Vanguardism , in Leninist struggle , is a strategy where the most class-conscious members of the working-class , known as the revolutionary vanguard, lead institutions to advance communist goals.
106-517: The vanguard works to engage the working class in revolutionary politics and to strengthen proletarian political power against the bourgeoisie . This theory serves as the underpinning of the leading role of the Communist party , usually enshrined in the constitution, after communists seize power of the state. Vladimir Lenin popularised political vanguardism as conceptualised by Karl Kautsky , detailing his thoughts in one of his earlier works, What
212-509: A class is a proletarian or a proletaire . Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production , which belong to the class of business owners , the bourgeoisie . Karl Marx argued that this capitalist oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and to take over power from
318-630: A democratic system. Lenin argued for the destruction of the foundations of the bourgeois state and its replacement with what David Priestland described as an "ultra-democratic" dictatorship of the proletariat based on the Paris Commune 's system. The State and Revolution (1917) explicitly discusses the practical implementation of "dictatorship of the proletariat" through means of violent revolution. Lenin denies any reformist interpretations of Marxism such as these of Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky 's. Lenin especially focused on Engels' phrase of
424-521: A family." Although explicitly included by name in the Comitia Centuriata ( Centuriate Assembly ), proletarii were the lowest class, largely deprived of voting rights. Not only did proletarii have less voting "weight" in the various elections, but since voting ran hierarchically starting with the highest social ranks, a majority could be reached early and their votes never even taken. Late Roman historians such as Livy vaguely described
530-531: A higher social class. The contention with feudalism began once the merchants and guild artisans grew in numbers and power. Once they organized themselves, they began opposing the fees imposed on them by the nobles and clergy. This development led to new ideas and eventually established the Bourgeoisie class which Marx opposes. Commerce began to change the form of production and markets began to shift in order to support larger production and profits. This change led to
636-577: A period after the October Revolution , the Bolsheviks (now renamed the Communist Party) operated in the soviets , trade unions, and other working-class mass organisations with other revolutionary parties, such as Mensheviks, Social-Revolutionaries and anarcho-communists , and local soviets often elected non-Bolshevik majorities. Lenin did consider the Bolsheviks the vanguard insofar as they were
742-475: A proletarian class consciousness , rather than having proletarian social attributes (such as being an industrial worker). In this way of defining the proletariat, a proletarian class consciousness could be developed through a subjective standpoint with political education supplied by the Chinese Communist Party . This conception of the proletariat allowed for a Marxist theoretical framing under which
848-566: A revolutionary organisation akin to the contemporary Social Democratic Party of Germany, which was open to the people and more democratic in organisation, the Russian autocracy prevented this. Leninists argue that Lenin's ideal vanguard party would have open membership: "The members of the Party are they who accept the principles of the Party program and render the Party all possible support." This party could be completely transparent, at least internally:
954-480: A revolutionary role; that, in the words of Marx, it is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one, that it is the instrument with the aid of which social movement forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilised political forms." In the 1891 postscript to The Civil War in France (1872) pamphlet, Engels stated: 'Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at
1060-451: A series of revolutions by the bourgeois which resulted in capitalism. Marx argues that this same model can and should be applied to the fight for the proletariat. Forming unions similar to how the merchants and artisans did will establish enough power to enact change. Ultimately, Marx's theory of the proletarian's struggle would eventually lead to the fall of capitalism and the emergence of a new mode of production, socialism. Marx argued that
1166-659: A transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society ." Marx expanded upon his ideas about the dictatorship of the proletariat in his short 1875 work, Critique of the Gotha Program , a scathing criticism and attack on the principles laid out in the programme of the German Workers' Party (predecessor to the Social Democratic Party of Germany ). The programme presented a moderate gradualist , reformist and democratic way to socialism as opposed to
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#17328551019261272-518: Is also a form of abolition) for the class over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised." After World War I , Karl Kautsky became a critic of the Bolshevik Revolution , and was famously denounced by Lenin as a "renegade". The use of violence, terror and rule of a single communist party was criticised by other Marxists , including Karl Kautsky , and Rosa Luxemburg , as well as Anarcho-Communists like Peter Kropotkin . In
