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p As a result of socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces the destroyed bourgeois state.

p The dictatorship of the proletariat is power of the workers led by the working class whose objective is to build a socialist society.

p The state is always a dictatorship of this or that class. The political power of the workers means a dictatorship of the overwhelming major- 124 ity and is therefore the fullest possible form of democracy in a class society.

p The dictatorship of the proletariat is common to all countries that embark on socialist transformations, and indispensable for building socialism. Lenin said: "Whoever has failed to understand that dictatorship is essential to the victory of any revolutionary class has no understanding of the history of revolutions, or else does not want to know anything in this field.”   [124•1 

p Adversaries of Marxism tell lies about the dictatorship of the proletariat, classifying it as violence or terror, asserting that it rules out all forms of democracy. Revisionists hold that the dictatorship of the proletariat, while it is right lor a number of countries, is not necessarily so in all eases of socialist construction.

p But let us see what makes the dictatorship of the proletariat a historical necessity.

p 1 he proletariat needs a dictatorship, first o( all, to break the resistance of its class enemies. The exploiter classes go to all lengths to regain political power and their lost privileges. They are not reconciled with defeat and, not infrequently, turn for aid to imperialists in other countries, who hate the revolution and are prepared to crush it 125 whenever and wherever it takes place. To protect the revolution and suppress the resistance of the exploiting classes is a major objective of the dictatorship of the proletariat. History has shown that the revolution must be able to defend itself. In other words, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the workers’ class struggle continued in new historical conditions and in new historical forms.

p On the other hand, suppression of class enemies is not the principal objective of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The workers use power to build socialism, achieve far-reaching changes in the economy, culture, socio-political relations, and in other fields. The dictatorship’s principal objective is construction. As Lenin said, "the essence of proletarian dictatorship is not in force alone, or even mainly in force. Its chief feature is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard, of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man.”   [125•1 

p The dictatorship of the proletariat achieves another important task establishment of the working class’s leadership of the peasantry and 126 other workers with the aim to ensure their complete and final break-away from the bourgeoisie and involve them in socialist construction. The essence and the highest principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the alliance of the working class with all other workers. The working class cannot achieve the tremendous goals of socialist construction single-handedly, without allies, or win and retain power, suppress the exploiters, and achieve deep-going social transformations. The alliance of the working class with the peasantry and all other workers is another law of the fight for socialism common to all countries, assuming various forms in accordance with the specific historical conditions.

p Proletarian dictatorship takes on various forms reflecting the essential characteristics of the country in question and the specific historical conditions in which it finds itself at the time of the transition to socialism. "All nations will arrive at socialism - this is inevitable, but all will do so not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety to the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life,” wrote Lenin.  [126•1 

p Historically, the first form of dictatorship of the 127 proletariat was the Paris Commune. Although its life was short-from 18 March 1871 to 28 May 1871 when it was crushed by domestic and foreign counter-revolutionaries, the Paris Commune produced a significant historical experience. Soviet power, another form of proletarian dictatorship, originated as a result of the victorious socialist revolution in Russia. This form of government, produced by the masses themselves, conformed with the needs of the struggle of the workers. Soviets developed as class organisations, i. e., bodies elected by and from among workers, peasants and the working intelligentsia. During the transitional period, elections to Soviets were based, not on the territorial, but on the production principle-deputies to Soviets were elected directly at industrial enterprises, army units, etc. Millions of workers elected to Soviets have learnt the art of government. When the proletariat came to power, the Soviets, which originated as organs of the armed uprising of 1905, became the bodies through which the proletariat exercised its dictatorship. They are simultaneously bodies of state and broad social organisations. The first Soviets were purely proletarian organisations, i. e., represented the most revolutionary class; as they progressed, they increasingly enlisted the participation of other strata, and eventually became organisations of the entire working population.

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p Following the Second World War. dictatorships of the proletariat were established in a number of European and Asian countries in the form of people’s democracy. The essential features of this form of proletarian dictatorship were the broad social base of the revolution, its relatively peaceful development, and assistance of the Soviet Union. Its singular feature is a popular front, a massive socio-political organisation involving various democratic bodies and headed by a Marxist-Leninist party. Unlike the Soviet Union with its historically shaped one-party system, most of the socialist countries in Europe have more than one party represented in the government. In a number of these states, Communist and Workers’ parties maintain fruitful tics with non-proletarian democratic parties. A few socialist European states have preserved their traditional, albeit transformed, parliamentary institutions. There are other distinctions, too. And the experience of these countries, like that of the Soviet Union, is of vast importance for the international working-class and national liberation movements, for the struggle for socialism.

p Other forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat will possibly emerge in the future.

p Dictatorship of the proletariat is not the final objective of the workers but the prime means for building a new society. Having fulfilled its histori- 129 cal functions abolition of exploiter classes, establishment and consolidation of a socialist society the dictatorship of the proletariat progresses into a state of the whole people, the form of state power meeting the conditions of developed socialism.

p Dictatorship of the proletariat and the state of the whole people are two stages in the development of the socialist state. Since at the second stage there are no exploiter classes, the state is no longer a means of class coercion. It protects the interests of all workers. Still, the state of the whole people does apply coercion towards those individuals who break the law or the standards and principles of socialist society.

p The state of the whole people provides for the all-round progress of developed socialist society and for the achievement of the objectives of communist construction.

p To achieve the objectives of communist construction, the state exercises its powers internally in such spheres as the economy, safeguarding of socialist property, law-enforcement, maintaining balance between production and consumption, culture and education, and externally in furthering co-operation and mutual assistance within the socialist community, peaceful coexistence of states of different socio-political systems, reliable defence against external military aggression, support for national liberation struggles,

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130 and the fight for peace and for international detente.

p The working class retains its leading place in the state of the whole people.

p The Communist Party of the Soviet Union sees its prime objective in securing the further development of the state of the whole people, and of socialist democracy.

p The transition from the proletarian dictatorship into a state of the whole people is a historically inevitable stage in all countries building developed socialism.

p The state will not exist forever. With the building of communism, it will cease to be necessary and will develop into communist public selfgovernment. This, however, will take a long time.

p The state will wither away as a result of internal economic conditions: the productive forces will have reached the highest level, the two forms of socialist ownership will have merged into one, ownership by the whole people, labour will have become a prime and vital need of every individual, and the communist principle of distribution, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, will regulate the life of society.

External conditions are also highly relevant, for so long as there exists the threat of imperialist aggression, there is need to provide for reliable 131 defences. From this it follows that the state will not wither away before the correlation of forces in the world is so much in favour of socialism that there will no longer be a threat of aggression against the socialist countries.