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Actually, what he meant about "the dictatorship of the proleteriat" was that the workers would have control over the means of production.
| Correct. Which is what occurred in the USSR. The efforts of Lenin & Stalin were to ensure that the PROLETERIAT remained in charge, and the bourgoise, nobility, ect. would not be able to rule. Democracy is "rule of the majority over the minority" which, as Marx believed, would be rule of the proleteriat, as he believed that class was the most numerous in any given society. Quote:
As for your second point, it's important to critically examine what immediately transpired after the revolution. First, civil war, and western invasion - Lenin decided to reign in the power, beaurocratize (many of them were ex-Tsarists), and start onward with industrialization. Lenin knew that the Soviet Union was too backward to have a function communist state (as did Trotsky and Stalin). They simply usurped power from the worker and consolidated it under the party vanguard.
Surprised you wouldn't have taken that into consideration when making your argument.
| The problem is that you are assuming that the consolidation of power would not occur in a more economically advanced state, or in a stable state. But the reality is that such consolidation would be even more important in such a state, because socialists believe (incorrectly, btw) that capitalists have such an overwhelming and massive power to crush its enemies. Also the transition from capitalism will create its own instances of instability. |