1378-408: Is based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie: the workers, who own no means of production, must use the property of others to produce goods and services and to earn their living. Workers cannot rent the means of production (e.g. a factory or department store) to produce on their own account; rather, capitalists hire workers, and the goods or services produced become the property of
1484-460: Is much less useful, but requires hundreds of hours of mining and cutting, and is therefore expensive. The same goes for the workers' labor power: it is valued not for the amount of wealth it produces, but for the amount of labor necessary to keep the workers fed, housed, sufficiently trained, and able to raise children as new workers. On the other hand, capitalists earn their wealth not as a function of their personal labor, which may even be null, but by
1590-413: Is not to champion the degrading of the revolutionary to the level of an amateur, but to raise the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries. If the party is successful in their goal, on the eve of revolution, a critical mass of the working class population would be prepared to usher forth the transformation of society. Furthermore, a great number of them, namely their most dedicated members, would belong to
1696-459: Is to be done? . Lenin argued that Marxism 's complexity and the hostility of the establishment (the autocratic , semi- feudal state of Imperial Russia ) required that a close-knit group of individuals pulled from the working class vanguard to safeguard the revolutionary ideology within the particular circumstances presented by the Tsarist régime ( Russian Empire ) at the time. While Lenin wished for
1802-480: Is to sell their labour power for a wage or salary . Marxist theory only vaguely defines the borders between the proletariat and adjacent social classes. In the socially superior, less progressive direction are the lower petty bourgeoisie , such as small shopkeepers, who rely primarily on self-employment at an income comparable to an ordinary wage. Intermediate positions are possible, where wage-labor for an employer combines with self-employment. In another direction,
1908-610: The Comitia Centuriata as a popular assembly of early Rome composed of centuriae , voting units representing classes of citizens according to wealth. This assembly, which usually met on the Campus Martius to discuss public policy, designated the military duties of Roman citizens. One of the reconstructions of the Comitia Centuriata features 18 centuriae of cavalry, and 170 centuriae of infantry divided into five classes by wealth, plus 5 centuriae of support personnel called adsidui , one of which represented
2014-406: The proletarii . In battle, the cavalry brought their horses and arms, the top infantry class full arms and armour, the next two classes less, the fourth class only spears, the fifth slings, while the assisting adsidui held no weapons. If unanimous, the cavalry and top infantry class were enough to decide an issue. A deeper reconstruction incorporating social backgrounds found that the senators,
2120-667: The Bolshevik Party in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin, the first leader of the Bolsheviks, coined the term vanguard party , and argued that such a party was necessary in order to provide the practical and political leadership that would impel the proletariat to achieve a communist revolution . Hence, as a political-science term, vanguard party most often is associated with Leninism ; however, similar ideas (under different names) also are present in other revolutionary ideologies . Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx presented
2226-642: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) continued regarding itself as the institutionalisation of Marxist–Leninist political consciousness in the Soviet Union; therein lay the justification for its political control of Soviet society. Article 6 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution refers to the CPSU as the "leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organizations and public organizations". The CPSU, precisely because it
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#17328551019262332-451: The Maoist view of the dictatorship of the proletariat was not exercised by the proletariat as a class in and of itself, but instead by those with the correct "proletarian consciousness". The beliefs and values which comprised the necessary Maoist proletarian consciousness were matters of political and intellectual debate, subject to re-definition over time. The Cultural Revolution questioned
2438-482: The capitalist class , and eventually to create a socialist society free from class distinctions. The proletarii constituted a social class of Roman citizens who owned little or no property. The name presumably originated with the census, which Roman authorities conducted every five years to produce a register of citizens and their property, which determined their military duties and voting privileges. Those who owned 11,000 assēs (coins) or fewer fell below
2544-403: The dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat , or working class, holds control over state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional phase from a capitalist to a communist economy, whereby the post- revolutionary state seizes the means of production , mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of
2650-555: The division of labour in a bourgeois capitalist society prevented the emergence of a proletarian class consciousness, because of the ten-to-twelve-hour workdays that the workers laboured in factories, which left them no time to learn and apply the philosophic complexities of Marxist theory . Finally, in trying to effect a revolution in Tsarist Imperial Russia (1721–1917), Lenin knew the problem of an autocratic régime that had outlawed almost all political activity. Although
