“In examining any dictatorship, there are two good tests. Firstly, what is the relation between the rulers and the proletariat or common people? Are the rulers members of the proletariat, as they would have you believe? Do they even identify their interests with those of ordinary citizens? The truth seems to be that, no matter where you find them, the so-called proletarian dictatorships are actually controlled by a small elite who ordinarily lose little sleep in worrying about the rights of the common man. Secondly, have the proletariat any effective say in what the rulers do? In the proletarian dictatorships I am familiar with, ordinary people enjoy little or no control over their Government or over their own lives and futures.”

— Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Page 162
Publications, Mission for my Country (1961)

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Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 92

Shah of Iran 1919–1980

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“I repeat: the experience of the notorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline in the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie.”

Vladimir Lenin book "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

Source: "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), CH. 2 An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks' Success

“For two decades the supporters of Bolshevism have been hammering it into the masses that dictatorship is a vital necessity for the defense of the so-called proletarian interests”

Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958) anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist

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Context: For two decades the supporters of Bolshevism have been hammering it into the masses that dictatorship is a vital necessity for the defense of the so-called proletarian interests against the assaults of counter-revolution and for paving the way for Socialism. They have not advanced the cause of Socialism by this propaganda, but have merely smoothed the way for Fascism in Italy, Germany and Austria by causing millions of people to forget that dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, can never lead to social liberation. In Russia, the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat has not led to Socialism, but to the domination of a new bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole people. …
What the Russian autocrats and their supporters fear most is that the success of libertarian Socialism in Spain might prove to their blind followers that the much vaunted "necessity of dictatorship" is nothing but one vast fraud which in Russia has led to the despotism of Stalin and is to serve today in Spain to help the counter-revolution to a victory over the revolution of the workers and the peasants.

“The State is a machine in the hands of the governing class for suppressing the resistance of its class antagonists. In this way the dictatorship of the proletariat differs in no way essentially from the dictatorship of any other class.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Voprosi Leninizma, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literaturi, (1939)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“She would worry, just as you worry. It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.”

Alastair Reynolds book Redemption Ark

Source: Redemption Ark (2002), Chapter 34 (p. 628)

“Marx said that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat lies between capitalism and communism. The more the proletariat presses the bourgeoisie, the more furiously they will resist. We know what vengeance was wreaked on the workers in France in 1848. And when people charge us with harshness we wonder how they can forget the rudiments of Marxism.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Speech to the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff (7 November 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 169-70 http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/nov/07b.htm
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“[Discussing the political situation in Lugansk People's Republic]: Today, there is no [legitimate] power - but a dictatorship. But not a military dictatorship and not the proletarian dictatorship. This is the dictatorship of the directors from former times.”

Aleksey Mozgovoy (1975–2015) pro-Russian rebel and warlord in Eastern Ukraine

In Russian: На сегодняшний день, власти нет – есть диктатура. Но не военная и не пролетариата. Диктатура постановщиков из прежних времён.

“This proposed monopoly of political and economic power [in the form of the Dictatorship of the proletariat] was designed to do many things for the good of humanity, but experience has proven them to be false dreams. For example, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was designed to spread the enjoyment of wealth among the people by abolishing private property and putting all means of production in the hands of the government. Why did they want to do this? They said it was to prevent all property and wealth from falling into the hands of private capitalists. But what happened when the Communists attempted to do this in Russia? It destroyed what little division of wealth there was and sent the economy hurtling back in the direction of feudalism - an economic system under which a few privileged persons dispense the necessities of life by arbitrary determination while at the same time dictating the way in which all important phases of life shall be lived by the citizens.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

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“To sum up [Trotsky wrote], "the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the Slate … The State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i. e. the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction" ([The Defence of Terrorism] p. 157). It would be difficult indeed to put the matter more plainly. The state of the proletarian dictatorship is depicted by Trotsky as a huge permanent concentration camp in which the government exercises absolute power over every aspect of the citizens’ lives and in particular decides how much work they shall do, of what kind and in what places. Individuals are nothing but labour units. Compulsion is universal, and any organization that is not part of the state must be its enemy, thus the enemy of the proletariat. All this, of course, is in the name of an ideal realm of freedom, the advent of which is expected after an indefinite lapse of historical time.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 512
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age

“"Soviet Union is under dictatorship of the proletariat, the intelligentsia class is going to be starved to death."…a well known reporter had so warned me. Yes, I am afraid I might lost some sleep. But then, dictatorship of the proletariat(at present), isn't it for the forth coming of the classless society? As long as you do not murder it, naturally it's success will arrive soon, the elimination of classes will arrive soon, then no one will be "starved to death"…But now, the imperialists and their running dogs, still trying to tell us the Soviet Union's shortcomings, as if they really wish that Soviet Union would become heaven overnight, and all of it's people would enjoy life. Now, it turns out to be like that, it (imperialist) is disappointed, and feel uneasy…This is really the tears of the devil.”

Lu Xun (1881–1936) Chinese novelist and essayist

Source: 1932年《我們不再受騙了》

“Dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The president doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Statement, Washington, D.C., (July 26, 2001); as quoted in the Seattle Seattle Post-Intelligencer (July 27, 2001) http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/32902_bush27.shtml.
2000s, 2001

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Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 92

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