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After Marx's death, Engels introduced a new element into the theoretical political framework elaborated after the Commune. In 1891, in his Engels upheld a totally new thesis about the democratic republic: it was not only the locus of the great struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat but also "the specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat".This little theoretical revolution had been prepared by "the rectification of 1885" concerning the first French republic: contrary to the thesis upheld by Marx, Engels maintained that the said republic was characterized by an extended local self-administration. This non-bureaucratic democratic republic was to him the specific political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. These theoretical political innovations have largely remained unknown.