2756-564: The gestor will therefore simply take the leadership into his hands and march in the van." Herzl's principle antedated by some years the Leninist idea of Bolshevism as the vanguard of the revolution by characterizing the "Zionist movement as a vanguard of the Jewish people." The Youth Guard at the forefront of Zionist mobilization in the Yishuv likewise conceived of itself as a revolutionary vanguard, and
2862-551: The kibbutz movement itself is said to have thought of itself as a 'selfless vanguard'. It is occasionally used with of certain Islamist parties. Writers Abul Ala Maududi and Sayyid Qutb both urged the formation of an Islamic vanguard to restore Islamic society. Qutb discussed of an Islamist vanguard in his book Ma'alim fi al-Tariq ( Milestones ) and Maududi formed the radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan whose goal
2968-441: The lumpenproletariat or "rag-proletariat", which Marx considers a retrograde class, live in the informal economy outside of legal employment: the poorest outcasts of society such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers, buskers, criminals and prostitutes. Socialist parties have often argued over whether they should organize and represent all the lower classes, or only the wage-earning proletariat. According to Marxism, capitalism
3074-507: The proletariat to remove the false consciousness that had been instilled in them. In its first phase, the vanguard party would exist for two reasons. Firstly, it would protect Marxism from outside corruption from other ideas, as well as advance its plans. Secondly, it would educate the proletariat in Marxism in order to cleanse them of their "false individual consciousness" and instill the revolutionary " class consciousness " in them. Our task
3180-644: The revolutionary socialist violent approach of the orthodox Marxists . As a result, the latter accused the Gotha program as being " revisionists " and ineffective. Nevertheless, he allowed for the possibility of a peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as the case of Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States), suggesting however that in other countries in which workers can not "attain their goal by peaceful means"
3286-452: The "entire political arena is as open to the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience". A party that supposedly implemented democracy to such an extent that "the general control (in the literal sense of the term) exercised over every party man in the politics brings into existence an automatically operating mechanism which produces what in biology is called the "survival of the fittest"". The party would be completely open while educating
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3392-457: The "father your own family and let your families live in a nation with society" rubric by giving the Communist parties formal leadership in society—a provision that was interpreted to either ban other parties altogether or force them to accept the Communists' guaranteed right to rule as a condition of being allowed to exist as an alternative party. Historical Historical In the 20th century,
3498-569: The "lever of our revolution must be force", on the principle that the working people had the right to revolt if they were denied political expression. Marx stated that in a proletarian-run society the state should control the "proceeds of labour" (i.e. all the food and products produced) and take from them that which was "an economic necessity", namely enough to replace "the means of production used up", an "additional portion for expansion of production" and "insurance funds" to be used in emergencies such as natural disasters. Furthermore, he believed that
3604-467: The 20th century, Vladimir Lenin developed his own variation of Marxism, known as Leninism —the adaptation of Marxism to the socio-economic and political conditions of Imperial Russia (1721–1917). This body of theory later became the official ideology of some Communist states . Lenin wrote that the Marxist concept of dictatorship meant an entire societal class holds political and economic control, within
3710-737: The Bolshevik Party itself (some evidence existed for this in the mass of ex-opposition party members who signed up for Bolshevik membership immediately after the end of the Civil War). Despite the principle of democratic centralism in the Bolshevik Party, internal factions were banned. This was considered an extreme measure and did not fall within Marxist doctrine. The ban remained until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991. In 1921, vigorous internal debate and freedom of opinion were still present within Russia and
3816-550: The Bolshevik Party, Leon Trotsky , further developed and established the vanguard party with the creation of the Fourth International . Trotsky, who believed in permanent revolution , proposed that a vanguard party must be an international political party. For some in the Frankfurt School such as Herbert Marcuse , the lumpenproletariat (the lowest stratum of the proletariat, usually lacking class consciousness) have
3922-590: The British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party (who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections). As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans under Stalin would. Internally, Lenin's critics argued that such political suppression always
4028-573: The Jamaat-e-Islami has spread wings to other South Asian countries with large Muslim populations, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India. The literature of the Baháʼí Faith also frequently refers to those serving to raise the capacities of communities around the world as the "vanguard" of the Cause of Baha'u'llah According to Roger Eatwell, some fascist parties have also operated in ways similar to
