Dictatorship of the proletariat
Encyclopedia
In Marxist
socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist
state in which the proletariat
, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer
, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels
, in the 19th century. The use of the term "dictatorship" is controversial, and does not refer to the Classical Roman concept of the dictatura
(the governance of a state by a small group with no democratic process), but instead to the Marxist concept of dictatorship (that an entire societal class holds political and economic control, within a democratic system).
Following on from the theories of Marx and Engels, Marxists believe that such a socialist state is an inevitable step in the evolution of human society. They argue that it is a transitional phase that emerges out of the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", or capitalist
society, in which the wealthy classes own the means of production
and exploit the working classes for the generation of private profit, and that it will itself eventually come to be replaced by an entirely classless, stateless form of society known as pure communism.
Both Marx and Engels argued that the short-lived Paris Commune
, which ran the French capital for three months before being repressed, was an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the 20th century, revolutionary socialist
governments took power in a number of nations, such as the Soviet Union
and the People's Republic of China
, and claimed to have created socialist states that were dictatorships of the proletariat.
(1818-1883) was the primary founder of Marxism, although he himself wrote little about the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat, with his published works instead largely focusing on analysing and criticising capitalist society.
On 1 January 1852, the communist journalist Joseph Weydemeyer
published an article entitled "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in the German language newspaper Turn-Zeitung in New York. In that year, Karl Marx wrote to him, saying:
Marx expanded upon his ideas about the dictatorship of the proletariat in his short 1875 work, Critique of the Gotha Program
, a scathing criticism and attack on the principles laid out in the programme of the German Workers' Party (predecessor to the SPD
), a socialist organisation whose policies he thought to be ineffectual. He stated that in a proletarian-run society, the state should control the "proceeds of labour" (i.e. all the food and products produced), and take from them that which was "an economic necessity", namely enough to replace "the means of production used up", an "additional portion for expansion of production" and "insurance funds" to be used in emergencies such as natural disasters. Furthermore, he believed that the state should then take enough to cover administrative costs, funds for the running of public services
, and funds for those who were physically incapable of working. Once enough to cover all of these things had been taken out of the "proceeds of labour", Marx believed that what was left should then be shared out amongst the workers, with each individual getting goods to the equivalent value of how much labour they had invested. In this manner, those workers who put in more labour and worked harder would get more of the proceeds of the collective labour than someone who had not worked as hard.
In the Critique, he noted however that "defects are inevitable" and there would be many difficulties in initially running such a workers' state "as it emerges from capitalistic society" because it would be "economically, morally and intellectually... still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges", thereby still containing capitalist elements.
In other works, Marx stated that he considered the Paris Commune
, a revolutionary socialist government that ran the city of Paris from March to May 1871, as an example of the proletarian dictatorship. Describing the short-lived regime, he remarked that:
(1872) pamphlet, Friedrich Engels
said: "Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat"; to avoid bourgeois political corruption:
(1871), during Marx’s lifetime, there were no other serious attempts at implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the twentieth century, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin developed Leninism
— the adaptation of Marxism
to the backward socio-economic and political conditions of Imperial Russia
(1721–1917); later the official ideology
of some Communist states. The State and Revolution (1917) discusses the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and proposes pragmatic means of effecting it. In Imperial Russia, the Paris Commune model form of government was realised in the soviets
(councils of workers and soldiers) established in the Russian Revolution of 1905
, whose revolutionary task was deposing
the capitalist (monarchical) state to establish socialism
— the dictatorship of the proletariat — the stage preceding communism
.
To effect and realise the communist revolution
, the urban workers and peasants require the active leadership of a political vanguard party
of dedicated, professional revolutionaries
to so establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the Russian Imperial case, the Bolshevik
Party was the “vanguard of the proletariat” — who launched and led the soviets to victory in the October Revolution
of 1917. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin discounted liberal democracy
(the Kerensky Government
) as unrepresentative of the proletariat’s interests, for being a façade of the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.
