Dictatorship of The Proletariat

In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, has 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" 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 private ownership of industry and resources leads to a monopoly of economic power (albeit sometimes within a democratic parliament) by the capitalist class. With an economy under democratic control, Marxists expect political power to be held by the majority working class. Whether or not capitalists are disenfranchised would depend upon the particular circumstances of a nation. In a period immediately after the Russian Revolution, the mode in which democracy was organised (elections within workplace 'soviets') automatically disenfranchised capitalists (who weren't a part of the workforce); however, Marxists such as Lenin argued that other forms of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in more developed countries would include capitalists among the electorate. However, as large-scale capitalism is phased out, future generations would not become capitalist owners, and class divisions would no longer exist within the electorate. As a result, the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' would wither away, resulting in 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, a socialist revolution in Russia was followed by the victory of a Stalinist clique of rulers who monopolised political power. Other revolutions in China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea were subsequently shaped by the USSR's model of a bureaucratic dictatorship, not by the democratic organization of the working class. As a result, the use of the word "dictatorship" to describe the power of an entire class sometimes became confused with its common usage to describe a single ruler.