The essence of the dictatorship of the party. Features of the political regime and the dictatorship of the party

What is the essence of the dictatorship of the party? In a state where one political organization achieves individual power, it gets rid of all its competitors and merges with the state apparatus. The most vivid example of this order is the Soviet Union.

Example of Bolsheviks

In order to understand the essence of the dictatorship of the party, it is sufficient to consider in detail the example of the Bolshevik Party, which came to power in Russia in 1917. The leadership of the RSDLP (b) did not intend to reckon with its opponents. When the October Revolution took place , part of society still harbored the illusion that Lenin and his associates would organize the work of the Constituent Assembly. This body was to determine the political future of Russia with the help of a democratic procedure.

The Constituent Assembly worked only one day. It included not only the Bolsheviks, but also the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They also adhered to the leftist views, but disagreed with Lenin in some fundamental questions. In particular, the SRs refused to recognize the first decrees of Soviet power. By a majority of votes, the Constituent Assembly elected its representative Viktor Chernov as its chairman.

When the RSDLP (b) realized that the new government was becoming an opposition, it was decided at all costs to disperse it. In advance, the government banned the holding of demonstrations in Petrograd. The deputies were expelled from the meeting hall the day after the commencement of work. This scene became known due to the phrase "Guard tired". This is how the defense reasoned the temporary closure of the Tauride Palace, where the deputies sat.

State terror

Later it became clear that the Constituent Assembly was dispersed definitively. Residents of Petrograd held several demonstrations and rallies in support of the representative body. And they were shot by parts of Latvian shooters. Killed, according to various estimates, from 8 to 20 people.

In this tragedy, the essence of the dictatorship of the party was manifested. The Bolsheviks did not want to share their powers and were ready to destroy all their opponents. Terror is the principle that is key if it is a party dictatorship that seized power in any state.

Prohibition of discussion

However, even after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, some Russian parties remained in the legal field. They could become serious competitors of the Bolsheviks in the struggle for public opinion. They were Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In the way the RSDLP (B) destroyed them, the essence of the dictatorship of the party reappeared.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks remained the only non-military way to come to power. These were the Soviets. These bodies turned into a typewriter, stamped the necessary voices. The dictatorship of the party of the proletariat consisted in the prohibition of any discussion if the decision had already been taken "above" by the Central Committee.

Opponents of the Bolsheviks successfully re-elected to the Soviets and began to change their mood. The situation for Lenin and his supporters was extremely shaky. The situation was bad also because the Communists controlled only Petrograd and Moscow, while in the expanses of the rest of the country the white movement was active.

Splice party with the state

In May 1918, Zinoviev likened the Soviets to the House of Lords in the British Parliament. Elective representative bodies were getting out of the hands of the Bolsheviks. In this regard, the party leadership decided to strike a preemptive strike. In the spring of 1918, the leaders of the Assembly of Commissioners passed the arrests, on which the oppositionists mostly relied.

Meanwhile, the process of merging the party apparatus with the state began. The People's Commissariats, the Council of Defense and the Council of People's Commissars were wholly Bolshevik. Party members increasingly became bureaucrats and part of the nomenklatura. By 1920, when the Ninth Congress of the RCP (B.) Was held, there were already every second Bolshevik in the Soviets (and in the entire organization there were 98% of the total number of deputies). And only every tenth member of the party worked in production.

The dominance of special services

Later, the essence of the dictatorship of the party of the 1920s was the use of special services and repressive apparatus. In this capacity, the Bolsheviks had a Cheka. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries became the main concern of the Chekists. A large network of informants was created. For every notable opposition, there were denunciations and slanders.

The dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party officially took shape in 1922. Then Lenin declared that the only way to kindle the world revolution was to create a single communist political movement. In the summer, demonstration trials began against the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Such views, widely covered in the press, were also propagandistic in nature. In society there was an image of enemies and traitors, with which it was necessary to be straightened. Later this practice was successfully applied in relation not only to professional political opponents, but also to any citizens dissatisfied with the power.

Repression against opponents

Repression against the oppositional currents was justified by "revolutionary expediency" and other loud slogans. After the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries were convicted, the Soviet special services organized a congress of that part of the party that was ready to merge with the Bolsheviks. These socialists were called "initiators". They dissolved the party and joined the Communists. The fate of the Mensheviks developed in a similar way.

In the Soviet Union there was only one party left. But even inside the RCP (B) a similar process was launched. In 1924, after the death of Lenin , a struggle for power began between the Bolsheviks of the first wave.

Intraparty cleansing

The struggle in the ranks of the CPSU (B.) Was not so much a social character as a personal one. Nevertheless, when Stalin became the sole leader of the party, he also got rid of theoretical discussions. Opponents were convicted and for the most part shot in the 30s. Features of the political regime and the essence of the dictatorship of the party led to the dictatorship of one person.

The main opponent of Stalin at first was Lev Trotsky. He, along with Lenin, organized the October Revolution, while Koba did not claim to lead at all. It is because of this that Trotsky was first subjected to repression. At the last moment he managed to emigrate. A few more years the revolutionary lived in Mexico until he was killed by a Soviet agent in 1940.

It is worth noting that some of the principles described above, worked out by the Bolsheviks, were later successfully used by the Nazis in the Third Reich. In the modern world, the dictatorship of the party is much less common. Today, a country with such a political system is communist China, where all state institutions are also replaced by party institutions, and the opposition is banned.