Moreover, because trade union
s inherently are political reformers (seeking accommodation with the capitalists to improve the lot of the members) — therefore, revolutionary action in the proletariat’s behalf requires that the vanguard party politically educate
the workers and peasants, helping them transcend the low political expectations of the “trade-union consciousness” and so develop the “true revolutionary class consciousness” that would allow the vanguard party’s assumption of State power, via the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the event, the proletarian dictatura
would eliminate the intra-class social division impeding the rational development of communism; nevertheless, despite a successful revolution, the bourgeoisie remain stronger than the proletariat, because:
Lenin defended his proposal against accusations of his being undemocratic, by theoretician Karl Kautsky
and others, by quoting Marx and Engels in establishing the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia — to forcefully depose and suppress the Imperial ruling class:
In principle, soviet democracy
granted voting rights to the majority of the populace who elected the local soviets, who elected the regional soviets, and so on until electing the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the USSR did not claim to have achieved a communist society; the preamble to the 1977 Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(the “Brezhnev Constitution”), stated that the 1917 Revolution established the dictatorship of the proletariat as “a society of true democracy”, and that “the supreme goal of the Soviet state is the building of a classless, communist society in which there will be public, communist self-government”. http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons01.html#preamble
According to Lenin, under certain conditions, it may be possible to dispense with a dictatorship namely, when the proletariat is guaranteed of an overwhelming majority [Notes on Plenkhanov's Second Draft Programme. Lenin Collected Works. Vol 6, p51].
During the Russian Civil War
(1917–23), the Bolsheviks banned other political parties, to preclude sabotage, collaboration
with the deposed monarchists
, and further assassination attempts against Lenin (twice) and other Bolshevik leaders. Internally, Lenin’s Bolshevik critics argued that such political suppression always was his plan; supporters argued that the reactionary
civil war
of the foreign-sponsored White Movement
required it — given Fanya Kaplan’s unsuccessful assassination of Lenin on 30 August 1918, and the successful assassination of Moisei Uritsky
, the same day. Subsequently, the Bolsheviks, and other ruling Communist parties after them, took the line that since they were the vanguard of the proletariat, their leading role in society could not be legitimately questioned. Hence, opposition parties could not be permitted to exist.
Critics of the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” — Anti-Communists
, Libertarian Marxists
, Anarcho-Communists
, and anti-Stalinist
Communists and Socialists — propose that the Stalinist USSR and other Stalinist countries used the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to justify the dictatorship of a (new) ruling class
; cf. the anti-bureaucratic Workers' Opposition
(1920) and the Kronstadt uprising (1921). Despite the principle of democratic centralism
in the Bolshevik Party, for organisational cohesion, internal factions were banned, but not debate; the ban remained until the USSR’s dissolution in 1991; the debates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were published until 1923; internal debate ended (ca. 1927) with the Joseph Stalin
’s suppression of Leon Trotsky
and the Left Opposition
.
At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU) Nikita Khrushchev
declared an end to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the establishment of the All People's Government.
Vladimir Lenin
Rosa Luxemburg
Karl Kautsky
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
state in which the proletariat
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States, as well as a journalist, politician and Marxist revolutionary....
, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
, in the 19th century. The use of the term "dictatorship" is controversial, and does not refer to the Classical Roman concept of the dictatura
Roman dictator
In the Roman Republic, the dictator , was an extraordinary magistrate with the absolute authority to perform tasks beyond the authority of the ordinary magistrate . The office of dictator was a legal innovation originally named Magister Populi , i.e...
(the governance of a state by a small group with no democratic process), but instead to the Marxist concept of dictatorship (that an entire societal class holds political and economic control, within a democratic system).
Following on from the theories of Marx and Engels, Marxists believe that such a socialist state is an inevitable step in the evolution of human society. They argue that it is a transitional phase that emerges out of the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", or capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
society, in which the wealthy classes own the means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
and exploit the working classes for the generation of private profit, and that it will itself eventually come to be replaced by an entirely classless, stateless form of society known as pure communism.
