Dictatorship of the proletariat

Not to be confused with a one-man Dictatorship, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat refers to a state in which the proletariat has a class monopoly over state power, which is always exercised democratically by the workers. Because The term Dictatorship of the Proletariat can also be used interchangeably with the term "Proletarian Democracy". As Lenin correctly phrased it, "Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic." [1]

To quote Lenin, "The dictatorship of the proletariat is the continuation of the class struggle of the proletariat in new forms." [2] The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is a Proletarian state, and as such exists to protect the interests of the working class and repress the bourgeoisie, to continue the class struggle, which does not end until communism. Marx articulated that, "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."[3] As all states represent a definite class of which holds the "monopoly on state power", political power under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat necessarily must be monopolized in the hands of the Proletariat. As Engels aptly expressed it, "In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy" [4], and the same can be said of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Forms of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

• Soviets
• People's Democracy

References

[1] [Lenin, "Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat"](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/democracy.htm)

[2] [Lenin, "The State and Revolution"](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/sep/x02.htm)

[3] [Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme"](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf)

[4] [Engels, "The Civil War in France"](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm)