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Originally Posted by Despanan
I've actually got a real one here:
Speaking practically, what systems does Marxism have in place which protect it from abuse/corruption and why were these systems unsuccessful in the case of the Soviet Union and Red China?
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To be honest, in strict Marxist Orthodoxy, there are none.
Marx did write a lot on the responsibility of a socialist state, but his end goal was an end to politics and the responsibility of socialist parties and parliamentary struggle is to increase socialist programs and make the state liable to democratic demands. It is clear that he concerned himself with the social and economic aspects of society, whereas politics are only the social constructs by which the ruling classes perpetuate their desired circumstances.
Technically, this is true, and it's basically the point of structural Marxism. But a more Gramscian understanding of politics (which I would also call using common sense) tells us that politics is not some sort of 'evil tool' by the exploiters. Rather, politics ARE those social constructs which dictate institutional structures and parameters; they normalize certain social and economic relations. But this means that there are still politics under a worker state.
Maybe the concept of the state will really dissolve some day, but a socialist state still works under a certain structure, and even if this structure is more democratic and therefore more organic, if the laws and institutions of this imagined socialist state are more responsive to democratic demands, we still would need to speak of the structure of these socialist institutions and how they work and how they change.
What I am getting at here is that although Marxism strives to be a socialism from below, where politicians must genuinely represent the demands of the people, that still does not solve institutional problems. The abuse of power in the Soviet Union and China were almost exclusively due to their emphasis on bureaucracies. A more democratic society - again, the famous socialism from below - would probably get rid of corruption and abuse of power, but only by individuals.
What of the abuse of powers by necessary institutions themselves? I don't think Marx ever wrote on the branches of government. He spoke of parliament, so he understood the legislative body, but do we not need to separate it from the judicial body? Montesquieu's thoughts do not contradict Marxism, but they merely explain the workings of one approach to government, one which is valid so long as it is desirable.
Long story short, the only actual answer Marx gives to the concern of corruption and the abuse of power is further democracy and responsibility. That is definitely an answer to the question, but he never bothered explaining us how to further democracy and how to make the socialist government more responsible to demands by its people.
For that, we really must implement the answers which make more sense for our circumstances. We can maintain a separation of powers in government like Montesquieu's. We can merge the legislative and executive branches. We can adopt common law or continental law. A state can be a federation of confederation. Et cetera.
The workings of the non-economic side of the state are left very ambiguous, but it's good that it's ambiguous, because Marxism (or any political philosophy for that matter) should make an absolute stance on matters of expediency, whose answers will always be by definition arbitrary and contextual.