NEIL KINNOCK'S claim is that he stands for 'democratic socialism'. The real nature of this committment to 'democracy' is shown, in internal party terms in such actions as support for the expulsion of members of the Liverpool District Labour Party, support for the expulsion of Khan and Scally, the refusal to allow Knowsley North constituency party chose its own candidate for the by-election, and the decision of the NEC to re-open the issue of reselection following a clear decision of party conference to instruct it not to do so.
But more seriously, Kinnock's and the Labour right's entire conception of 'democracy' is a traversty. The VErY nature of a capitalist society is that it is not democratic... On the contrary it is anti-democratic in its entire nature. Even formal democracy at the central level is confined to the members of parliament. All other real centres of power the civil service, the judges, the chiefs of the police and armed forces, those who run the great centres economic Dowel. not elected. The purely parliamentary system is a democratic fig leat over an entire system of autocratic power. This is why one of the most classic demands of Marxism is for the extension of the elective principle throughout society - - a view shown clearly in Marx's writings on the state.
Furthermore, even this limited parliamentary democracy exists only in a handful of imperialist countries.
VANL malority capitalist countries in the world, above all those dominated by imperia ism. even the 119 leaf of parliamentary democracy does not exist. 1he ninea parlamellar of ed by its imperialist plunder of large parts of the world — • as is that of the US, Sweden, and all the other classic democracies. Remove that WITHOUT full freedom organise political groups, tendencies, and parties, no full flowering of democratic rights and freedoms for the toiling masses is possible under the dictatorship of the proletariat. By their free vote, workers and poor peasants indicate themselves what parties they want to be part of the soviet system.
In that sense, the freedom organisation of different groups, tendencies, and parties is a precondition for the exercise of political power by the working class. "The democratisation of the soviets is impossible without legalisation of soviet parties." Without such freedom, unrestrained by ideological restrictions, there can be no genuine, democratically elected councils, nor the exercise of real power by such workers' councils.
Restrictions of that freedom would not be restrictions of the political rights of the class enemy but restrictions of the political rights of the proletariat. That freedom is likewise a precondition for the working class collectively as a class arriving at a common or at least a majority viewpoint on the innumerable problems of tactics, strategy, and even theory (programme) that are involved in the titanic task of building a classless society under the leadership of the traditionally oppressed, exploited, and downtrodden masses. Unless there is freedom to organise political groups. tendencies and parties, there can be no real socialist democracy.
Revolutionary Marxists reject the substitutionist, paternalistic, elites, and bureaucratic deviation from Marxism that sees the socialist revolution, the conquest of state DOWCi. wielding of state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a task of and the tacts show even the classic limited parliamentary democracy of capitalism would not exist. Socialism means a vast extension of democracy. It means going ve onu lie election simov of alew members of a backed or relativels powerless locg councils, to the extension of the elective principle into all spheres of socie• elections in the civil service, 01 self management in industry, election or ine neads of any necessary in a socialist society, election of magistrates and judges.
The socialist democracy is as yet greatly underdeveloped in the socialist movement. One of the few places where it has been taken up systematically is in a resolution passed by the Trotskyist Fourth in аген. among other sources, Open Letter to the Polish Communist Party written in the late 1960s by Polish Communist Kuron and Modzelwski. It has aiso drawn on the practical experience of the 'socialist countries'. It is a debate waica needs lo be atvelopeu.
The section of this resolution we print below, deals with the crucial issue of a multi-party system. shows, simply in socialist but tual struggle to bring a new society into existence classes have concentrated their energies in a single party -Jacobins in France or Cromwell in England for example. desperate struggle of the revolution, or fighting off foreign intervention, does not leave the luxury of many parties. But as the society 'relaxes', as the stabilised guaranteed, inevitably arise. idea that represented by neither theoretical nor practical foun• he SUCCHCH socialism will be multi-party ieties. That point, must be stoutly and explicitly defended by socialists. The following docuim- ment is a clear explanation of why.
to the revolutionary party acting 'in the name of the class or in the best or cases, 'with the support of the class.
If the dicatorship of the proletariat is to mean what the very words say, and what the theoretical tradition of both Marx and Lenin explicitly contain, ie, the the rule of the working class as a class (of the 'associated producers'); if the emancipation of the proletariat can be achieved only through the activity of the proletariat itself and not through a of passive proletariat being 'educated' for emancipation by benevolent enlightened revolutionary ministrators, then it is obvious that the leading role of the revolutionary party both in the conquest of power and in Ine bullding Of a classiess society can only consist of leading the mass activity of the class politically, political hegemony in a class that is increasingly engaged in independent activity, of struggling within the class for majority support for through political strative or repressive means.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat in its complete torm. power is exercised by democratically elected workers councils. The revolutionar Wally fights for a political line and for political leadership within these workers' councils, not to substitute itself for them. Party and state remain entirely distinct entities.
