Socialism today splits into reformists, anarchists and Marxists. Reformists give up on breaking with capitalism and settle for minor adjustments and class cooperation. Anarchists start with the individual, believing free communities will emerge naturally. Marxists put the organized working class at the center. They argue that only a united proletariat taking control of production can end exploitation. The real divide is between building from isolated individuals or from the collective strength of workers.
Real change is not gradual. Conflicts within society build up until they trigger a fundamental break. This is the idea of quantity changing into quality. Revolutions happen when the old order decays and new forces grow strong enough to replace it. Or as Lenin says it, when the old cannot rule in the old way, and the new is not strong enough to rule in the new way. Ideas develop out of real conditions. How people produce and who owns the tools of production shape their worldview. Change the material base first and thought will follow. In a word, this is the theory of dialectical materialism. Ignoring this is chasing illusions. Anarchists often misunderstand or dismiss these insights, treating them like empty words instead of tools for understanding how power shifts.
A small ownership class controls land, factories, machines and raw materials. Workers must sell their labor for a wage, while owners keep all the extra value. This setup depends on private property and state power. But a socialist revolution will make productive forces common property. Classes, wages and markets will gradually disappear under the proletarian dictatorship. Production will be organized to meet people’s needs. The old state apparatus loses its purpose and it withers away. This is, in a word, the theory of revolution.
Practical goals are clear. Build mass unions and cooperatives to sharpen class awareness, but don’t mistake them for the final goal. Form a disciplined workers’ party that can win political power. Use that power to expropriate the capitalist class, protect gains with proletarian red army, and reorganize production on a social basis. Strikes, elections and protests prepare the ground. Only a full socialist revolution, led by a communist party, can uproot exploitation.
>>2369793It sounds to me like this is distinct from
>>2369770 then, because in one case there is a DOTP established taking power of the state whereas the quote seems to imply it would only work within 'mass organisations' and that the revolution would be a 'social' one and thus never explicitly involve the state.
>>2369804pdf related offers a good insight how the leninist party actually works. you have the central party organization that consists of 'consciouss agents of history' that actively try to manipulate and change history. they are a loose skeleton structure, with these agents of history being influencers/tribunes in mass organizations. when a party expands, when it becomes a mass party it is 'merged' into the fabric of society, it loses it's 'separate from' and becomes 'one with' civil society. does this make sense? it's all very philosophical i'm afraid.
>>2369806>Abolishment of vanguard idea has best of both worldsexcept that it does not work in reality.
<The mere presentation of the question—“dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class; dictatorship (party) of the leaders, or dictatorship (party) of the masses?”—testifies to most incredibly and hopelessly muddled thinking. These people want to invent something quite out of the ordinary, and, in their effort to be clever, make themselves ridiculous. It is common knowledge that the masses are divided into classes, that the masses can be contrasted with classes only by contrasting the vast majority in general, regardless of division according to status in the social system of production, with categories holding a definite status in the social system of production; that as a rule and in most cases—at least in present-day civilised countries—classes are led by political parties; that political parties, as a general rule, are run by more or less stable groups composed of the most authoritative, influential and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions, and are called leaders. All this is elementary. All this is clear and simple. Why replace this with some kind of rigmarole, some new Volapük?https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch05.htm >>2369804>>2369815>there is a DOTP established taking power of the statemaybe just another nota bene: the goal of a communist revolution is not to take
bourgeois state power, but to smash the bourgeois state (in particular the bureaucratic and military apparatus) and replace it with a dotp (a proletarian/worker's state). so it is actually
creating not taking power, and this is in line with lenin saying that the ussr was for the first time in history (so something
new) that the poor and working classes had created their own state, and their own state power.