WHAT does dictatorship of the proletariat really mean? According to Marxists, it is a dictatorship exercised by the majority in the interest of the majority and against all the classes and groups opposed to those interests. If that is so, why is the majority represented at the higher echelons of the Communist Party by only a few who are selected in a particular manner? Why does the majority in its entirety not enter into the Communist Party, especially since Marxists absolutely reject the idea of representational democracy, which is the basis of the Western parliamentary system? Why, if not for the fact that their dictatorship is directed against the proletariat itself in the name of the proletariat. Can anyone maintain that Stalin's regime of violent repression was directed only against the non-proletarian classes in the Soviet Union and that it did not affect the entire population? In fact, the leadership of this regime, like that of every other dictatorship of the proletariat, was made up of members of the middle class who took it upon themselves to protect the interests of the working class in the face of all other classes. An important development in this respect is that communist parties in most of the industrialised countries, the very climate for socialism according to Marxist theory, have, one after the other, abandoned the idea of dictatorship of the proletariat, declaring that the transition to socialism does not have to come about through class struggle and that, if they ever came to power, they would not establish a dictatorship of the proletariat to abolish all other classes. To destroy the idea of dictatorship of the proletariat is to destroy the backbone of Marxist political thought as elaborated by Marx, Engels, Lenin and all other Marxist theoreticians over a whole century. For without the dictatorship of the proletariat, the other classes will not be abolished and, consequently, humanity will not attain a classless society. As Marx himself had firmly rejected the idea of "the free people's state" advocated by Ferdinand Lassalle, this meant the collapse of the following basic tenets of Marxist thought: • The class struggle (given that, after coming to power, the proletariat would coexist peacefully with other social classes). • The withering away of the state (since the proletariat would not liquidate the other classes, and the class division of society is the basis for the existence of the state). • The disappearance of laws (the existence of laws, like the existence of the state, is based on the existence of classes). • Attainment of the supreme communist stage (unimaginable in Marxist thought without the dictatorship of the proletariat and its liquidation of all other classes). The repudiation of this basic tenet of Marxist thinking by the communist parties of Western Europe and other parts of the developed world is due to several factors. First, the democratic climate prevailing in Europe: Western Europe is solidly anchored in parliamentary democracy, in freedom of thought and opinion and in all other human rights and hence, by its very nature, cannot subscribe to any theory that would destroy such democracy and freedoms. This climate of freedom and democracy has imposed itself even on the communist parties of Western Europe and on the staunchest supporters of Marxism in Western Europe and in other parts of the world, such as Japan. It may have been easy for the peoples of Russia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Siberia or the Caucasus to accept a dictatorship of the proletariat 60 years ago, or to accept the crimes of a tyrant like Stalin who liquidated scores of his closest comrades and millions of those who opposed his views. After all, they were peoples who had known nothing but autocratic rulers and slavery through the centuries. The history of tsarist Russia is a chronicle of brutal repression: one example that comes to mind here is the story of Spiratsky, the nineteenth-century Russian minister who tried to introduce French laws into Russia and who was exiled to Siberia for his pains! For a nation whose historical frame of reference is a saga of harsh dictatorships, the dictatorship of the proletariat was no more than a new name for an age-old pattern. The communist parties of Western Europe are far more aware than leftist movements in the Third World of the negative consequences that will inevitably follow on the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat in their countries. They know that they can come to power only through a coalition with other parties and that there can be no question of those parties accepting a dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus they would have nowhere to turn for help but to the Soviets and, given the liberalism of the leaders of communist parties in Western Europe (their birthright as citizens of a democratic civilisation), as well as the lessons drawn from the recent past, this is unlikely to be an attractive prospect. Heggy is the 2008 winner of Italy's top prize for literature “Grinzane Cavour.” http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarek_Heggy http://www.tarek-heggy.com
