According to Marx's theories, capitalism would be overthrown by a revolution of the landless working classes (the proletariat), and a Dictatorship of the proletariat would result, in which the proletariat seized power and the means of production. This was not communism but the next step in the historical evolution which Marx believed would lead to communism.
According to Marx, it is the final stage before a true democracy, a society where the power would lie in the hands of the working people, not in the hands of a small group of wealthy people. Essentially, the means of production would fall from the hands of the capitalists and into those of the labourers. By owning their own means of livelihood, the bulk of society, which Marx considered would be labourers working in industrial factories, would therefore be liberated from continual monotony of their production and the loss of returns that occurred because the capitalists improperly valuated goods for sale and stole their profits. He views this state of being as inevitable because the capitalist system itself would drive the increasing size of the prolertariat and complete their immiseration. However, before the final state of society, the anarcho-socialist society of equals, could be created, the workers would have to rise up and take power from the capitalists. During this transitory phase, the proletariat would institute a dictatorship and then, over time, dissolve its own power.
According to Karl Marx, the necessary dictatorship of the proletariat would not be a true dictatorship. It would be a democratically elected body except that no former bourgeoisie or capitalists would be permitted to serve in it or vote for members of it.
A Socialist-minded working class seizing political power and using it to introduce a classless stateless society.
dictatorship of the proletariat
Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was created in 1990.
Lenin's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was never like Karl Marx's version. Lenin's dictatorship was preferable to him because he felt that the "proletariat" of Russia were not sufficiently aware of their class status as proletariat. He felt they needed a strong government run by a small group of people (the Bolsheviks/Communists) who would prevent them from trying to reverse the revolutionary gains of the revolution. If "his" version of the dictatorship of the proletariat were to be turned over to the workers of Russia in general as Marx had wanted, the people might have wanted a return to capitalism and an overthrow of socialism.
proletariat (people)
Karl Marx
Karl marx
Karl Marx coined the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" Ironically, it was not to be a dictatorship at all, but a democratic government. Marx called it the "dictatorship of the proletariat," but it would be a democratic government once the proletariat of workers revolted against the bourgeoisie and took over the means of production. Some form of government would still be necessary after the revolution. The "dictatorship" aspect meant that participation in it would be restricted to proletarians to the exclusion of the bourgeoisie. The main purposes would be to maintain order, but more importantly it would be to ensure the transition from capitalism to socialism by stamping out all vestiges of capitalism so that it would never return.
Marx referred to the dictatorship of the proletariat as a temporary transitionary phase during which the working class seizes control of the state to dismantle capitalism and establish a socialist society. In this phase, the proletariat holds political power to reshape the economic system and ultimately achieve a classless society.
Proletariat.In Marxism, the dictatorship of the proletariat denotes the transitional socialist State between the capitalist class society and the classless communist society.
Karl Marx believed that the communist party should serve as the vanguard of the proletariat, leading the working class in overthrowing the capitalist system. The party's role is to organize and mobilize the proletariat towards revolution, to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, and eventually usher in a classless society.
Citizens of the working class.
People who opposed Lenin ideas were often oppressed.
Citizens of the working class.