4134-535: The June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror. On 1 January 1852, the communist journalist Joseph Weydemeyer published an article entitled "Dictatorship of
4240-538: The Paris Commune model form of government was realised in the soviets (councils of workers and soldiers) established in the Russian Revolution of 1905 , whose revolutionary task was deposing the capitalist (monarchical) state to establish socialism —the dictatorship of the proletariat—the stage preceding communism . In Russia, the Bolshevik Party (described by Lenin as the "vanguard of the proletariat") elevated
4346-568: The Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'. To avoid bourgeois political corruption, Engels claimed that "the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts—administrative, judicial, and educational—by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And, in
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4452-520: The Proletariat" in the German language newspaper Turn-Zeitung , where he wrote that "it is quite plain that there cannot be here any question of gradual, peaceful transitions" and recalled the examples of Oliver Cromwell (England) and Committee of Public Safety (France) as examples of "dictatorship" and "terrorism" (respectively) required to overthrow the bourgeoisie. In that year, Marx wrote to him, stating: "Long before me, bourgeois historians had described
4558-601: The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1921, the Party made the de facto reality de jure by outlawing opposition parties and formalising single-Party rule. The impetus for having a vanguard party was used by the Bolsheviks to justify their suppression of other parties. Their rationale was that since they were the vanguard of the proletariat, their right to rule could not be legitimately questioned. Hence, opposition parties could not be permitted to exist. From 1936 onward, Communist-inspired state constitutions enshrined
4664-420: The Russian soviet model. However, according to Lenin in a developed country it would be possible to dispense with the disenfranchisement of capitalists within the democratic proletarian dictatorship as the proletariat would be guaranteed of an overwhelming majority. The Bolsheviks in 1917–1924 did not claim to have achieved a communist society. In contrast the preamble to the 1977 Constitution (Fundamental Law) of
4770-455: The Soviets emptying out of ordinary people. Half the population of Moscow and a third of Petrograd had by this stage fled to the countryside to find food and political life ground to a halt. The Bolsheviks became concerned that under these conditions—the absence of mass participation in political life and the banning of opposition parties—counter-revolutionary forces would express themselves within
4876-516: The Tsarist autocracy could not enforce a ban on political ideas, until 1905—when Tsar Nicholas II (ruled 1894–1917) agreed to the formation of a national duma —the Okhrana , the Tsarist secret police , suppressed every political group seeking social and political changes, including those with a democratic program. To counter such political conditions, Lenin said that a professional revolutionary organisation
4982-555: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the "Brezhnev Constitution"), stated that the 1917 Revolution established the dictatorship of the proletariat as "a society of true democracy" and that "the supreme goal of the Soviet state is the building of a classless, communist society in which there will be public, communist self-government." During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), all the major opposition parties either took up arms against
5088-437: The advent of mass education, mass communication and globalization. According to this argument, the working-class culture of capitalist countries tend to experience "prole drift" (proletarian drift), in which everything inexorably becomes commonplace and commodified. Examples include best-seller lists, films, music made to appeal to the masses, and shopping malls. Dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy ,
5194-457: The beginnings of censorship and mass political repression had not yet emerged. The Workers Opposition faction continued to operate despite being nominally dissolved. The debates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union continued to be published until 1923. At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Nikita Khrushchev declared transformation of the "dictatorship of
5300-619: The capitalist system, educate the public in revolutionary theory, and prepare the workers for the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat that would follow. Yet, unlike his Menshevik rivals, Lenin distinguished himself by his hostility towards the bourgeois intelligentsia , and was routinely criticised for placing too much trust in the intellectual ability of the working class to transform society through its own political struggles. Like other political organisations that sought to change Imperial Russian society, Lenin's Bolshevik Party resorted to conspiracy, and operated in
5406-424: The capitalist, who sells them at the market. Part of the net selling price pays the workers' wages (variable costs); a second part renews the means of production (constant costs, capital investment); while the third part is consumed by the capitalist class, split between the capitalist's personal profit and fees to other owners (rents, taxes, interest on loans, etc.). The struggle over the first part (wage rates) puts
