Marxist/Leninist Politics
by David A. Noebel
Marxist/Leninists are not afraid to talk about dictatorships. In fact, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a respectable political Marxist expression. This dictatorship leads the dialectical clash between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Eventually, the proletariat throughout the world will rise up, cast off the chains of bourgeois oppression, and seize the means of production as well as political power, thereby establishing a worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat. When this occurs, as it already has in the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and elsewhere, mankind will be taking its next major evolutionary step toward the coming world order.
The dictatorship of the proletariat will signal the beginning of socialism and the end of property class distinctions, according to the Marxist. The government will centrally plan the economy and shatter all bourgeois oppression. Further, the dictatorship of the proletariat will wage war against any shred of bourgeois mentality (which includes the regressive ideas of traditional morality and religion). Lenin declares, "If war is waged by the proletariat after it has conquered the bourgeoisie in its own country, and is waged with the object of strengthening and developing socialism, such a war is legitimate and ‘holy.’"1 Marxist/Leninists not only demand dictatorships—they expect dictatorships based on repression and terror.
Marxists are willing to call for a one-world dictatorship of the proletariat because they expect to control it. In Marxist political theory, the Marxist/Leninist party acts as the guiding force for the working class and, once in power, the enforcer of socialist laws. Thus, Marxists are talking about a dictatorship of the Marxist/Leninist party.
Mikhail Gorbachev, at this writing, acts as this dictator for the Soviet Union, basing his perestroika (reconstruction or reorganization) on "definite [Marxist/Leninist] values and theoretical premises."2 He makes it very clear that perestroika is not merely a revolution but a direct "sequel to the great accomplishments shared by the Leninist Party in the October days of 1917. And not merely a sequel, but an extension and a development of the main ideas of the Revolution. We must impart new dynamism to the October Revolution’s historical impulse and further advance all that was commenced by it in our society."3 Gorbachev refers to such action as "Bolshevik daring."
Whether mankind would like to see this daring revolution usher in a one-world Marxist dictatorship is completely irrelevant. According to Marxism, the establishment of such a government is inevitable; it is guaranteed by dialectical processes and evolutionary forces.
These forces also guarantee that such a state ultimately will wither away. The Marxist believes that once every trace of bourgeois ideology and all the stains of capitalist tradition have been eradicated, i.e., once all classes are eliminated, a fully communist society will exist. In future communist society, every citizen will be capable of governing himself. Thus, communism will be ushered in by the dialectic and social evolution, through the vehicle of the dictatorship of the proletariat (guided by the Marxist/Leninist party). According to the Marxist, his economic and political vision will become reality through the coming world order and will one day redeem all mankind—an idea in keeping with the religious nature of Marxism/Leninism.
- V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, forty-five volumes (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), vol. 27, p. 332.
- Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika (New York: Harper and Row, 1987), p. xi.
- Ibid., p. 36.
