The Proletarian State and the Communist Party.
LENIN had a perfect conception of the nature of democracy and of the State. He restated the Marxian position regarding the nature of the State and its role in the class struggle. As against the bourgeois democratic State, he placed the Soviet State as the concrete form of the proletarian dictatorship. And he also defined the position of the Soviet State in the development of the social revolution. Every State, including the Soviet State, is the weapon of a definite class. The State as such is an organ of oppression of one class by the other. In this definition is contained the idea of the transitory nature of the State from a historic point of view. By the abolition of classes and the class struggle, the State will disappear, but as a result of many years of historical development and not as a result of one single act, as in the conception of the Anarchists. To bring about the situation where there are no classes in society, is possible only by means of a firm dictatorship of the working class, because it is only by means of such a dictatorship that we can break the resistance of the classes that are opposed to the proletariat. Lenin also knew that the establishment of the proletarian power is impossible without a violent revolution, and that the maintenance of this proletarian power would be impossible without a merciless suppression of the exploiting classes.
But the State is not an abstract category. The proletariat creates the State in a form which is most advantageous to itself. Such a form is the Soviet System of State, for it best unites the workers for management of the economic and political affairs of the country. Consequently the Soviet system is the best form of the proletarian dictatorship, and the Soviets are the best adapted fighting organs of the working class.
How does the working class realize its dictatorship? Naturally, thru the Soviets. And how do the Soviets realize their dictatorship? Thru special organs created by themselves. The opponents of Communism criticized Lenin for the fact that he placed the sign of equation between the dictatorship of the class and the dictatorship of the Party. They said: "The dictatorship of the class is one thing, while the dictatorship of the Party is an entirely different proposition." To this Lenin replied: "The working class must realize its dictatorship thru its vanguard, and since the Communist Party of Russia is the vanguard of the working class it is quite natural that this Party exercises the power of the proletarian rule." This theory Lenin had put into effect.
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