In socialist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces bourgeois dictatorship and the public ownership of the means of production replaces private ownership. The proletariat, from being an oppressed and exploited class, turns into a ruling class and a fundamental change takes place in the social position of the working people. Exercising dictatorship over a few exploiters only, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat practices the broadest democracy among the masses of the working people, a democracy that is impossible in capitalist society. ~Mao Tse-TungMy 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 thisdictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.
It is absurd to try to reach statelessness via the absolute maximization of state power in atotalitarian dictatorship of the proletariat (or more realistically a select vanguard of the saidproletariat). The result can only be maximum statism and hence maximum slavery.
Friends of Russia here think of the dictatorship of the proletariat as merely a new form of representative government, in which only working men and women have votes, and the constituencies are partly occupational, not geographical. They think that "proletariat" means "proletariat", but "dictatorship" does not quite mean "dictatorship". This is the opposite of thetruth.
The road tosocialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of thestate…the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction.
We see now that infringement offreedom isnecessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion.
TheMarxian theory maintains that theState in other hands—the "dictatorship of the proletariat"—could abolishexploitation. But thesociological theory of the State (or theconquest theory) insists that the State itself, regardless of its composition, is an exploitative institution and cannot be anything else; whether it takes over theproperty of the owner ofwages or the property of the owner ofcapital, the ethical principle is the same. If the State takes from thecapitalist to give to theworker, or from the mechanic to give to thefarmer, or from all to better itself,force has been used to deprive someone of hisrightful property, and in that respect it is carrying on in the spirit, if not the manner, of original conquest.
Frank Chodorov, "From God or the Sword?" Ch. 2 ofThe Rise and Fall of Society: An Essay on the Economic Forces That Underlie Social Institutions (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1959), p. 18.
We reject the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is unbridled oppression, and theMarxist-Leninists andStalinists must be made to answer for it. Millions have been murdered byStalin in the name of fighting an internal class war, and millions more were murdered inChina,Poland,Afghanistan,Cambodia, and other countries by Communist movements which followed Stalin’s prescription forrevolutionary terror. We reject State communism as the worst aberration and tyranny.
Dictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition ofdemocracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over other classes; but it does mean the abolition of democracy (or very material restriction, which is also a form of abolition) of democracy for theclass over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised.
Vladimir Lenin,The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 235.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. the organization of thevanguard of the oppressed as theruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion ofdemocracy. 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 thefreedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, thecapitalists. 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 isviolence.
Disarmament is the ideal ofsocialism. There will be no wars in socialist society; consequently, disarmament will be achieved.But whoever expects that socialism will be achievedwithout a social revolution and thedictatorship of the proletariat is not a socialist.Dictatorship isstatepower based directly onviolence. And in thetwentieth century — as in the age ofcivilisation generally — violence means neither a fist nor a club, buttroops. To put “disarmament” in the programme is tantamount to making the general declaration: We are opposed to the use of arms. There is as littleMarxism in this as there would be if we were to say: We are opposed to violence!
Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat lies betweencapitalism andcommunism. The more the proletariat presses the bourgeoisie, the more furiously they will resist. We know what vengeance was wreaked on the workers inFrance in1848. And when people charge us with harshness we wonder how they can forget the rudiments of Marxism.
When we are reproached with having established adictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a unitedsocialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won, in the course of decades, the position of vanguard of the entire factory and industrial proletariat. This party had won that position even before therevolution of 1905. It is the party that was at the head of the workers in 1905 and which since then — even at the time of the reaction after 1905 when the working-class movement was rehabilitated with such difficulty under the Stolypin Duma — merged with the working class and it alone could lead that class to a profound, fundamental change in the old society.
Dictatorship isrule based directly uponforce and unrestricted by anylaws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use ofviolence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.
Vladimir Lenin,The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1972), p. 11.
The tacit assumption underlying theLenin-Trotsky theory ofdictatorship is this: that thesocialist transformation is something for which a readymade formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately or – perhaps fortunately – not the case.
The socialist system is incomparably superior to the capitalist system. In socialist society, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces bourgeois dictatorship and the public ownership of the means of production replaces private ownership. The proletariat, from being an oppressed and exploited class, turns into a ruling class and a fundamental change takes place in the social position of the working people. Exercising dictatorship over a few exploiters only, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat practices the broadest democracy among the masses of the working people, a democracy that is impossible in capitalist society. The nationalisation of industry and collectivization of agriculture open wide vistas for the vigorous development of the social productive forces, ensuring a rate of growth incomparably greater than that in any older society.
Mao Tse-Tung,On Khrushchov’s Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World (1964)
Long before me,bourgeoishistorians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeoiseconomists 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 ofproduction; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; [and] (3) that thisdictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society
People argued over the problem whether the realization ofSocialism…was to be attempted through the instrumentality ofdemocracy or whether in the struggle one should deviate from theprinciples of democracy. This was the celebratedcontroversy about the dictatorship of the proletariat; it was the subject of academic discussion inMarxistliterature up to the time of theBolshevistrevolution and has since become a great politicalproblem.
Ludwig von Mises,Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962, p. 81.
The bigger an enterprise is, the more is it forced to adjust its production to the changing whims and fancies of the masses, its masters. … It is the patronage of the masses that make enterprises grow big. The common man is supreme in the market economy. He is thecustomer who "is always right."
