Lenin and the Timeliness of the Principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Abstract

The history of the twentieth century is closely related to the Russian Revolution of 1917. This paper discusses the timeliness of the Leninist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in juxtaposition to Stalin’s conception of the socialist transition. While the Leninist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat establishes the necessity of the destruction of the bourgeois state through the control and extinction of its hard core – the bureaucracy – by the proletariat, Stalin’s conceptions move in the direction of the strengthening of a self-proclaimed socialist state and the consolidation of state capitalism. Lenin’s concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is thus fundamental for thinking about the possibilities for the transformation of capitalist society.