ACCORDING to the statistics of the Soviet state itself, the Soviet people did not enjoy 10 per cent of the comforts enjoyed by the French people. While the statistics mentioned before speak for themselves, two observations are in order here. First, the failure of the dictatorship of the proletariat to achieve anywhere near as high a standard of living as that achieved under the capitalist systems of Western Europe led European communists to question the validity of this key section of Marxist-Leninist theory. Second, the French statistics show to what extent social classes are drawing closer together: whereas the percentage of car-owners among senior civil servants rose by 21 per cent between 1953 and 1972, it rose by 55 per cent among the working class during the same period. These statistics not only indicate a rapprochement between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, they also disprove one of Marx's pet theories, namely, that industrial societies are divided into only two classes: a poor class which works and does not own (the proletariat) and a rich class which owns and does not work (the capitalist class). All other classes are reduced to the level of the proletariat, which would be getting ever poorer while the capitalist bourgeoisie would become ever richer. The French statistics turn this theory on its head: it seems the proletariat is catching up with the privileges of the upper classes, that it is getting richer, not poorer, and that it is getting richer at a rate that is bringing it ever closer to the bourgeoisie, contrary to Marx's predictions. Finally, in a shrinking world where the tremendous development of the communications industry makes it impossible to keep any situation secret, the walls with which the Soviet Union surrounded itself for so long have come crashing down. As a result, the working classes in the advanced industrial countries are now well aware that their situation is far better, both economically and politically, than that of their counterparts in socialist countries. The shattering of the great economic hopes placed in the dictatorship of the proletariat was the main factor that led tothe collapse of the idea itself, as workers in the advanced industrialised countries asked themselves how the deprivation they see their brothers suffering from in the socialist countries can ever become the material basis for the higher stage of communism, when each will get according to his needs. In addition to all the above, communist parties in several parts of the world rejected the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat as totally inappropriate for the non-industrial societies of Asia and Africa in which communists did manage to seize power. With peasants and farmers representing the majority of the population, the formula of a dictatorship of the proletariat seemed contrived and essentially flawed. This led several agricultural countries under communist rule, China being the most notable example, to introduce changes into the Marxist theory which, in our opinion, have shaken it to its very foundations. One is entitled to question how there could be a dictatorship of the proletariat in countries where there are no workers in the Marxist sense of industrial workers, and where an entire stage in the socio-economic evolution of society as advocated by Marx has been skipped, namely, the stage of capitalism out of the womb of which socialism is born. The last in a five-article series. 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