Both Marx and Engels argued that the short-lived Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
, which ran the French capital for three months before being repressed, was an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the 20th century, revolutionary socialist
Revolutionary socialism
The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution by mass movements of the working class, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society...
governments took power in a number of nations, such as the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and claimed to have created socialist states that were dictatorships of the proletariat.
Karl Marx
The German political theorist and sociologist Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
(1818-1883) was the primary founder of Marxism, although he himself wrote little about the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat, with his published works instead largely focusing on analysing and criticising capitalist society.
On 1 January 1852, the communist journalist Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Weydemeyer
Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States, as well as a journalist, politician and Marxist revolutionary....
published an article entitled "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in the German language newspaper Turn-Zeitung in New York. In that year, Karl Marx wrote to him, saying:
Now, as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was (1) to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; [and] (3) that this dictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless societyClassless societyClassless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Such distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society.Since these distinctions are difficult to...
.
Marx expanded upon his ideas about the dictatorship of the proletariat in his short 1875 work, Critique of the Gotha Program
Critique of the Gotha Program
The Critique of the Gotha Program is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Eisenach faction of the German social democratic movement, with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association...
, a scathing criticism and attack on the principles laid out in the programme of the German Workers' Party (predecessor to the SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
), a socialist organisation whose policies he thought to be ineffectual. He stated that in a proletarian-run society, the state should control the "proceeds of labour" (i.e. all the food and products produced), and take from them that which was "an economic necessity", namely enough to replace "the means of production used up", an "additional portion for expansion of production" and "insurance funds" to be used in emergencies such as natural disasters. Furthermore, he believed that the state should then take enough to cover administrative costs, funds for the running of public services
Public services
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...
, and funds for those who were physically incapable of working. Once enough to cover all of these things had been taken out of the "proceeds of labour", Marx believed that what was left should then be shared out amongst the workers, with each individual getting goods to the equivalent value of how much labour they had invested. In this manner, those workers who put in more labour and worked harder would get more of the proceeds of the collective labour than someone who had not worked as hard.
In the Critique, he noted however that "defects are inevitable" and there would be many difficulties in initially running such a workers' state "as it emerges from capitalistic society" because it would be "economically, morally and intellectually... still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges", thereby still containing capitalist elements.
In other works, Marx stated that he considered the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
, a revolutionary socialist government that ran the city of Paris from March to May 1871, as an example of the proletarian dictatorship. Describing the short-lived regime, he remarked that:
The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrageUniversal suffrageUniversal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
in the various wards of the town, responsible, and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive, and legislative at the same time. This form of popular government, featuring revocable election of councilors and maximal public participation in governance, resembles contemporary direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
.
Friedrich Engels
In the 1891 postscript to The Civil War in FranceThe Civil War in France
The Civil War in France was a pamphlet written by Karl Marx as an official statement of the General Council of the International on the character and significance of the struggle of the Parisian Communards in the French Civil War of 1871....
(1872) pamphlet, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
said: "Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat"; to avoid bourgeois political corruption:
the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts — administrative, judicial, and educational — by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates [and] to representative bodies, which were also added in profusion”; moreover noting that the State is “at best, an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the State on the scrap-heap”. Marx’s attention to the Paris Commune placed the communeCommune (socialism)Traditionally, the revolutionary left sees the Commune as a populist replacement for the elitist parliament. The far-left, despite their differences, agree that the commune would have several features...
in the centre of later Marxist forms.
Lenin
Upon the destruction of the Paris CommuneParis Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
(1871), during Marx’s lifetime, there were no other serious attempts at implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the twentieth century, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin developed Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
— the adaptation of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
to the backward socio-economic and political conditions of Imperial Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(1721–1917); later the official ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
of some Communist states. The State and Revolution (1917) discusses the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and proposes pragmatic means of effecting it. In Imperial Russia, the Paris Commune model form of government was realised in the soviets
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
(councils of workers and soldiers) established in the Russian Revolution of 1905
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
, whose revolutionary task was deposing
Deposition (politics)
Deposition by political means concerns the removal of a politician or monarch. It may be done by coup, impeachment, invasion or forced abdication...
the capitalist (monarchical) state to establish socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
— the dictatorship of the proletariat — the stage preceding communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
To effect and realise the communist revolution
Communist revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...
