David Lane |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Sfudies
(1984),
XXXII,
349-368
Human
Rights Under State Socialism
DAVID
LANE
University
of
Birmingham
The paper is in four parts. The first outlines the debate that has occurred in the West
about whether human rights, and about what human rights, are desirable and
possible in socialist states.
In
the second
it
is
contended that the normative approach
to rights in socialist states has been influenced but not determined by the theory and
practice of the USSR. Human rights under Marxism-Leninism are ambiguously
defined: there is an unresolved tension between individual (and group) rights,
on
the
one hand, and class and collective rights
on
the other. Socialist states, it is claimed,
have different units, types
of
claims and priorities
of
rights.
In
the third section, it is
argued that the Soviet model of rights has a particular correspondence with Russian
culture. Its impact
on
other socialist countries (Poland is considered, as an illustra-
tion) depends
on
the internal social structure (the strength
of
interest groups) and the
degree of legitimacy of the state. Finally, some prognostications are offered concern-
ing the dynamics and likely developments of rights claims under socialism.
I
Many critics, both liberal and Marxist, argue that the Western concept of rights
is not (or should not be) applicable to the Soviet Union. There are three distinct
types of criticism. First, that the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism is alien to the
concept
of
human rights. Second, that individual rights are not defended
because of the monistic structure of society. Only pluralist society, it is argued,
may secure rights for certain values (religious, ethnic), a monistic state
abrogates individual and group rights. Furthermore, the totalitarian nature of
Soviet society weakens the independence
of
the individual from the state.
Third, that the Russian heritage of orthodoxy and absolutism has continued
into the modern period and provides no political supports to Western concepts
of rights.
The first type
of
criticism
is
voiced by a school
of
thinkers within socialism
who wish to jettison the liberal notions of human rights. Such socialists argue
that traditional political rights are predicated on a capitalist society distin-
guished by possessive competitive individualism. Such rights as have developed
under capitalism are based on the assumption that there are conflicts of interest
between right-holders and other members
of
society; this is at variance with the
socialist ideal of community. A conflict
of
interests ‘presumed in the practice of
rights could not arise [under socialism] and socialism
.
.
.
must involve not the
revision but the abandonment
of
rights along with the institution of the state
and its laws.’’ In
so
far then as the state, acting on behalf of the working class,
1
Tom Campbell,
The
Left
and
Rights
(London, Routledge,
1983),
p.
7.
0032-3217/84/03/0349-20/$03.00
0
1984
Political Studies
350
Human Rights
Under
State Socialism
passes laws to protect and to enhance the interest of the working class, claims of
individuals against the state are inimical to the interests of the working class and
hence to the interests of society as
a
whole. This school would argue that
‘individual’ rights have their intellectual and political
gravitas
in a bourgeois
conception of society. Socialist society is based on a philosophy
of
fulfilling
human need, not individual rights. Ruth
A.
Putnam argues that rights involve
laws which require a state which
for
socialists is an ‘instrument of class
repression’. The legal codes in which rights are embedded are anathema to
socialists-‘Rights are the prized possessions of alienated persons’.2 This line of
approach is endorsed further
by
writers such as Steven Lukes and
L.
Kolakowski who assert that Marxism (and particularly Marxism-Leninism) as
a doctrine is alien to the concept of human rights.3
On the other hand, other contemporary writers, developing a more
humanistic Marxism, and correctly in my view, have argued that human rights
are an essential component of socialism. Shingo Shibata,4 Agnes Heller,s and
Tom Campbell6 regard human rights as means to meet human needs; under
socialism such rights are extended in form. While it is certainly true that the
doctrine of inherent natural rights was regarded as being part of the democratic
or
bourgeois revolution, it would be incorrect to regard Marx and all
of
his
followers to be indifferent to rights. It forecloses the issue to dismiss ‘many
peripheral variants
of
Marxism and to set aside all the intricate questions as to
what may
or
may not be included in the list of human rights, to what extent
their implementation depends on contingent historical conditions, etc.” The
fact that Marx regarded human rights as emancipation
of
people in a social and
economic sense does not imply the absence of rights under socialism in a legal
and political one. Marxism has a humanistic human rights tradition as well as
an authoritarian one.8 Marx and Lenin were opposed to sham rights which
characterized capitalism and which favoured the bourgeoisie. But this does not
entail opposition to human rights as such. Political rights are a necessary
complement to other social and economic rights and it is incorrect to regard
Marxism as
a
philosophy indifferent to human
right^.^
Marxism pays respect
2
Ruth A. Putnam, ‘Rights
of
Persons and the Liberal Tradition’, Ted Honderich (ed.),
Social
Ends and PoliticalMeans
(London, Routledge, 1976), p. 106. See also H. Klenner, ‘Jefferson and
Ho Chi Minh: Shingo Shibata’s Conception
of
Human Rights’,
Social Praxis,
vol.
6/1-2 (1979).
3
Steven Lukes, ‘The Illusory Rhetoric
of
Human Rights’,
The Times Higher Educational
Supplement,
30 January 1981; L. Kolakowski, ‘Marxism and Human Rights’,
Daedalus/Emory
Udiversity Symposium 1983, esp. pp. 6-7.
4
Shingo Shibata, ‘Fundamental Human Rights and Problems
of
Freedom: Marxism and the
Contemporary Significance of the U.S. Declaration
of
Independence’,
Social Praxis,
vol.
3,
5
‘The Declaration of Independence and the Principles of Socialism’,
Social Praxis,
vol.
6,
6
Campbell,
The
Left
and Rights.
7
Kolakowski, ‘Marxism and Human Rights’, p. 1.
8
E.
Kamenka and A. Erh-Soon Tay, ‘Human Rights in the Soviet Union’,
World Review,
vol.
19,
no.
2 (June 1980), 50-1.
Cf., A. Pollis and P. Schwab, ‘Human Rights: A Western Construct with Limited Applica-
bility’, in
A.
Pollis and P. Schwab (eds),
Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives
(New
York,
Praeger, 1979), p. 15. Lenin’s hostility to human rights is usually cited in terms of his
‘The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky’,
(Collecred
Works,
vol. 28, Moscow,
1960-70). For a liberal critique of Marxist ideas
of
rights, see: Mary Hawkesworth, ‘Ideological
95-6.
NO.
3-4
(1975), 157-86.
NOS. 1-2 (1979), 109-12.
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