Will revolution always end in dictatorship?

[dcsmart]

Eric Ruder explains that socialists look to a society based on mass democracy.

ONE OF the most frequent objections to the idea that the organized working class can and should take charge of the economic and political levers of society is that such efforts invariably end in tyranny. The case is straightforward: Just look what happened in Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Castro's Cuba, where efforts to build a socialist society ended with purges and police states at worst, and a low overall standard of living at best.
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In each case, the state controlled the economy, a bureaucratic elite controlled the state, and workers and peasants remained exploited. Despite the rhetoric of workers' democracy, dissent and debate were repressed. Instead of a socialist society where workers and peasants could enjoy the fruits of their labor, a bureaucratic ruling class took power and used authoritarian measures to impose a state capitalist logic on all aspects of social and economic life (see these articles for a Marxist account of the political and economic factors at work in Russia, China and Cuba).
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FULL ARTICLE
http://socialistworker.org/2009/06/23/will-revolution-end-in-dictatorship
(There are links within the article above to references sited)

SEE ALSO
Tyrannies ruling in the name of socialism
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/28/in-the-name-of-socialism

The case for a socialist alternative
http://socialistworker.org/2008/12/19/the-case-for-socialism


Some fun summer reading.....:toast:

[Hydra]

1. 1984 said it best

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."