DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 728, 26 June 1953, Page 5

DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

Sir,-Mr. J. Malton Murray repeats the error of some previous correspondents who insist on attempting to apply quotations and terminology, used by Lenin 30 or 40 years ago, to conditions which, so far as Russia is concerned, . have long ceased to exist. My earlier quotations, which could be multiplied a hundredfold, show that the term "toilers" does not signify in Leninist terminology simply "wage workers’ but also peasants and those other strata of poor people who, while not industrial workers, formed the bulk of the toiling population in the Russia of Czarist days and the times which immediately followed. As I explained earlier, Lenin saw the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as an alliance between certain classes for the purpose of building a Socialist society, That socialist society has now been built and is developing toward a fully Communist society. There are still social classes, but not antagonistic classes. The main function of the socialist State now is to guide society towards full Communism to defend the country against the aggression of a dying but still dangerous capitalist world. As there are no longer antagonistic classes in the Soviet Union, there is no need for separate political parties. The party system in Britain dates only from the beginning of the 18th Century, and after that comparatively brief period has arrived at » stage when the two main parties are agreed on all but details and-are really Tweediedum and Tweedledee.. Mr. Murray is in error in saying that candidates for the governing bodies in the U.S.S.R. can only be nominated by the

Communist Party or its leaders. Article 141 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution specifically grants the right of nomination to all public organisations and to trade unions, Communist Party organisations, co-operatives, youth and cultural organisations. In any case, Mr. Murray is wrong ‘to think that voting for a candidate is the beginning and end of genuine democracy. When Lenin said that "Every cook must learn to rule the State" he did not mean simply that she should have the vote every three years. He ehvisaged a social order in which "Every citizen to a man must .. . participate in the government of the country." The American Andrew Jackson had a glimpse of the possibilities of the "common" people when he declared that any man could carry out the duties of President of the United States. Unfortunately, in his country, government got into the hands of big business and the democratic constitution became a screen behind which operated Tammany and Boss Pendergast and their Republican counterparts.

SID

SCOTT

(Auckland).