p Every type of state is related to a definite socio-economic system and represents a definite stage in the development of society’s political organisation. In the process of social development, the state machinery, while passing from the control of one exploiting class to another, remains a means of suppressing and oppressing the working people. This situation continued unchanged until the proletariat emerged-the class interested in the abolition of exploitation of man by man and, due to its economic position, capable of leading all the working people.

p In contrast to the exploiting classes, the proletariat, once it has seized state power in the course of a socialist revolution, cannot accommodate and utilise the old state machinery for this was geared to suppressing the working people and protecting the exploiters’ interests, whereas the task of the proletariat is to abolish exploitation and protect the interests of the working people. So the proletariat destroys the old state machinery and creates a new one which exercises its dictatorship and represents the interests of the working people.

p The proletariat needs the state in order to solve the tasks involved in the transformation of capitalist into socialist society. These include suppressing the exploiters who, even after they are 80. 402 overthrown, continue their struggle against the proletariat and the social transformations introduced by it; they have capital, are organised and possess knowledge and have long-established links with the international bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois elements at home.

p So, while suppressing the bourgeoisie, the proletariat must unite all the working people and petty-bourgeois elements around itself, organise and draw them into the struggle for socialism, for the transformation of all social life along socialist lines, for the organisation of large-scale socialist production and for the establishment, on this basis, of conditions for the abolition of classes. “In order to achieve victory, in order to build and consolidate socialism, the proletariat must fulfill a twofold or dual task: first, it must, by its supreme heroism in the revolutionary struggle against capital, win over the entire mass of the working and exploited people; it must win them over, ogranise them and lead them in the struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and utterly suppress their resistance. Secondly, it must lead the whole mass of the working and exploited people, as well as all the petty-bourgeois groups, on to the road of new economic development, towards the creation of a new social bond, a new labour discipline, a new organisation of labour, which will combine the last word in science and capitalist technology with the mass association of class-conscious workers creating large-scale socialist industry.”  [402•1 

p Without the state, however, without establishing its dictatorship, the proletariat cannot resolve these tasks and cannot make a transition from capitalism to socialism. While emphasising the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat during that period, Marx pointed out that “between capitalist and communist society 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".  [403•1 

p The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat ^radically dift’ers from exploiting states, which Express tne interests ot the minority-the exploiters-and are used by them to suppress the majority-the working people. The proletarian state expresses the interests of all working people, i.e. ot the overwhelming maioritv of the country’s population, and is directed against the minority— the exploiters.

p Furthermore; the exploiting state is an organ of coercion. The dictatorship of the proletariat is more an instrument of non-coercion than of coercion. It is an organisation through which the working class guides the peasantry and rd-fier working sections of snripty anH Pnrniiragps tfr_fjr voluntary transition to socialism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is thus directed against the exploiters and is a friend of the working people, 404 in particular of the peasantry, and a helper in the struggle for liberation from exploitation and for higher living standards. “The workers’ state,” Lenin wrote, “is an implacable enemy of the landowner and capitalist" and “the only loyal friend and helper the working people and the peasantry have.”  [404•1 

p Since the dictatorship of the proletariat differs radically m nature trom any other dictatorship, it embodies a new and higher type of democracy. In contrast to bourgeois democracy, which, infill capitalist countries, is in fact a democracy for the exploiters, socialist democracy is for the working people, for the overwhelming majority of the nation. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat the emphasis is shifted from .formal recognition of freedoms (as is the case in the capitalist world) to their practical exercise on the part of the working people.

p It is only after the dictatorship of the proletariat is established that the freedom of the press proclaimed by bourgeois constitutions becomes a reality for the working people, because it means that newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and printing presses become state property, which is tantamount to their being in the control of the working people. The situation is quite different in the capitalist countries, where the press is controlled by capital. “The first thing to do to win real equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers and peasants, is 405 to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying up publishing houses and bribing newspapers,"  [405•1  Lenin wrote.

p As distinct from exploiting states, where the working masses are by all manner of means kept out of political life, the socialist state is based on increasingly broad participation of the masses in the administration of state affairs.

p “We know . . . from long years of practice that . . . genuine democracy is impossible without socialism, and that socialism is impossible without a steady development of democracy.”  [405•2 

p A state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which arises as a result ot a victorious socialist revolution with the aim of suppressing the exploiters and guiding the building of socialism, undergoes changes in the course of socialist transformations and, having fulfilled its historic mission, becomes a state of the whole people after the of the ouilding of socialist society and

p its entry into the stage of building communism. As distinct from the dictatorship of the proletariat, which retains the function of suppressing the overthrown exploiting classes, a state of the whole people does not practise class coercion any ^longer. With the victory of socialism, the exploiting classes are abolished and this removes the need to suppress them. The dictatorship of the proletariat expressed the interests of the working 406 class and the working masses, but the state of the whole people, the embodiment of the people’s unity, reflects the interests of the entire society, which are determined by the supremacy’of socialist ownership ot the means of production and the single, socialist, mode of production.

p Though the state of the whole people differs greatly from that of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they are closely interlinked and have much in common. The state of the whole people grows out of the dictatorship of the proletariat and develops on the basis of a consistent evolution of its principles. Yet those features that embody the essence of the state of the whole people-the expression and protection of the interests of the working people and their leadership in the building of a new, classless society-are also typical of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With the gradual abolition of the exploiting class’es aTid the LUiiJJLlunS engendering the exploitatioii ot man by man, the coercive and dictatorial tunctions of the proletarian state begin to ’wither away, while its functions associated with the expression and protection of public interests expand and become dominant. From an instrument of class domination, the state turns into an instrument of the public will.

p With the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a state of the whole people, the leading role of the working class does not drsappear. In the period of the all-round building of communism and in the developed socialist society, the working class remains the most advanced, 407 organised and conscious class and the most consistent bearer of communist ideals. It is linked with machine industry and with the form of socialist property that has the highest level of socialisation, so it retains its leading role until the building of communism is completed and class distinctions have been finally eradicated. At previous stages of development, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, and the leading role of the working class in this alliance took the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The alliance of the working class and the peasantry is not, however, identical to the dictatorship of the proletariat and does not, by itself, constitute this dictatorship. It assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat only in the period when the exploiters are being suppressed and when the life of society is being transformed along socialist lines. The alliance of the working class and the peasantry no longer, however, needs the dictatorship of the proletariat in the period of the complete and final victory of socialism, when the exploiting classes have been abolished and when a complete identity of the fundamental interests of the two classes and their social, political and ideological unity have been achieved. This alliance may successfully develop in a state of the whole people as well.

p The transformation of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a state of the whole people leads not to the weakening of the socialist state, but to its consolidation, since nowadays it firmly rests on a more solid social base and on more 408 powerful productive forces embodied in the complete sway of the socialist economy and the unity of the Soviet people.

While representing a new and higher stage of development of socialist society, the state of the whole people is not the terminal point of this development. AS it advances further, it will gradually turn into public communist self- administration-a state-free organisation for running society’s affairs-and then will wither away.