to contend with the rest of thepolitburo, have probably not managed to
become dictators. Of other modern leaders, GeneralFrancowas certainly a
powerful ruler in his own right to the end of his life, while Generalde Gaulle
came close to being a popularly-appointed ‘crisis’ dictator on the Roman
model. Populist leaders ruling through parliaments completely controlled by
their parties, which have often practised electoral fraud, have been common in
some parts of the former Soviet Union since its fragmentation; many of these
have come close to being dictators, at least for short periods.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
This is one of the concepts taken fromMarx’swritings by the early leaders of
theBolshevikwing of the All-Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (later
theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union), especially byLenin, and used
to justify the dominant role of the Communist Party in the state. According to
the developedMarxist-Leninistdoctrine, immediately after the revolution-
ary overthrow ofcapitalismthere will be an intermediate period during
which the party, as thevanguard of the proletariat, will have to exercise
political and economic control in a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. This
undemocratic and inegalitarian state of affairs is unavoidable because the
transition from capitalism to true socialism is impossible until the necessary
conditions have been created. These conditions are partly economic, depend-
ing on the level of capitalist development that has been reached, but more
important is the creation of ‘Socialist Man’. This entails the development of a
true socialist consciousness among the masses. Until they come to grasp the
true ideology, it is pointless to entrust political and social decisions to them,
since they will still be suffering thealienationand ideological distortion that
life in a capitalist society produces (seefalse consciousness). Ultimately,
when a true socialist understanding has been developed, not only will the
party’s supreme power be unnecessary, but indeed the whole state will ‘wither
away’, leaving a peaceful co-operative society. Until then democracy could
only hold back this development; in fact selfishness and conflict would be rife
unless kept down by forceful central control on the part of those who, having
been admitted to the party, are known to have a proper understanding of
scientific socialism. While there are theoretical difficulties in accepting this
idea, it should not be taken as mere cynical pretence. In many areas of Soviet
life it was possible to see serious attempts to build such a socialist man, for
example in the ordinary criminal law and, above all, the educational system.
Nevertheless, it is true that the doctrine was especially useful to the Bolsheviks
in 1917 when they worked to turn the mass revolution of February into their
own creation. It is generally accepted that Lenin’s October Revolution lacked
any real popular support and was more of acoup d’e ́tator putsch. Hence it
Dictatorship of the Proletariat