But genuinely democratically elected workers' councils can exist only if the masses have the without distinction, restrictive preconditions ideological or political convictions of the elected delegates. (This does not the apolv of course to parties engagea in armed struggle against the workers state, ie, to conditions of civil war, or to national assemble!.
police lorces 1985 on This clearly members History the The new parties classes single parties has transition to sOCprinciple, tion democratically only adwould be of winning its proposals, the workes state.
state correct separate ever appear.
later on, representative, walll without Ine soviet working class. Solidarnosc congress in Poland: pointing the way to socialist democracy conditions of the revolutionary crisis and armed insurrection itself, to which this resolution refers in a later point). Likewise, workers' councils can funcif all the position elected delegates enjoy the right to form groups, tendencies, and parties, to have access to the mass media, to present their different platforms before the than through masses, and to have them debated and tested by experience. Any restriction of party affiliation restricts the freedom of the proletariat to exercise political power, ie, restricts workers' democracy, contrary to the historical interests of the working class, to the need to consolidate workers' power, to the interests of world revolution and building socialism. Obviously such rights will not be recognised for parties, groups or individuals involved in a civil war or armed actions against In no way does the Marxist theory of the state entail the concept that a one-party system is a necessary precondition or feature of workers' power, a workers state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. In no theoretical document of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, and in no programmatic document of the Third International under Lenin, did such a proposal of a one-party system The theories developed such as the crude Stalinist theory that throughout history social classes have always been represented by be forbidden a single party, are historically wrong and serve only as apologies for the monopoly of political power usurped bureaucracı ideological heirs in other bureaucratised workers states, a monopoly based upon the political expropriation of the History - including the convulsions in the People's Republic of China, in Poland, Yugoslavia, Grenada and Nicaragua — has on the contrary connanned unc conccuncs. of Trotsky's that "classes alt heterogeneous; they are torn by inne antagonisms, and arrive at the solution of common problems no otherwise an inner struggle of tendencies, groups and parties s... An example of only one party corresponding to one class is not to be found in the whole course of political history -provided, of course, you do not take the police appearance for reality." This was true for the bourgeoisie under feudalism. It is true for the working class under capitalism. It will remain true for the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat and in the process of building socialism.
If one says that only parties and organisations that have no bourgeois (or petty-bourgeois?) programme or ideology, or are not 'engaged in anti-socialist or anti-soviet propaganda and/or agitation' are to be legalised, how is one to determine the dividing line? Will parties with a majority of working-class members but with a bourgeois ideology be forbidden? How can such a position be reconciled with free elections for workers' councils! What is the dividing line between 'bourgeois programme and reformist ideology'? Must reformist parties then as well? Will social democracy be suppressed?
It is unavoidable that on the basis also of historical traditions, retormist influence will continue to survive in the working class of many countries for a long period. That survival will not be shortened by administrative repression; on the contrary, such repression will tend to strengthen it. The best way to fight against reformist illusions and ideas is through the combination of ideological struggle and the creation of the material conditions for the disap. pearance of these illusions. such e struggle would lose much of its efficacy under conditions of administrative repression and lack of free debate and exchange of ideas.
If the revolutionary party agitates for the suppression of social democracy or other reformist formations, it will be a thousand times more difficult to maintain freedom of tendencies and toleration of tactions within its owt ranks. The political heterogeneity of the working class would then inevitably tend to reflect itself within the single Thus, the real alternative is not either freedom for those with a genuine socialist programme (who ideologically programmatically support the soviet system) or freedom political parties. The real choice is: either genuine workers' democracy with the right of the toiling masses to elect whoever they want to the soviets and freedom of political organisation of all those who abide by the soviet constitution in practice (including those who do not ideologically support the soviet system), or a decisive restriction of the political rights of the working class itself, with all the consequences flowing therefrom. Systematic restriction of pontical parles leads to systematic restriction of freedom within the revolutionary vanguard party itself.
When we say that we are in favour of a legalisation of all soviet parties, ie of those that abide by the soviet con stitution in practice, this does not imply that we in any case underestimate the political confusion, errors, and even partial defeats which the propagation of wrong programmes and alien class influences upon the toiling masses by such parties could and will provoke under conditions of the dictatorship ol the proletariat. Even more obviously de we not call upon the workers to build parties upon the basis of what we con sider wrong programmes, platforms, ot policies, nor do we advocate the crea tion of such parties. We only state that the artificial adminstrative suppressior of such parties — artificial inasmuch a ley continue to reneel cuntents allol; the masses even if they are legally sup pressed far from reducing these dangers. increases them The ideological, cultural homogenisation of the working class, bringing the great majority of its members up to the point where they are capable or substituting a tree community of self-administered citizens to the survival of a state machine (ie, able to achieve the building of socialism and the withering away of the state) is a gigantic historical task. It is not only linked to obvious material precondi tions. It involves also a specific political training: "The existence of criticallyminded people, opponents, dissidents, discontented and reactionary elements, gives the revolution life and strength The confrontation of differences and Is "the ideological and political muscles" of the people. It is a permanent form of exercising, an an tidote to paralysis and to passivity."
Likwise, Fidel Castro had polemicis ed against Escalante, saying: the revolution must be a school of unfettered thought. Even if practice does not always match these statements, they represent the programmatic continuity of Marxism on the subject and must be defended tooth and nail against all who would deny them.
Historical experience confirms that outside of conditions of genuine workers' democracy, this process of training the masses self-administration, can only be retarded or even reversed, as it obviously has been in the USSR. Historical experience has confirmed that no genui workers' democracy is possible without political pluralism.
1. Trotsky - The Transitional ProTrotsky - The Revolution Betrayed 3. Tomas Borge.
Watergate? Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986