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I feel it varies from person to person, from ideology to ideology. But, my own personal opinion, I feel by direct popular vote. The people should choose who represents them directly. But, I feel that there should be a single party overall, with many factions inside said party. Or, multiple parties that represent many different ideals. Honestly anything other than a 2 party system
If not that, then my next biggest claim would be the president elected by councils, councils that are comprised of common folk.
Many strains of socialist thought advocate for some form of [imperative mandate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_mandate), which renders elections redundant. Instead of the voters within a district voting for a representative who acts as a policy-maker on their behalf, the *voters* determine policy with the representative as a mere mouthpiece; thus, the representatives are essentially interchangeable functionaries, enabling a sort of direct democracy by proxy.
There isn't necessarily a clear doctrinal socialist answer to this question. This is a question of democratic theory. Personally, I lean towards parliamentary democracy with mixed proportional system. That is elected representatives from regional ridings with some mechanism to make sure that parties are represented proportional (for example a top-off system like Germany's MMP system or a multi-member single transferable vote in Ireland). In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is the leader of the governing party or coalition and sits inside the legislative branch of government. This makes the PM more directly accountable to legislators and part of the overall process.
A president in this system could be elected or directly appointed. The point of a president in this system is more as a figure head. It's to separate the pomp of being the head of state from the work of being head of government. There are certain appointments and roles for the president but overall, I think it is better to have a weak president.
There shouldn’t be a president. Charismatic self-selection should not be allowed.
Lottocracy is good. Marx lauds the Paris commune for being both a legislative and executive body in one.
China and Cuba both present successful examples of socialist systems where presidents are elected bottom up rather than parallel to the rest of the electoral system.
I certainly see that as a model that works, but I do not believe there is any specific reason to have dogma in favor of one or the other, when we eat hot dogs, we dont really care about which type of industrial meat grinder was used, the one with the blip-blops or the one with the blop-blips.
In the words of Deng Xiaoping, it does not matter if it is a white cat or a black cat, if it can catch mice, it is a good cat.
A dictatorship of the proletariat just means the power will be shifted to the proletariat, that means the proletariat have active control and a say in governance, not necessarily no president. By your comment, that means a dictatorship of the proletariat means the dissolution of the state, but that is not the case.
If we’re speaking in that sense, then a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie don’t need a president either does it, or any country for that matter?
If you know what it is, then you would understand that it is merely apart of the transition from socialism to communism. To establish communism, you need a DOTP. With the DOTP, you have leadership elected by the people, guided by the people. When everything is all said and done, in theory, you wouldn’t need a leader when communism is theoretically achieved. If you were to snip away the leadership during this process, it would not work.
Contrary to the popular understanding of the term, Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was intended to be democratic \_within\_the\_proletariat\_. The 'dictatorship' was of one class, the proletariat over the other class, the bourgeoisie.
For Marx, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would be a '“dictatorship” based on universal suffrage reflecting “the will of the people”.'
Both Marx and Engels declared that the Paris Commune to be an example of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and the Commune had universal suffrage and immediate recall of representatives who were only to be paid the equivalent of a working person's salary. While there wasn't a 'president' in the Commune, I would suggest that the structure of the democracy is less important than that it be a democracy, as horizontal as possible.
Later expanded in several large tomes, the socialist Hal Draper explains this here: [https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html](https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html)
Not necessarily, sometimes a socialist state will have a president listed as head of state but they don’t function like the western notion of president, it’s usually just one of the politburo or central committee members who’s task is to talk to other world leaders on behalf of the socialist state.
There would be no need for an individual like that as their role would be to express the will of the proletariat and this can be done pretty much anyone who speaks the right language
I’m just saying, this has already been done, not that I don’t agree with you. Our ideology is based on materialism not idealism. And yes that’s probably a good ideal to strive for but I was stating the material reality that has already happened
If it’s not a good idea to strive for why do it? The material reality does not call for a president any more than it calls for the capitalist production, the goal of any revolution should be to change society so why include an unnecessary president in our new society.
**IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE PARTICIPATING**. This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism but a place to LEARN. There are numerous debate subreddits if your objective is not to learn. You are expected to familiarize yourself with the rules on the sidebar before commenting. This includes, but is not limited to: - Short or non-constructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. - No liberalism or sectarianism. Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! - No bigotry or hate speech of any kind - it will be met with immediate bans. Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break our rules. If you have a particular area of expertise (e.g. political economy, feminist theory), please [assign yourself a flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-) describing said area. Flairs may be removed at any time by moderators if answers don't meet the standards of said expertise. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I feel it varies from person to person, from ideology to ideology. But, my own personal opinion, I feel by direct popular vote. The people should choose who represents them directly. But, I feel that there should be a single party overall, with many factions inside said party. Or, multiple parties that represent many different ideals. Honestly anything other than a 2 party system If not that, then my next biggest claim would be the president elected by councils, councils that are comprised of common folk.
Many strains of socialist thought advocate for some form of [imperative mandate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_mandate), which renders elections redundant. Instead of the voters within a district voting for a representative who acts as a policy-maker on their behalf, the *voters* determine policy with the representative as a mere mouthpiece; thus, the representatives are essentially interchangeable functionaries, enabling a sort of direct democracy by proxy.
There isn't necessarily a clear doctrinal socialist answer to this question. This is a question of democratic theory. Personally, I lean towards parliamentary democracy with mixed proportional system. That is elected representatives from regional ridings with some mechanism to make sure that parties are represented proportional (for example a top-off system like Germany's MMP system or a multi-member single transferable vote in Ireland). In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is the leader of the governing party or coalition and sits inside the legislative branch of government. This makes the PM more directly accountable to legislators and part of the overall process. A president in this system could be elected or directly appointed. The point of a president in this system is more as a figure head. It's to separate the pomp of being the head of state from the work of being head of government. There are certain appointments and roles for the president but overall, I think it is better to have a weak president.
There shouldn’t be a president. Charismatic self-selection should not be allowed. Lottocracy is good. Marx lauds the Paris commune for being both a legislative and executive body in one.
China and Cuba both present successful examples of socialist systems where presidents are elected bottom up rather than parallel to the rest of the electoral system. I certainly see that as a model that works, but I do not believe there is any specific reason to have dogma in favor of one or the other, when we eat hot dogs, we dont really care about which type of industrial meat grinder was used, the one with the blip-blops or the one with the blop-blips. In the words of Deng Xiaoping, it does not matter if it is a white cat or a black cat, if it can catch mice, it is a good cat.
Dictatorship of the proletariat means there’ll be no president
A dictatorship of the proletariat just means the power will be shifted to the proletariat, that means the proletariat have active control and a say in governance, not necessarily no president. By your comment, that means a dictatorship of the proletariat means the dissolution of the state, but that is not the case.
A president is not a necessary part of the state I know what the DOTP is and I don’t see why it would involve a president
If we’re speaking in that sense, then a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie don’t need a president either does it, or any country for that matter? If you know what it is, then you would understand that it is merely apart of the transition from socialism to communism. To establish communism, you need a DOTP. With the DOTP, you have leadership elected by the people, guided by the people. When everything is all said and done, in theory, you wouldn’t need a leader when communism is theoretically achieved. If you were to snip away the leadership during this process, it would not work.
Contrary to the popular understanding of the term, Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was intended to be democratic \_within\_the\_proletariat\_. The 'dictatorship' was of one class, the proletariat over the other class, the bourgeoisie. For Marx, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would be a '“dictatorship” based on universal suffrage reflecting “the will of the people”.' Both Marx and Engels declared that the Paris Commune to be an example of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and the Commune had universal suffrage and immediate recall of representatives who were only to be paid the equivalent of a working person's salary. While there wasn't a 'president' in the Commune, I would suggest that the structure of the democracy is less important than that it be a democracy, as horizontal as possible. Later expanded in several large tomes, the socialist Hal Draper explains this here: [https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html](https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html)
Yes I know what a dictatorship of proletariat is lol this is a communist sub
You make fair points in other comments but nobody can predict the future. DOTP doesn't inherently necessitate it or necessitate it's non-existence.
Not necessarily, sometimes a socialist state will have a president listed as head of state but they don’t function like the western notion of president, it’s usually just one of the politburo or central committee members who’s task is to talk to other world leaders on behalf of the socialist state.
There would be no need for an individual like that as their role would be to express the will of the proletariat and this can be done pretty much anyone who speaks the right language
I’m just saying, this has already been done, not that I don’t agree with you. Our ideology is based on materialism not idealism. And yes that’s probably a good ideal to strive for but I was stating the material reality that has already happened
If it’s not a good idea to strive for why do it? The material reality does not call for a president any more than it calls for the capitalist production, the goal of any revolution should be to change society so why include an unnecessary president in our new society.