This is one of those questions that depends very much on who you ask. Some argue that the onset of dictatorship lies the rise of Stalin (eg Trotsky), others that the change began with Lenin, some blame the Second International (eg Renton), still others argue that Marx’s thought itself was inherently dictatorial (eg Anweiler) and there are those who charge that the real culprit is Hegel (eg Camus). And that’s just in the realm of ideas. Tracing an intellectual heritage is always a tricky task and there are few that have been as debated and contested as Marx’s.

With that in mind it may be worth checking out the below past comments of mine:

• This post is supposed to deal with the influence of Marxism on the Bolsheviks but ends up questioning the very nature of ‘Marxism’. Key extract: "Let’s get one thing straight: there is no one Marxist blueprint for a socialist/communist society. Marx’s work was first and foremost concerned with producing a critique of capitalism. When the Bolsheviks became the first Marxist party to actually seize power at the head of a popular revolution they were effectively entering unknown territory, ideologically speaking."

• And here I talk a bit about some of the key factors that underlay the Revolution of 1917’s ‘degeneration’. Again, there’s an emphasis on how ideology as one of a number of factors that governed Bolshevik behaviour. In Russia at least, ideas proved to be of less importance than circumstances or ‘material reality’. Marx would appreciated the irony.

Looking over these posts, what’s probably missing is a critique of some elements of Bolshevism or Marxism (eg centralisation and technocracy) that came to form key planks of Stalinism. But what should be clear is that this wasn't a simple exercise of 'twisting' Marxism into something it wasn't. As with any ideology, you can read into Marx what you want.

In my understanding this really begins with the split between socialism and communism in 20th century Europe. While in terms of long term policy goals the two maintained similar goals (nationalizing industry), communism came to mean the establishment of such a government through the revolutionary overthrow of existing governments while socialism sought to establish this system through elections within existing systems of government. Marx himself thought that revolution would be the way that communism would establish itself. What followed from the revolutionary ideas of the communists was the idea that no reversal could be allowed and therefor they had to establish single party systems. This meant that the leader of the party would be the leader of the country without any legal opposition. These systems/leaders became oppressive in the USSR and China originally as they attempted to stamp out opposition from the remnants of the previous regime and at the time this could be counted as necessary steps in completing the revolution. Often oppression continued to protect the power and goals of the party/leader.

Theoretically in a communist society there should be no classes, no leaders and everything belongs to the people. Stalin and Mao and other leaders argued for the most part it was the work of the Communist Party to help the workers take power. This is where some splits immediately occur such as Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

This political move of a communist party creating a single party state was one of the first steps toward these oppressive regimes. What then allowed these oppressive regimes to consolidate their power was them attacking others that challenged them. In China, Mao Zedong encouraged people to attack 'counter-revolutionaries' or those that had less radical (leftist) ideas or some capitalist tendencies. As a result of this one party state and what essentially became dictators pushed their own agendas often times not getting any closer to their goal of socialism/communism.