What did Marx mean?

[spartan]

What did Marx mean exactly when he said that "Democracy is the road to Socialism"?

The quote has become somewhat of a favourite of Democratic Socialists so is it to do with Socialism being as Democratic as possible or using Democracy as a way of getting to Socialism?

[JazzRemington]

Basically, if Socialism is to be democratic, a Capitalist Democratic society would have to exist before hand, in the sense that the workers have well established in their minds the functions of a democracy (that is, what it means to live in a democratic society).

Perhaps a better way to put it is this: how can people set up a particular type of government if they've lived their under a government that is completely different? This is why generally slave revolts didn't set up democracies because all they knew was effectively a dictatorship.