Studies On Karl Marx’s Democracy Ideology

This article studies the democratic thought of Marx from the exploration of theformation of Marx’s democratic thought and Marx’s criticism of the capitalist democracy, sothat the understanding of democracy can be deepened, and the contemporary value ofMarx’s democratic thought can be shown.Based on the criticize and lessons from the past democratic thoughts, Marx graduallyformed his own democratic thoughts, the Rousseau’s people’s sovereignty thought andHegel’s civil society and country theory were deeply influenced Marx; But in the19thcentury, the democratic political system of western European countries, such as theparliamentary system, political party system, the emergence and development of generalelection system, and the vigorous development of the proletarian revolutionary movement,all of these created conditions for the generation of Marx’s democratic thoughts. At thebeginning, Marx mainly criticized the feudal despotism, he argue that people should usedemocracy to fight for the freedom, after he abandon the capitalistic democracy, heproposed the ideal of the " genuine democracy ";After he took part in Europe’srevolutionary practice, his democratic thoughts are close related to revolutionary ideas, hepointed out that the dictatorship of the proletariat and continuous revolution are the ways torealize democracy and the freedom of the people; In the late years of Marx, through thestudy of ancient society, he prospected the future of social democracy. The criticalunderstanding of capitalist democracy is an important part of Marx’s democratic ideology,Marx didn’t deny that compared with the feudal autocratic system the capitalist democracyprogressed in some extent, capitalist democracy system is the product of the developingproductivity, its democratic principles also reflected the democratic demands of society,and it also provide reference for the proletarian democracy, but this can not change its classnature of the bourgeois dictatorship, its democratic principles just service for the rulingclass who possess the means of production, it did not carry out the basic requirement thatthe people are masters of their country. Based on these, Marx expounded his proletariandemocracy, which mainly includes the people’s sovereignty and human liberation, thedictatorship of the proletariat, the democratic republic state, etc. Marx believed thatdemocracy is the "people’s sovereignty", although political liberation can realize everyone’shuman rights, but only the elimination of private ownership can realize the humanliberation. So the proletariat and the masses of working people must be in power, then tocarry out the dictatorship of the proletariat, organize the power in the form of democraticrepublic state, participate and manage state affairs, until the form of nation vanish, theruling of one class pass away, then achieve the goal of human liberation. Summarizablely, we can see that: Marx critically inherited democratic thoughts ofRousseau and Hegel, etc. He found "true democracy" in philosophy. Then he found theentity to implement this ideal--the proletariat, he also found the way to realize it--thedictatorship of the proletariat; in the end, he participated the revolutionary practice, then hesummarized the forms of struggle and political organization principle, so the inherent logicof Marx’s democratic thoughts were finished.Through the analysis of Marx’s democratic thought, we can see that it still has strongexplanatory power to the real problem, and still have contemporary value. It can not onlyhelp us to further know the capitalist democracy, also can overcome us in the contemporarydemocratic politics the contradiction of cognition and practice, and guide us to betterpromote socialist democratic politics construction.