, the urban workers and peasants require the active leadership of a political vanguard party
Vanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
of dedicated, professional revolutionaries
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
to so establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the Russian Imperial case, the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
Party was the “vanguard of the proletariat” — who launched and led the soviets to victory in the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
of 1917. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin discounted liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
(the Kerensky Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
) as unrepresentative of the proletariat’s interests, for being a façade of the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.
Moreover, because trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s inherently are political reformers (seeking accommodation with the capitalists to improve the lot of the members) — therefore, revolutionary action in the proletariat’s behalf requires that the vanguard party politically educate
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
the workers and peasants, helping them transcend the low political expectations of the “trade-union consciousness” and so develop the “true revolutionary class consciousness” that would allow the vanguard party’s assumption of State power, via the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the event, the proletarian dictatura
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
would eliminate the intra-class social division impeding the rational development of communism; nevertheless, despite a successful revolution, the bourgeoisie remain stronger than the proletariat, because:
For a long time after the revolution the exploiters inevitably continue to retain a number of great practical advantages: they still have money (since it is impossible to abolish money all at once); some movable property — often fairly considerable; they still have various connections, habits of organisation and management; knowledge of all the “secrets” (customs, methods, means, and possibilities) of management; superior education; close connections with the higher technical personnel (who live and think like the bourgeoisie); incomparably greater experience in the art of war (this is very important), and so on and so forth.
Lenin defended his proposal against accusations of his being undemocratic, by theoretician Karl Kautsky
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...
and others, by quoting Marx and Engels in establishing the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia — to forcefully depose and suppress the Imperial ruling class:
In principle, soviet democracy
Soviet democracy
Soviet democracy or sometimes council democracy is a form of democracy in which workers' councils called "soviets" , consisting of worker-elected delegates, form organs of power possessing both legislative and executive power. The soviets begin at the local level and onto a national parliament-like...
granted voting rights to the majority of the populace who elected the local soviets, who elected the regional soviets, and so on until electing the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the USSR did not claim to have achieved a communist society; the preamble to the 1977 Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
1977 Soviet Constitution
At the Seventh Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Ninth Convocation on October 7, 1977, the third and last Soviet Constitution, also known as the "Brezhnev Constitution", was unanimously adopted...
(the “Brezhnev Constitution”), stated that the 1917 Revolution established the dictatorship of the proletariat as “a society of true democracy”, and that “the supreme goal of the Soviet state is the building of a classless, communist society in which there will be public, communist self-government”. http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons01.html#preamble
According to Lenin, under certain conditions, it may be possible to dispense with a dictatorship namely, when the proletariat is guaranteed of an overwhelming majority [Notes on Plenkhanov's Second Draft Programme. Lenin Collected Works. Vol 6, p51].
During the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
(1917–23), the Bolsheviks banned other political parties, to preclude sabotage, collaboration
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
with the deposed monarchists
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
, and further assassination attempts against Lenin (twice) and other Bolshevik leaders. Internally, Lenin’s Bolshevik critics argued that such political suppression always was his plan; supporters argued that the reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
civil war
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
of the foreign-sponsored White Movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
required it — given Fanya Kaplan’s unsuccessful assassination of Lenin on 30 August 1918, and the successful assassination of Moisei Uritsky
Moisei Uritsky
Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia.He was born in the city of Cherkasy, Kiev Governorate, to a Jewish family. His father, a merchant, died when Moisei was little and his mother raised her son by herself.Moisei studied law at the University of Kiev...
, the same day. Subsequently, the Bolsheviks, and other ruling Communist parties after them, took the line that since they were the vanguard of the proletariat, their leading role in society could not be legitimately questioned. Hence, opposition parties could not be permitted to exist.
