Economics And Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Lenin’s article on the political and economic features of the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was written on October 30, 1919, first published in Pravda, issue No. 255, November 7, 1919, and published in Izvestia (News) daily organ of the Union Central Executive Committee and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, issue No. 250. The Chinese translation is included in the second revised edition of the Vol. 37 of the Complete Works of Lenin.

After the victory of the October Revolution, in order to maintain the new Soviet regime, the proletariat used revolutionary violence to fight against counter-revolutionary violence. However, this kind of revolutionary struggle was criticized by opportunists within the international communist movement, such as Kautsky, Martov, Chernov and others. They have published a lot of articles praising bourgeois democracy, while distorted and slandered the proletarian dictatorship of the Soviet regime. In this background, Lenin has regarded it necessary to theoretically criticize the wrong views of the Second International opportunists on the dictatorship of the proletariat. On October 30, 1919, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the establishment of the Soviet regime, Lenin wrote the article “Economy and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” on the basis of his former work titled as the “Draft of a Pamphlet on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”.

The article consists of five parts, in which Lenin summarized the two years’ experience in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, expounded the economic and political characteristics of the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, and elaborated on the task of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Firstly, on the basis of Marx’s theory, Lenin reiterated: Between capitalism and communism there lies a definite tranition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble. In this part, Lenin also criticized the erroneous view that the petty-bourgeois democrats either avoid recognising any necessity for a whole historical period of transition from capitalism to communism or regard it as their duty to concoct schemes for reconciling the two contending forces instead of leading the struggle of one of these forces.

Secondly, Lenin made a scientific analysis of the social and economic forms and class structure in the transitional period, pointing out that the basic forms of social economy in this period are capitalism, petty commodity production and communism, and the corresponding basic forces are bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoise (especially the peasants) and the proletariat. Lenin added: In Russia, the dictatorship of the proletariat must inevitably differ in certain particulars from what it would be in the advanced countries, owing to the very great backwardness and petty-bourgeois character of our country. But the basic forces—and the basic forms of social economy— are the same in Russia as in any capitalist country, so that the peculiarities can apply only to what is of lesser importance.

Thirdly, Lenin elaborated incisively that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a new form of proletarian struggle. There are five forms of class struggle in Russia’s transitional period: (1) Suppressing the resistance of the exploiting class; (2) Civil war; (3) “Neutralizing” of the petty bourgeoisie, especially the peasantary; (4) “Utilizing” the bourgeoisie; (5) Cultivating new discipline.

Fourthly, Lenin pointed out that socialism is the abolition of the classes. In order to abolish classes it is necessary, first, to overthrow the landowners and capitalists. This part of our task has been accomplished, but it is only a part, and moreover, not the most difficult part. In order to abolish classes it is necessary, second, to abolish the difference between factory worker and peasant, to make workers of all of them. The way to accomplish this task is the transition from individual, disunited petty commodity production to large-scale social production which will take a long time. This transition must of necessity be extremely protracted. Lenin warned: It may only be delayed and complicated by hasty and incautious administrative and legislative measures. It can be accelerated only by affording such assistance to the peasant as will enable him to effect an immense improvement in his whole farming technique to reform it radically.

To sum up, in his article “Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” Lenin wrapped up the experience of the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the two years since the victory of the October Revolution. He made a scientific analysis of the social and economic forms in the transitional period, expounded the characteristics of two social and economic structures, namely of capitalism and communism in the period of proletarian dictatorship, and pointed out that the task of the dictatorship of the working class is to eliminate class. This article played an important role in the development of Marxist state theory and the theory of proletarian dictatorship and has important theoretical and practical significance.