what measure the dictatorship of the proletariat would be connected with the formation of a proletarian (Red) army, with the practice of Terror, with the limitation of political liberties. They had to underline, and they did underline, not these changeable elements—varying in the various countries—of the proletarian dictatorship, but its fundamental and unchanging feature, inevitable for any country and any historical conditions under which the proletariat seizes power.
The proletariat not only seizes power; in grasping it, the proletariat gives to it such a character, such a degree of concentration, energy, determination, absoluteness, infinitude, as according to the words of the programme, 'will allow it to crush all resistance on the part of the exploiters.' That is the fundamental feature of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is therefore an organisation of the State and a form of administration of State affairs which, in the transitional stage from capitalism to Communism, will allow the proletariat, as the ruling class, to crush all resistance on the part of the exploiters to the work of Socialist reconstruction.
It is thus clear that the question itself of the necessity, the inevitability of a proletarian dictatorship for every capitalist country is connected with the question as to whether the resistance of the exploiters to their expropriation by Socialist society—or, more precisely, by society marching towards Socialism—is inevitable.
In the same way, the question regarding the degree of severity of the dictatorship, the extent and conditions of the limitation of the political rights of the bourgeoisie and limitation of political liberty in general, the application of terrorist methods, etc., is indissolubly linked with the question of the degree, forms, stubborness and organisation of resistance by the exploiters.
Anyone who expresses a doubt as to the inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a necessary stage towards Socialist society, thereby expresses a doubt of
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