April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Dictatorship of the proletariat
Lenin had no illusions that it was ever possible to win “hegemony” over
the bourgeois “democratic” state and use it for the benefit of the working
class. He had no intentions of fighting corruption within the bourgeois
state by making fancy campaigns or reasoning with people who had
diametrically opposite objective interests to those of the working class.
The crucial thing he understood was that the state serves the interests of
the ruling class, it is not neutral between the classes and that for the
working class to take power, it cannot simply take over the existing
capitalist state structures. On the contrary, these must be replaced by a
workers' state, a workers’ democracy, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Bolsheviks, once they had won a majority in the soviets, immediately
proceeded to dismantle the old state apparatus and the – bourgeois
democratic – provisional government. Instead power was passed on to the
workers’ and soldiers’ soviets – councils – that had developed incidentally
as extended strike committees, but that in the struggle had taken on more
and more responsibilities in administering society.
The soviets were working organs of representatives directly elected in the
factories, barracks and working class neighbourhoods. They were to be
based on the for principles that Lenin had formulated– which were
incidentally developed as a result of the experience of the Paris Commune:
All officials are to be elected and subject to recall at any time;
The salaries of all state officials not to exceed an average worker’s wage;
Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy. The standing army
to be replaced by the arming of the whole people.
Gradually a system of rotation must be introduced in the workings of the
state – when all are bureaucrats none are bureaucrats.
This is how Lenin viewed the question of the state. In his writings you will
not find a single word about achieving “hegemony” over the state
apparatus.
South Africa today
However, this is not merely a theoretical discussion. How does this apply
to the current situation in South Africa? After the 1994 elections we had a
situation where the ANC won the elections and thus formed the new
government (although at that time it was a Government of National Unity
including other parties). But, on the one hand, the state structures were
not fundamentally transformed, and on the other economic power was still
in the hands of the same handful of (white-owned) monopolies which had
dominated the highly concentrated structure of the South African economy
for decades. What this basically means is that we are dealing with a
capitalist state structure defending the capitalist mode of production.
As we see the masses becoming increasingly disillusioned with capitalism,
the character of the state is becoming clearer by the day. Especially the
public sector workers’ strike highlighted this fact clearly. The workers,
fighting for decent working conditions and a living wage, were met with
the harshest police repression since the fall of the apartheid regime.
Unemployment, poverty and misery – all the products of capitalism – are
dragging down the South African working class, but when the workers
protest they are arrested and oppressed – from the arrest of antielectricity
cut-off protesters to the eviction of squatters fighting for a
piece of land to live on. In all these instances the police, a very important
part of the state apparatus, is used to defend the interests of capital. The
fact that the ANC and SACP leaders are sitting in government does not
make any fundamental difference. As long as they are committed to the