ABSTRACT
One of the issues most closely associated with the transition to socialism is ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’. In Marxist theory, the transition to socialism is meant to come about through the eruption of the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working class, or proletariat, whereby state power would pass into the hands of the proletariat. The latter would exercise its dictatorship until it triumphs over all the other classes which remain in society even after the proletariat assumes power as residuals of a long, deep-rooted past. During that phase, all power would be in the hands of the proletariat to enable it to accomplish its historic task, that of eliminating all classes antagonistic to the working class.79 Once it has accomplished its mission, its dictatorship will come to an end, since no other classes will exist and the state apparatus will fall, along with the entire system of laws, when all men (those who remain!) will have attained the highest stage of communism.
