2 ms·
Lenin disagrees: "The goal of socialism is communism."
by willcipriano 3y ago
Lenin disagrees: "The goal of socialism is communism."
- wesselbindt 3y agoLenin is not talking about democratic socialism there, but rather the full blown dictatorship of the proletariat, nationalizing all means of production, etc etc kind of socialism. When it comes to democratic socialism, Lenin was not a fan, to put it mildly. He is absolutely scathing of the concept in for example _the State and Revolution_.
- mcv 3y agoWhile a nice quote and possibly even true, Lenin's totalitarian "communism" is not the goal of socialism. Communism was supposed to be a stateless utopia, and Lenin definitely did not get rid of the state. His wasn't even a dictatorship of the proletariat, it's a dictatorship by a small elite. Social democracy is much closer to a "dictatorship" of the proletariat, because there workers actually have a voice. It's important to realise that when Marx wrote his thing, many "democracies" still didn't allow poor people to vote. Marx would have been much happier about western capitalist denocracies than about Soviet communism. Although obviously the next step has to be to get money out of politics. And out of news media. Giving the people a voice doesn't help much if they're easily manipulated by the rich and powerful.