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#17328551019265512-412: The concept of a vanguard party. Arts Politics Polemics Proletarian The proletariat ( / ˌ p r oʊ l ɪ ˈ t ɛər i ə t / ; from Latin proletarius 'producing offspring') is the social class of wage-earners , those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such
5618-497: The concept of the vanguard party as solely qualified to politically lead the proletariat in revolution; in Chapter II: "Proletarians and Communists" of The Communist Manifesto (1848), they said: The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over
5724-514: The dictatorship of the proletariat as previously implemented in socialism, particularly the fact that state functions had ultimately became the purview of party officials/cadres instead of becoming more broadly dispersed. One of the Cultural Revolution's stated components was a form of mass politics intended to put state power into the hands of the common people. As Mao told the Red Guards in
5830-728: The dictatorship of the proletariat incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights in Communist Party of Germany v. the Federal Republic of Germany (1957). While Karl Marx did not write much about the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat, The Communist Manifesto (1848) stated "their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions." In light of counter-revolutionary violence against Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , Marx wrote that: The purposeless massacres perpetrated since
5936-629: The dictatorship of the proletariat involved political experiments focused on dismantling state power and dispersing its functions among the workers. The dictatorship of the proletariat was viewed as a form of transitional rule in which class struggle ended and the state became extinct. Force and violence played an important role in Friedrich Engels 's vision of the revolution and rule of proletariat. In 1877, arguing with Eugen Dühring , Engels ridiculed his reservations against use of force, stating: "That force, however, plays yet another role in history,
6042-527: The dictatorship of the proletariat. There are multiple popular trends for this political thought, all of which believe the state will persist following the revolution for its enforcement capabilities: In The Road to Serfdom (1944), the Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek wrote that the dictatorship of the proletariat likely would destroy personal freedom as completely as does an autocracy . The European Commission of Human Rights found pursuing
6148-582: The early 1930s, the socialist movements that did not support the Bolshevik party line were condemned by the Communist International and called social fascism . Soviet democracy granted voting rights to the majority of the populace who elected the local soviets, who elected the regional soviets and so on until electing the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union . Capitalists were disenfranchised in
6254-421: The early 19th century, many Western European liberal scholars—who dealt with social sciences and economics—pointed out the socio-economic similarities of the modern rapidly growing industrial worker class and the classic proletarians. One of the earliest analogies can be found in the 1807 paper of French philosopher and political scientist Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais . Later it was translated to English with
6360-468: The early phase of the Cultural Revolution, all of them had "to be concerned about the affairs of the state." Ultimately, the Cultural Revolution failed to complete this reimagining of what the dictatorship of the proletariat might be. Communist Party of the Philippines theorist and activist Jose Maria Sison describes the dictatorship of the proletariat as a "socialist democracy" for the proletariat and
6466-542: The erstwhile exploiting classes the amplest opportunity to remold themselves and contribute what they can to the progress of socialist society." Under this conception, the dictatorship of the proletariat makes political allowances and respects legitimate interests of sections of the bourgeoisie which join the revolution because "it has never occurred that the proletariat has ascended to power without allies." In contrast, "the coercive apparatuses of class dictatorship are applied on those who have no desire but to destroy or subvert
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#17328551019266572-411: The great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. According to Lenin,
6678-419: The historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was (1) to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; [and] (3) that this dictatorship, itself, constitutes no more than
6784-422: The idea in terms of a class leadership forged out of a proletarian vanguard specifically to describe Marxist–Leninist parties, the term is also used for many kinds of movement shaping themselves as initially guided by a small elite. Theodor Herzl , the theorist of Zionism , believed legitimation from the majority would only hinder from the outset his movement and therefore advised that "we cannot all be of one mind;
6890-410: The immediate revolutionary excitement is not suddenly suppressed after the victory. On the contrary, it must be sustained as long as possible. Far from opposing the so-called excesses—instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated—the workers' party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction." In
6996-655: The individuals who depended on their labor power. Marx argues that these relations between the exploiters and exploited results in different modes of production and the successive stages in history. These modes of production in which mankind gains power over nature is distinguished into five different systems: the Primitive Community, Slave State, Feudal State, Capitalist System, and finally the Socialist Society. The transition between these systems were all due to an increase in civil unrest among those who felt oppressed by
