Lenin's Dictatorship Claims to be the True Democracy

The initial drive toward democracy from below and self- empowerment of the masses, was replaced in 1917 by emphasis on the reconstructed state machine that according to Lenin was indispensable for defending the revolution and pursuing its main goals. In form, Lenin said, this was a dictatorship, but in substance, because it represented the interests and aspirations of the large majority of the population, it was the true, substantive democracy. The main problem with Lenin’s concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was his contempt for the rule of law. For him, the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat “is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, power that is unrestricted by any laws.”

--Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 106.