Editing Leninism (section)

=== Dictatorship of the proletariat ===
{{main|Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin|l1=Dictatorship of the proletariat}}
[[File:L'état et la révolution.jpg|thumb|1970 French edition of Lenin's 1917 book ''[[The State and Revolution]]'']]
In [[Bolshevik Russia]], government by [[direct democracy]] was realised and effected by the [[Soviet (council)|soviets]] (elected councils of workers), which Lenin said was the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat" postulated in [[orthodox Marxism]].<ref name="Isaac Deutscher 19542">{{cite book |first=Isaac |last=Deutscher |author-link=Isaac Deutscher |date=1954 |title=The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref> <!-- The soviets had their power vastly reduced after the Bolsheviks took power. While the Bolsheviks centralised authority in their one-party state system, the soviets effectively had little say. -->The soviets comprised representative committees from the factories and the trade unions but excluded the capitalist social class to establish a proletarian government by and for the working class and the peasants. Concerning the political disenfranchisement of the capitalist social class in Bolshevik Russia, Lenin said that "depriving the exploiters of the franchise is a purely Russian question, and not a question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in general.&nbsp;... In which countries&nbsp;...democracy for the exploiters will be, in one or another form, restricted&nbsp;...is a question of the specific national features of this or that capitalism."<ref name="Leninism, p. 265"/> In chapter five of ''[[The State and Revolution]]'' (1917), Lenin describes the dictatorship of the proletariat as:

{{blockquote|the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors.&nbsp;... An immense expansion of democracy, which, for the first time, becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich&nbsp;... and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the change which democracy undergoes during the 'transition' from capitalism to communism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hill (historian) |url=https://archive.org/details/leninrussianrevolution |title=Lenin and the Russian Revolution |date=1993 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |location=London |pages=85–86}}</ref>|title=|source=}}

Concerning the disenfranchisement from democracy of the capitalist social class, Lenin said: "Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, of the [[Exploitation of labour|exploiters]] and oppressors of the people—this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism."<ref>''Collected Works'', vol. 25, pp. 461–462, {{cite book |title=Marx Engels Lenin on Scientific Socialism |publisher=Novosti Press Ajency Publishing House |place=Moscow |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmeHGAAACAAJ |access-date=18 March 2016 |archive-date=31 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200131161137/https://books.google.com/books?id=KmeHGAAACAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> The dictatorship of the proletariat was effected with soviet [[constitutionalism]], a form of government opposite to the dictatorship of capital (privately owned means of production) practised in bourgeois democracies. Under soviet constitutionalism, the Leninist vanguard party would be one of many political parties competing for election to government power.<ref name="Modern Thought Third Edition 1999 pp. 476" /><ref name="Isaac Deutscher 19542" /><ref name="Carr, Edward Hallett 1929">{{cite book |last=Carr |first=Edward Hallett |author-link=E. H. Carr |title=The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917–1929 |date=1979}}</ref> Nevertheless, because of the [[Russian Civil War]] (1917–1924) and the anti-Bolshevik terrorism of opposing political parties aiding the [[White Army|White Armies']] counter-revolution, the Bolshevik government banned all other political parties, which left the Leninist vanguard party as the only political party in Russia. Lenin said that such political suppression was not philosophically inherent to the dictatorship of the proletariat.<ref name="Moshe 1969">{{cite book |last=Lewin |first=Moshe |author-link=Moshe Lewin |date=1969 |title=Lenin's Last Struggle}}</ref><ref name="Carr, Edward Hallett 1929"/><ref name="Deutscher 1959" />