I always thought “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant “the proletariat is going to have a dictator” rather than “the proletariat is going to be the dictator”. Turns out this is exactly what Lenin meant, too:
The scientific term ‘dictatorship’ means nothing more nor less than authority untrammeled by any laws, absolutely unrestricted by any rules whatever, and based directly on force.
For anyone interested, here is the article. You can read for yourself how Lenin builds an argument that differentiates personal dictatorship from class dictatorship and how an ademocratic dictatorship is different from a socialist dictatorship.
There’s no way you can read this article and believe he is arguing fora personal dictatorship or a minority class dictatorship against the will of the majority. But since this quote is only compelling without context or without realizing it doesn’t actually mention the proletariat, here’s another, better contextualized quote that is far more aligned with the theoretical arguments in the text.
The point is, however, that there is the dictatorship of a minority over the majority, the dictatorship of a handful of police officials over the people; and there is the dictatorship of the overwhelming majority of the people over a handful of tyrants, robbers and usurpers of the people’s power. (Emphasis added)
I always thought “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant “the proletariat is going to have a dictator” rather than “the proletariat is going to be the dictator”. Turns out this is exactly what Lenin meant, too:
For anyone interested, here is the article. You can read for yourself how Lenin builds an argument that differentiates personal dictatorship from class dictatorship and how an ademocratic dictatorship is different from a socialist dictatorship.
There’s no way you can read this article and believe he is arguing fora personal dictatorship or a minority class dictatorship against the will of the majority. But since this quote is only compelling without context or without realizing it doesn’t actually mention the proletariat, here’s another, better contextualized quote that is far more aligned with the theoretical arguments in the text.
This is what Lenin meant.