DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

in Marxist thought, rule by the proletariat (the economic and social class consisting of industrial workers who derive income solely from their labour) during the transitional phase between the abolition of the capitalist system and the establishment of communism. During this transition the proletariat is to suppress bourgeois resistance to its socialist revolution, destroy the social relations of production underlying the class system, and create a classless society. Originally conceived by Karl Marx as a dictatorship by the majority class, it became in Russia (after October 1917) a dictatorship of a political party that claimed to represent the proletariat.