Dictatorship is for the liberation of the proletariat, which allows them to flourish
accordingly to their human nature. It is positive in the sense that releasing the
proletariat from capitalist oppression will allow the individual freedom to act of their
own free will. It is paramount to understand that when Marx is talking about a
dictatorship of the proletariat, he is not discussing the form of a dictatorship but its
content (Marquit, 2005). He is not referring to a dictatorship in its traditional form of
an autocratic and oppressive regime, but rather to the revolutionary nature of
transforming a capitalist society into a classless one. Once the bourgeoisie has been
sufficiently suppressed, the democratisation of the proletariat would be able to begin.
Through the establishment of a dictatorship, the exploited proletariat seeks to wield
political power to entirely dismantle the bourgeoise’s exploitative system.
Additionally, Marx also argues that the modes of production present at the time also
influence human nature. Humans “begin to distinguish themselves from animals as
soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned
by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are
indirectly producing their actual material life” (Marx & Engels, 1976, p.7). Capitalism
broke down production’s social nature and individualised it to improve efficiency.
People became alienated from the product produced, the act of production, their
human nature and finally, each other (Boucher & Kelly, 2017). The Dictatorship of the
Proletarian would remedy the alienated individualised nature of capitalist production
because production would not need to maximise efficiency to generate capital growth.
The means of production would be returned to their social nature, which is innate to
human nature. Overall, the purpose of the Proletarian Dictatorship is that of individual
liberation and progression; only by forcefully stomping out oppression can the latter
be realised.
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