Abstract

For Marx, the Commune — "at last discovered" for the emancipation of the working class —was a form of proletarian dictatorship, which was based on the direct rule of the working class. This dictatorship sustains itself through a coercive (negative) function to negate the old order and a positive function to achieve an economically, socially and politically emancipated society. Our contemporaries mainly identify the proletarian dictatorship with its coercive function. In contrast, this study defines the proletarian dictatorship by its positive function, and subordinates the coercive to the positive. Moreover, as Marx explains, the proletariat needs to "shatter" the state before constructing its own political rule as a precondition to withering away of politics. The proletarian dictatorship cannot be a bureaucratic state because this model is not compatible with human emancipation, and it inherently resists withering away. Human emancipation becomes possible when the proletariat begins to rule through direct power, and abolishes the economic, social and political causes — including bureaucratism — of alienation, exploitation and domination.