this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
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TankieJerk
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The answer to that is unfortunately complex.
The actual original meaning of 'dictatorship of the proletariat', as used by Marx, is that of a workers' democracy. For comparison, bourgeois democracy (ie democracy as was and is largely practiced in capitalist nations) was regarded as a 'dictatorship of the bourgeois'.
Unfortunately, Marx's high-concept language is sometimes taken at face value, or the notion of metaphorical 'dictatorship' taken much further than intended. What Marx meant was that one class held all the (functional) power by the construction of the institutions.
For that reason, you have both uneducated pro-and-anti-communists clamoring that socialism means dictatorship.
To make things more unclear, tankies, while taking 'dictatorship of the proletariat' further than intended (ie by suppressing the voice of the fucking proletariat), also believe that their favorite dictatorships are actually super democratic and not dictatorships, and the 99% approval rating in elections are just proof of how much the proletariat loves a fascist boot painted red.
Thanks for the clarification! That definitely makes a lot more sense