3

Aside from the narrow matter of tempo of development, it has also been necessary to draw from the Russian experience conclusions about the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." This concept, never fully explored in the literature of revolutionary Marxism, was seen in theory as a brief, transitional passage on the road to greater freedom. The Russian reality has given it instead a dark and fearful content. This experience has taught us that the contradiction between authoritarianism and democratic socialism is complete. The one-party monopoly of political life, developing into a bureaucratic oligarchy, an outcome that clearly rose out of some of the basic premises of Bolshevism, cannot serve socialist ends. No broader democracy can come from a political system based on force and lacking in institutional safeguards against the corruptions of power and violence.