The theory of aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism was one of the cornerstones of Stalinism in the internal politics of the Soviet Union. Although the term "class struggle" was introduced by Marx/Engels and "aggravation of class struggle" was an expression originally coined by Vladimir Lenin in 1919 to refer to the dictatorship of the proletariat,"The main thing that Socialists fail to understand—which constitutes their shortsightedness in matters of theory, their subservience to bourgeois prejudices, and their political betrayal of the proletariat—is that in capitalist society, whenever there is any serious aggravation of the class struggle intrinsic to that society, there can be no alternative but the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat." Thesis and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat § 12 the theory of "class struggle under socialism" was put forward by Joseph Stalin in 1933 and supplied a theoretical base for the claim that ongoing repression of political opponents is necessary.
Exposition and origin
Lenin believed that the Civil War represented the peak of the aggravation of class struggle, which found its representation in the dictatorship of the Soviet regime, and that by war's end, and the victorious establishment of a workers' state in Russia, the bourgeois class was effectively... Read More