7102-429: The juridical relation of their property to the means of production (e.g. owning a factory or farmland). Marx argues that history is made by man and not destiny. The instruments of production and the working class that use the tools in order to produce are referred to as the moving forces of society. Over time, this developed into the levels of social class where the owners of resources joined to squeeze productivity out of
7208-399: The knights, and the first class held 88 out of 193 centuriae , the two lowest propertied classes held only 30 centuriae , but the proletarii held only 1. Musicians, by way of comparison, had more voting power despite far fewer citizens, with 2 centuriae . "[F]or the voting to reach the proletarii a very profound split in the elite and the higher classes was required." In
7314-463: The late 19th century. Contrary to what Karl Marx had predicted, capitalism had become stronger in the last third of the 19th century. In Western Europe, the working class had become poorer; the workers and their trade unions , although they had continued to militate for better wages and working conditions, had failed to develop a revolutionary class consciousness , as predicted by Marx. To explain that undeveloped political awareness, Lenin said that
7420-651: The lowest category for military service, and their children— prōlēs (offspring)—were listed instead of property; hence the name proletarius (producer of offspring). Roman citizen-soldiers paid for their own horses and arms, and fought without payment for the commonwealth , but the only military contribution of a proletarius was his children, the future Roman citizens who could colonize conquered territories. Officially, propertyless citizens were called capite censi because they were "persons registered not as to their property...but simply as to their existence as living individuals, primarily as heads ( caput ) of
7526-446: The lumpenproletariat with suspicion and as a reserve army of labour with a primarily counter-revolutionary character unlike the proletariat, whose role in production led Marx see them as the primary agents of change. For others, the lumpenproletariat existing outside the capitalist production process gives them the unique ability to attack the capitalist system from outside which other revolutionary elements can not. Although Lenin honed
7632-440: The missing element for escalating the class struggle to revolution was a political organisation that could relate to the radicalism of political vanguard of the working class, who then would attract many workers from the middling ranks of the reformist leaders of the trade unions. It is often believed that Lenin thought the bearers of class consciousness were the common intellectuals who made it their vocation to conspire against
7738-408: The most consistent defenders of Soviet power (which he considered the dictatorship of the proletariat or 'Commune-state'). However, the situation changed drastically during the Russian Civil War and economic collapse, which decimated the working class and its independent institutions, and saw the development of irreconcilable conflicts between the Bolsheviks and their rivals. At the 10th Congress of
7844-511: The new Soviet government , took part in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists , or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. When opposition parties such as the Cadets and Mensheviks were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, they proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and foreign capitalist military forces . In one incident in Baku ,
7950-445: The new soviet government, writing that as long as classes existed a state would need to exist to exercise the democratic rule of one class (in his view, the working class) over the other (the capitalist class). Lenin wrote that "[d]ictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition of democracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over other classes; but it does mean the abolition of democracy (or very material restriction, which
8056-413: The other exploited classes, without which a proletarian state is incapable of securing democracy for the entire people. Sison writes, "While dictatorship of the proletariat may sound terrifying to some and evoke images of indiscriminate acts of violence, it is a well-established principle of scientific socialism to remove the economic basis of class oppression and exploitation and to give even the members of
8162-447: The party cadres as professional revolutionaries , and would be elected to leadership positions by the mass party membership. Thus the organisation would quickly include the entire working class. A vanguard party is a political party at the fore of a population-wide political movement and of a revolution . In the praxis of revolutionary political science the vanguard party was composed of professional revolutionaries, first effected by
8268-523: The political underground. Against Tsarist repression, Lenin argued for the necessity of confining membership to people who were professionally trained to overthrow the Okhrana; however, at its core, the Bolshevik Party was an exceptionally flexible organisation who pragmatically adapted policy to changing political situations. After the Revolution of 1905 , Lenin proposed that the Bolshevik Party "open its gates" to