In the political sphere, representative government is the corollary of the supremacy of theconsumers in themarket. Office-holders depend on thevoters asentrepreneurs andinvestors depend on the consumers. The samehistorical process that substituted thecapitalistic mode of production for precapitalistic methods substituted popular government—democracy—forroyal absolutism and other forms of government by the few. And wherever the market economy is superseded bysocialism,autocracy makes a comeback. It does not matter whether the socialist orcommunistdespotism is camouflaged by the use of aliases like "dictatorship of the proletariat" or "people's democracy" or "Führer principle." It always amounts to a subjection of the many to the few.
Ludwig von Mises, "On Equality and Inequality," inMoney, Method, and the Market Process (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), §1, p. 192.
In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are the rulers members of the proletariat, as they would have you believe? Do they even identify their interests with those of ordinary citizens? The truth seems to be that, no matter where you find them, the so-called proletarian dictatorships are actually controlled by a small elite who ordinarily lose little sleep in worrying about the rights of the common man. Secondly, have the proletariat any effective say in what the rulers do? In the proletarian dictatorships I am familiar with, ordinary people enjoy little or no control over their Government or over their own lives and futures.
Viewing theBolsheviks’ power seizure from the perspective ofhistory, one can only marvel at their audacity. None of the leading Bolsheviks had experience in administering anything, and yet they were about to assume responsibility for governing the world’s largest country. Nor, lackingbusiness experience, did they shy from promptlynationalizing and hence assuming responsibility for managing theworld’s fifth-largest economy. They saw in the overwhelming majority of Russia’scitizens—thebourgeoisie and the landowners as a matter of principle and most of thepeasantry andintelligentsia as a matter of fact—class enemies of the industrial workers, whom they claimed to represent. These workers constituted a small proportion ofRussia’s population—at best 1 or 2 percent —and of this minority only a minuscule number followed theBolsheviks: on the eve of theNovember coup, only 5.3 percent of industrial workers belonged to the Bolshevik party. This meant that the new regime had no alternative but to turn into a dictatorship—a dictatorship not of the proletariat but over the proletariat and all the other classes. The dictatorship, which in time evolved into atotalitarian regime, was thus necessitated by the very nature of the Bolshevik takeover.
As long as they wanted to stay in power, the Communists had to rule despotically and violently; they could never afford to relax their authority. The principle held true of every Communist regime that followed. Lenin realized this and felt no qualms about imposing a ruthless despotism. He defined “dictatorship” of any kind, including that of the “proletariat,” as “power that is limited by nothing, by no laws, that is restrained by absolutely no rules, that rests directly on coercion.” He was quite prepared to resort to unlimited terror to destroy his opponents and cow the rest of the population. He did so in part because he was indifferent to human lives, but in part because the study of history had persuaded him that all past social revolutions had failed by stopping halfway and allowing their class enemies to survive and regroup. Violence—total and merciless (one of his favorite adjectives)—had to clear the ground for the new order. But he also believed that such violence would have to be of short duration: he once citedMachiavelli to the effect “that if it is necessary to resort to certain brutalities for the sake of realizing a certain political goal, they must be carried out in the most energetic fashion and in the briefest possible time because the masses will not tolerate prolonged application of brutality.” Contrary to his expectations, these brutalities became a permanent feature of his regime. AsThomas Hobbes put it, if there is no agreement on trumps, clubs are trump.
Against the obvious dictatorship of the globalist bourgeoisie we have to develop the idea of a proletarian dictatorship, that nobody has to fear, since it's the only true democracy for the people.
It is therefore necessary to be precise in saying that by dictatorship of the proletariat we mean a government of workers’ syndicates.
Edmondo Rossoni, as quoted inItalian Industrialists from Liberalism to Fascism: The political development of the industrial bourgeoisie, 1906-1934, Franklin Hugh Adler, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 312. Also in Ferdinando Cordova,Sindacati fascisti, p. 87
Friends of Russia here think of the dictatorship of the proletariat as merely a new form of representative government, in which only working men and women have votes, and the constituencies are partly occupational, not geographical. They think that "proletariat" means "proletariat", but "dictatorship" does not quite mean "dictatorship". This is the opposite of thetruth. When a Russian Communist speaks of dictatorship, he means the word literally, but when he speaks of the proletariat, he means the word in a Pickwickian sense. He means the "class-conscious" part of the proletariat, i.e., the Communist Party.
Bertrand Russell, "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism" (1920)
TheState is amachine in the hands of theruling class for suppressing the resistance of its class enemies.in this respect the dictatorship of the proletariat does not differ essentially from dictatorship of any other class, for the proletarian State is a machine for the suppression of the bourgeoisie.
Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessaryweapon of thesocialist dictatorship.
Leon Trotsky,Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky (1920; 1975), p. 153
The road tosocialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of thestate … Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction...
Leon Trotsky,Terrorism and Communism : A Reply to Karl Kautsky (1920; 1975), p. 177
If a revolution is to be victoriously carried through, it will require a concentratedpower, a dictatorship at its head.Cromwell's dictatorship was necessary in order to establish the supremacy of theEnglish bourgeoisie; the terrorism of theParis Commune and of theCommittee of Public Safety alone succeeded in breaking the resistance of thefeudallords onFrench soil. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat which is concentrated in the big cities, the bourgeois reaction will not be done away with.
Joseph Weydemeyer, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat", Turn-Zeitung, New York, 1 January 1852, translated by Horst Duhnke and Hal Draper
