this opposition ruthlessly. Precisely because the opposition will inevitably be so embittered, it is necessary that the workers’ authority, the proletarian rule, shall take the form of a dictatorship. Now “dictatorship” signifies very strict methods of government and a resolute crushing of enemies. It is obvious that in such a state of affairs there can be no talk of “freedom” for everyone. The dictatorship of the proletariat is incompatible with freedom for the bourgeoisie. This is the very reason why the dictatorship of the proletariat is needed: to deprive the bourgeoisie of freedom; to bind it hand and, foot; to make it impossible for it to carry on a struggle against the revolutionary proletariat. The more vigorous the resistance of the bourgeoisie, the more desperate the mobilisation of its forces, the more threatening its attitude, the sterner and harsher must be the proletarian dictatorship. In extreme cases the workers’ government must not hesitate to use the method of the terror. Only when the suppression of the exploiters is complete, when they have ceased to resist, when it is no longer in their power to injure the working class, will the proletarian dictatorship grow progressively milder. Meanwhile the bourgeoisie, little by little, will fuse with the proletariat; the workers’ State will gradually die out; society as a whole will be transformed into a communist society in which there will be no classes.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat (a temporary institution) the means of production will from the nature of the case belong, not to society as a whole, but only to the proletariat, to its State organisation. For the time being, the working class, that is the majority of the population, monopolises the means of production. Consequently there does not yet exist communist production in all its completeness. There still exists the division of society into classes; there is still a governing class (the proletariat); all the means of production are monopolised by this new governing class; there is still a State authority (the proletarian authority) which crushes its enemies. But as the resistance of the sometime capitalists, landlords, bankers, generals, and bishops, is crushed, in like measure the system of proletarian dictatorship will without any revolution undergo transformation into communism.