8/6/2019 Dictatorship is Antithetic to People

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Dictatorship is antithetic to people

The postulate ordains: A minority needs uncouth armoury to subdue theformidable majority. The practice goes: The rule of armed minority over thedisarmed majority is the norm presently in all countries of the world. Theinstitution of state has shed all pretensions of neutrality; it has been made

subservient to capital. The fearful minuscule minority that has mastered theart of grabbing commons and expropriate labour uses the armed institutionsand organs of deceit by the state to keep its victims tethered secure.

Barring few autocratic rulers, who give a bad name, democracy in almost allother countries is the creed that has been crafted to legitimise this norm ofarmed minority rule. Lenin bluntly called it dictatorship of the bourgeoisie toemphasise its basic characteristic while presenting his own version ofdictatorship of the proletariat by comparison to underline the claim ofmajority in conception, though admitting that proletariat in itself is still aminority. The norm of minority rule and dictatorship nevertheless stands!

To counter the virtual dictatorship of capital, after its over-throw, the conceptof ruthless suppression of the vanquished class through armed state capturedby the victorious proletariat with the help of allies was presented as a naturalcourse for survival of revolution during the transitory phase of socialism. Itbecame a touchstone of revolutionary resoluteness of a ruling communist partyin later debates. The premise says that the vanquished bourgeoisie is moreferocious in defeat and to check it the ruling proletariat has to be moreruthless. The postulate further justifies a saying that violence can be defeatedonly by more violence. And violence in both cases is practiced through theinstitution of the state having its last stay in armed forces.

The justification for the concept of dictatorship of proletariat however suffersfrom some glaring infirmities. Theoretically the concept is unsound. It ignoresthe minority characteristic of a self-perpetuating state that basically nurturescapital, even the so-called socialist state. The postulate then admits thatruling proletariat, as a minority in society at the time of capturing state powerneeds to rule ruthlessly to reach the stage of majority. First, this goes againstits allies in the revolution that shared their shoulders to bring it in power. It issheer political dishonesty that from the moment proletariat assumes power itseeks to eliminate its allies with the help of arms and manipulation ofeconomic levers. It paves the way for breaking the unity among ranks ofrevolution and ultimately its dissolution!

Secondly, if the socialist revolution represents a rule of majority over theminority the postulate of more violence to meet the violence of the vanquishedis spurious if one remembers that state is basically an instrument of rule by theminority over majority. Thereafter its relevance disappears. The majority iscapable to subdue any recalcitrant but over thrown minority. There is no needfor any armed institution like state for this purpose.

8/6/2019 Dictatorship is Antithetic to People

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To be precise: in the scheme under dictatorship of proletariat peasantry, asan ally class of revolution stands to be eliminated at the hands of proletariatwhom it helped to be in power under socialism; ostensibly through a hecticcampaign for industrialisation-cum-capitalisation and uncouth armoury if needbe. The lesson: erstwhile soviet experiment under dictatorship of proletariat

failed to eliminate the bourgeoisie as a class that was overthrown by 1917revolution while it was successful to eliminate its ally in peasantry, turningthem into wage workers. Here, one basic tenet was over looked that state is aninstrument of capital rather than the majority surviving in labour.

Further more, it is worth analysing how the concept of dictatorship of theproletariat came to mean as it turned out to be in its application. It ruthlesslysuppressed each and every form of dissent within the ruling party as well as insociety. Uncouth uniformity was sought after from every quarter. As a resultregimentation reigned. The concept degenerated into virtually a dictatorship ofthe party that ruled by reason of arms. The party turned into an instrument ofrule in the hands of its General Secretary, which again meant nothing but

arbitrary rule, with a coterie around of his own choice to clap the wishes of theleader or at best to fine-tune the rule. The general mass of the population wasaffected in its creativity.

It is difficult to digest that all the brilliant minds charged with the interests ofthe workingmen initially in this experiment could reduce to such a patheticsituation and why they could not assess what this interpretation of the conceptmeant actually in social terms. The culprit sneaked perhaps when thecommunist party assumed itself as the sole representative of the class, withneither check from, nor any worthwhile accountability to the class in place.Society as such was belaboured and fooled. The role of the masses was

nowhere in account.Obviously, the dictatorship of the proletariat turned out to be moreobnoxious than the discarded dictatorship of bourgeoisie where many factionscontend for sectional interests, at least providing a leeway for the people toescape rigours and ruthlessness to an extent in their contest against both thestate and capital. Here under socialist state, no such leeway was left availableto the ruled. It may be noted that self-check is no check in such matters,especially when such a volatile institution is dealt as the state.