NationStates Jolt Archive


Dictatorship of the proletariat

Dehny
05-11-2005, 00:33
something i cant understand from marxism, wondering if any commies will tell me


how will you get the dictator to step down from power , when the communists state is ready
The blessed Chris
05-11-2005, 00:35
Very difficult, unless they are willing, a council in place of a dictator is probably better.
Lt_Cody
05-11-2005, 00:36
Very difficult, unless they are willing, a council in place of a dictator is probably better.
That just means the oligarchy will have as tough time stepping down as a single dictator
Aplastaland
05-11-2005, 00:44
The dictator neves steps down, because the dictator is everybody.
The Helghan Empire
05-11-2005, 00:45
OOC: Damn! The title caught my eye, because I have been studying about proletariats, Russia, communism, whatever in Social Studies, and I thought this would be about...well, what you said in the title. But I can't give suggestions on what you're talking about. :(
Sierra BTHP
05-11-2005, 01:18
It sounds to me like all forms of government except complete anarchy are really just dictatorships of the proletariat...

you have a king and his subjects -
or you have a government (however organized and appointed) and their citizens

Even if you have a magic IPod that everyone has that lets you vote wireless over the Internet on every single issue all the time in order to make decisions for the nation - you have the majority exercising a dictatorship over the minority.

Organized government is what our Founding Fathers feared - while most people love the idea of a government and its supposed benefits, many people ignore the fact that what a government provides for you, they can take away or screw with.
Letila
05-11-2005, 01:29
The idea is basically that the dictatorship finishes what it is created to do and then has nothing more to do and so whithers away. Not a very plausible scenario, but it should be noted that Marx defined the state and dictatorship in a certain way, so the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't necessary a literal Stalin-style dictatorship, but more of a case of the working class replacing the capitalist class as the ruling class.

After a while, the dictatorship of the proletariat finishes its job of crushing capitalism, which is what it was created to do in the first place. Now that the capitalist class, which was being ruled by the new state, has been abolished, the dictatorship of the proletariat no longer rules over anyone and thus basically fades away by definition.

Most people, and anarchists as well, would define dictatorship much more narrowly than Marx, so the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" doesn't make much sense to many people. I don't really subscribe to the idea and see a lot of problems with it, but that is the basic principle behind it.