Critics of the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” — Anti-Communists
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, Libertarian Marxists
Libertarian Marxism
Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism, Maoism, and...
, Anarcho-Communists
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
, and anti-Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
Communists and Socialists — propose that the Stalinist USSR and other Stalinist countries used the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to justify the dictatorship of a (new) ruling class
Ruling class
The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....
; cf. the anti-bureaucratic Workers' Opposition
Workers' Opposition
The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia.-Membership:...
(1920) and the Kronstadt uprising (1921). Despite the principle of democratic centralism
Democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...
in the Bolshevik Party, for organisational cohesion, internal factions were banned, but not debate; the ban remained until the USSR’s dissolution in 1991; the debates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were published until 1923; internal debate ended (ca. 1927) with the Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
’s suppression of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and the Left Opposition
Left Opposition
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Bolshevik Party from 1923 to 1927, headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January...
.
At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
(CPSU) Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
declared an end to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the establishment of the All People's Government.
Quotations
Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
- Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing, but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. — Critique of the Gotha ProgramCritique of the Gotha ProgramThe Critique of the Gotha Program is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Eisenach faction of the German social democratic movement, with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association...
(1875)
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
- The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won, and maintained, by the use of violence, by the proletariat, against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.
- A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from democracy.
- The proletariat cannot achieve victory without breaking the resistance of the bourgeoisie, without forcibly suppressing its adversaries, and that, where there is forcible suppression, where there is no freedom, there is, of course, no democracy.
- And if you exploiters attempt to offer resistance to our proletarian revolution we shall ruthlessly suppress you; we shall deprive you of all rights; more than that, we shall not give you any bread, for in our proletarian republic the exploiters will have no rights, they will be deprived of fire and water, for we are socialists in real earnest, and not in the Scheidemann or Kautsky fashion.
- The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously, with an immense expansion of democracy, which, for the first time, becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence. — The State and RevolutionState and RevolutionThe State and Revolution , by Vladimir Lenin, describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.Citing Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin...
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
- This dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. This dictatorship must be the work of the class, and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class — that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people. — The Russian Revolution
Karl Kautsky
Karl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...
- The term, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, hence, not the dictatorship of a single individual, but of a class, ipso facto precludes the possibility that Marx, in this connection, had in mind a dictatorship in the literal sense of the term. — Dictatorship of the Proletariat
See also
- Commune (Socialism)Commune (socialism)Traditionally, the revolutionary left sees the Commune as a populist replacement for the elitist parliament. The far-left, despite their differences, agree that the commune would have several features...
- Critique of the Gotha ProgramCritique of the Gotha ProgramThe Critique of the Gotha Program is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Eisenach faction of the German social democratic movement, with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association...
- Democracy in MarxismDemocracy in MarxismThe Marxist view is fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy believing that the capitalist state cannot be democratic by its nature, as it represents the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Marxism views liberal democracy as an unrealistic utopia...
- Direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
- Invisible dictatorshipInvisible dictatorshipAn invisible dictatorship was a term coined by Mikhail Bakunin to describe clandestine revolutionary leadership. Bakunin also used the terms invisible legion and invisible network to describe his concept of invisible dictatorship....
- LeninismLeninismIn Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
- MarxismMarxismMarxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
- Mass killings under Communist regimesMass killings under Communist regimesMass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million. Scholarship focuses on the causes of mass killings in single societies, though some claims of common causes for mass killings have been made...
- The Civil War in FranceThe Civil War in FranceThe Civil War in France was a pamphlet written by Karl Marx as an official statement of the General Council of the International on the character and significance of the struggle of the Parisian Communards in the French Civil War of 1871....
- TrotskyismTrotskyismTrotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
- Tyranny of the majorityTyranny of the majorityThe phrase "tyranny of the majority" , used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be...
- People's democratic dictatorshipPeople's democratic dictatorship"People's democratic dictatorship" is a phrase incorporated into the Constitution of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong.The premise of the "People's democratic dictatorship" is that the Communist Party of China and state represent and act on behalf of the people, but possess and may use...