8374-488: The potential to be supporters of the revolution. For others in the Frankfurt School such as Jürgen Habermas , they held views similar to that of Marx and classical marxists who viewed the lumpenproletariat as likely counter-revolutionaries. The argument is that this underclass has the potential to help change the status quo because they are excluded from it and survive largely outside of the capitalist system. Marx viewed
8480-532: The proceeds of the collective labour than someone who had not worked as hard. In the Critique , he noted that "defects are inevitable" and there would be many difficulties in initially running such a workers' state "as it emerges from capitalistic society" because it would be "economically, morally and intellectually... still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges", thereby still containing capitalist elements. In summary, Marx's view of
8586-414: The proletariat and bourgeoisie into irreconcilable conflict, as market competition pushes wages inexorably to the minimum necessary for the workers to survive and continue working. The second part, called capitalized surplus value, is used to renew or increase the means of production ( capital ), either in quantity or quality. The second and third parts are known as surplus value , the difference between
8692-473: The proletariat would inevitably displace the capitalist system with the dictatorship of the proletariat , abolishing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a communist society in which "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". During the Chinese Communist Revolution , the concept of the proletariat emphasized having
8798-568: The proletariat" into the " all-people's state ". At its founding, the People's Republic of China termed itself a people's democratic dictatorship . According to Mao Zedong , this meant a democracy for the revolutionary people (viewed as the majority of the population) and the coercive measures implicit in "dictatorship" for counterrevolutionaries . This form of state in favor of the peasantry, proletariat, and others who could assert revolutionary consciousness made no pretense of impartiality. In
8904-437: The proletariat. The phrase dictatorship of the proletariat was first used by Karl Marx in a series of articles which were later republished as The Class Struggle in France 1848–1850 . The term dictatorship indicates full control of the means of production by the state apparatus. Friedrich Engels considered the Paris Commune (1871), which controlled the capital city for two months before being suppressed, an example of
9010-481: The promises made by liberal bourgeois parties prior to the February Revolution remained unfulfilled, the soviets would need to take power for themselves. Lenin argued that in an underdeveloped country such as Russia the capitalist class would remain a threat even after a successful socialist revolution. As a result, he advocated the repression of those elements of the capitalist class that took up arms against
9116-410: The purpose of the vanguard party is to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat ; a rule of the working class . The change of ruling class, from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat, makes possible the full development of society . In early 20th-century Russia, Lenin argued that the vanguard party would lead the revolution to depose the incumbent Tsarist government, and transfer government power to
9222-537: The reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois?". Marx's attention to the Paris Commune placed the commune in the centre of later Marxist forms. This statement was written in "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League", which is credited to Marx and Engels: "[The workers] must work to ensure that
9328-538: The revolution could address the relative weakness of industrial working classes in China. Exactly what constituted a proper proletarian class consciousness was subject to intellectual and political debate. Marx argued that each social class had its characteristic culture and politics. The socialist states stemming from the Russian Revolution championed and created the official version of proletarian culture . Some have argued that this assessment has become outdated with
9434-399: The ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership . During this phase, the organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution, and to facilitate
9540-407: The same year by remarking: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon—authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in
9646-521: The second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates [and] to representative bodies, which were also added in profusion." Although many revolutionaries of the Paris Commune were anarchists and "anti-authoritarian socialists" , Engels criticised anti-authoritarian socialists in
9752-480: The soviets to power in the October Revolution of 1917. Throughout 1917, Lenin argued that the Russian Provisional Government was unrepresentative of the proletariat's interests because in his estimation they represented the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. He argued that because they continually put off democratic elections, they denied the prominence of the democratically constituted soviets and all
9858-401: The state " withering away ", denying that it could apply to "bourgeois state" and highlighting that Engels work is mostly "panegyric on violent revolution". Based on these arguments, he denounces reformists as "opportunistic", reactionary and points out violent revolution as the only method of introducing dictatorship of the proletariat compliant with Marx and Engels' work. In Imperial Russia,
