Trotski beweerde in 1921 op het Tiende Partijcongres over de Arbeidersoppositie die meer democratie eiste: “They [the workers' opposition] have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy! . .. The Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship … regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class . . . The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy.” Geciteerd uit Maurice Brinton: The Bolsheviks and workers' control: the state and counter-revolution; 1970..
Zinoviev: “We have the dictatorship of the working class and for that very reason we also have the dictatorship of the Communist Party. (…) The dictatorship of the Communist Party is only a function, a characteristic, an expression of the dictatorship of the working class. What is our Party? You should not confuse it with other parties that are made up of barristers. It is made up of between 600,000 and 700,000 of the best workers, the vanguard of the proletariat. And it is clear that the affairs of the working class are well looked after by these, its best representatives. That is why the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party. The supervision of the various organisations and the right to purge them belongs to the party. So it has to be during the proletarian revolution. The role of the party does not diminish after the victory, but on the contrary it increases.” Notulen van de tweede sessie van het tweede congres van de Communistische Internationale in 1920.
Vladimir Lenin: Socialism is merely the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly. Uit: Vladimir Lenin: The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It; 1917.
