Original scientific paper

The Legitimacy of Socialist Systems

Robert Blažević ; Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia

Abstract

Socialist systems, like in fact other types of systems, aspire, among other things, to secure the support and loyalty of the population and in that way to reduce to a minimum the exertion of violence for the purpose of securing their stability. They however use radically different mechanisms to justify their power than the liberal-democratic systems do. With the establishment of their system of domination autonomous mechanisms for the articulation of political interests are, like other things, annuled. Their role is taken over by the Communist Party acting as the privileged interpreter of the "historical" interests of the working class. Parliamentary elections and the free competition of various parties with different programs were considered by the official doctrine ("Marxism-Leninism") to be "bourgeois formalism" or "parliamentary cretenism". Therefore power in the systems of the Soviet type self-justifies, autolegitimizes itself without legitimizing. The historical events in a number of countries in Eastern Europe during 1989 demonstrate, however, that in most of these countries such mechanisms have been accepted without which it is impossible to prevent the burocratiozation of political power and, of course, to secure their democratic legitimization.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

113044

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/113044

Publication date:

2.3.1992.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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