9964-540: The state should then take enough to cover administrative costs, funds for the running of public services and funds for those who were physically incapable of working. Once enough to cover all of these things had been taken out of the "proceeds of labour", Marx believed that what was left should then be shared out amongst the workers, with each individual getting goods to the equivalent value of how much labour they had invested. In this meritocratic manner, those workers who put in more labour and worked harder would get more of
10070-494: The term proletariat in his socio-political theory ( Marxism ) to describe a progressive working class untainted by private property and capable of revolutionary action to topple capitalism and abolish social classes , leading society to ever higher levels of prosperity and justice. Marx defined the proletariat as the social class having no significant ownership of the means of production (factories, machines, land, mines, buildings, vehicles) and whose only means of subsistence
10176-491: The title "Modern Slavery". Swiss liberal economist and historian Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi was the first to apply the proletariat term to the working class created under capitalism, and whose writings were frequently cited by Karl Marx . Marx most likely encountered the term while studying the works of Sismondi. Marx, who studied Roman law at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin , used
10282-413: The transition to a lasting communist society . Other terms commonly used to describe the dictatorship of the proletariat include the socialist state , proletarian state, democratic proletarian state, revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, and democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. In Marxist philosophy, the term dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the antonym to the dictatorship of
10388-567: The two aspects of a revolution, the economic campaign (labour strikes for increased wages and work concessions), which featured diffused leadership; and the political campaign (socialist changes to society), which featured the decisive revolutionary leadership of the Bolshevik vanguard party. As he surveyed the European milieu in the late 1890s, Lenin found several theoretic problems with the Marxism of
10494-501: The unhappiest of the working class, who were rapidly becoming political radicals, in order for the Party to become a mass political party with genuine roots in the working class movement. The notion of a 'vanguard', as used by Lenin before 1917, did not necessarily imply single-party rule. Lenin considered the Social-Democrats (Bolsheviks) the leading elements of a multi-class (and multi-party) democratic struggle against Tsarism. For
10600-407: The wealth the proletariat produce and the wealth they consume. Marxists argue that new wealth is created through labor applied to natural resources . The commodities that proletarians produce and capitalists sell are valued not for their usefulness, but for the amount of labour embodied in them: for example, air is essential but requires no labor to produce, and is therefore free; while a diamond
10706-428: The working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness"; and that under reformist, trade-union leadership, the working class could only engage spontaneous local rebellions to improve their political position within the capitalist system, and that revolutionary consciousness developed unevenly. Nonetheless, optimistic about the working class's ability to develop a revolutionary class consciousness , Lenin said that
10812-467: The working class. In the pamphlet What is to be Done? (1902), Lenin said that a revolutionary vanguard party, mostly recruited from the working class, should lead the political campaign, because it was the only way that the proletariat could successfully achieve a revolution; unlike the economist campaign of trade union struggle advocated by other socialist political parties and later by the anarcho-syndicalists . Like Karl Marx, Lenin distinguished between
10918-400: Was his plan. Supporters argued that the reactionary civil war of the foreign-sponsored White movement required it—given Fanya Kaplan 's unsuccessful assassination of Lenin on 30 August 1918 and the successful assassination of Moisei Uritsky the same day. After 1919, the Soviets had ceased to function as organs of democratic rule as the famine induced by forced grain requisitions led to
11024-464: Was necessary to organise and lead the most class-conscious workers into a politically cohesive movement. Concerning the Russian class struggle , in the book What Is to Be Done? (1902), against the "economist" trend of the socialist parties (who proposed that the working class would develop a revolutionary consciousness from demanding solely economic improvements), Lenin said that the "history of all countries bears out that, through their own powers alone,
11130-432: Was the bearer of Marxist–Leninist ideology, determined the general development of society, directed domestic and foreign policy, and "imparts a planned, systematic, and theoretically substantiated virtuosity" to the struggle of the Soviet people for the victory of communism . Nonetheless, the politics of the vanguard party, as outlined by Lenin, is disputed among the contemporary communist movement . Lenin's contemporary in
11236-477: Was to establish a pan- Ummah worldwide Islamist ideological state starting from Pakistan, administered for God ( Allah ) solely by Muslims "whose whole life is devoted to the observance and enforcement" of Islamic law ( Shari'ah ), leading to the world becoming the House of Islam . The party members formed an elite group (called arkan ) with "affiliates" ( mutaffiq ) and then "sympathizers" ( hamdard ) beneath them. Today,
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