Marxism and bureaucracy: A paradox resolved

This article describes one apparently paradoxical course of development of the concept of bureaucracy within Marxism. The paradox has to do with the striking difference between the role attributed to bureaucrats by Marx and by a number of prominent members of the heretics from the Marxist tradition. In Marx's own analysis of contemporary societies, bureaucracies were rarely given a central and never a primary role. In his portrayal of the future society, bureaucrats were swept from the stage altogether. In the writings of Trotsky and theorists of a new bureaucratic class, bureaucrats have come to play a central and ultimately the central role. The argument of the article is that both elements of the paradox stem from precisely the same set of theoretical commitments, in particular the same combination of claims as to what the fundamental activities and actors in societies are, what are the dynamic forces in societies and what is the destination of modern societies. Notwithstanding serious and much‐debated differences between them, what these theories have in common lies deeper than anything on which they disagree. The article concludes by arguing that neither of these approaches is likely to lead to successful analyses of the place of bureaucrats in modern societies.