Dictatorship Of Proletariat

“Dictatorship? Nooooooo!” one of my friends said when I talked about that well-known Marxian concept. But, is it a dictatorship actually?

1- What is democracy? In the Western concept, democracy is the people ruling of state. Not the whole people but the ‘majority’ of people. When we have an election with two candidates, we choose one of them to run the state. If the first candidate wins the election with 55% of votes, this means that the 55% of people only rules. In another term, we are practicing the dictatorship of the 55% against the remaining 45%. So, in somehow, the democracy is some sort of dictatorship in its core.

2- In western societies, its not even the dictatorship of majority. To hold a campaign. you need to have millions of dollars(The US presidential campaigns in 2008 spent about $1.5 billion). So, you need to be a millionaire or have strong relationships with millionaires to make them fund your campaign. This also limits the ability of most people to participate in this ‘democratic’ process.

We have to put in mind that businessmen only funds campaigns as it would become a political leverage in the future.

So, the recent western democracies are not even about the dictatorship of majority. It’s about the dictatorship of elite that owns money and run businesses.

3- Now, we can understand the dictatorship of proletariat. Dictatorship of proletariat means practicing a real democracy of the majority, the real majority without the recent forms of personal interests. It’s about giving the power to the people and demolishing all kind of personal interests. So now, and only now, we can say that we have a real democracy.