itself implicitly and explicitly to the HOSL woollall strategy of building popular support Line question of ine relation of socialism and democracy.
There should be no misunderstanding of the fundamental importance of this for any socialist strategy. The ocal une working casser orslates such as Britain, the United States, or the rest of Western Europe will abandon capitalism for a society which is actually less democratic 'parliamentary democracy' they joy at present is an ultra-left delusion. The idea that a modern economy can be run on the model of East European, Bulgarian or Soviet style planning is equally an illusion.
Western Europe will democratic or it will not exist at all.
It is in this relation of socialism and democracy also that the truly pact of Stalinism can be assessed. This role is not simply, or in many cases even primarily, a question of the local Communist Party. the CPGB, with its 17,000 members, is a fundamental obstacle to the overcapitalism ridiculous. The responsibility in that nela lles overwhelmingly labour bureaucracy.
But the international impact of Stalinism is colossal in its counterrevolutionary effect, of how strong its local Communist Party is. The great majority of the working Class perfectly well the reality of Eastern Europe. They know the supression of democracy, the enormous limitations the right of expression organisation of the working class, the continual series of risings and struggies Dy lne Last curopean against the bureaucracy in 1993, Hungary in 1956, oslovakia in 1968, Poland throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
Sections of the working class also know the enormous achievements of the USSR and its role in the defeat of fascism. They also, in many cases, have few illusions in the role of imperialism and capitalism.
But the ettect best, is to irrevocably divide the working class and therefore secure the victory of imperialism. example of this, one which shows the real situation of the working class in the imperialist countries, was seen in Portugal in 1975.
Portugal in 1975 was than the Socialism in either be The idea that with the quite regardless world know workers tionary East Berlin completely Czech- establish a socialist society.
material the end of World War II. France in 1968, class struggles developed, did an equivalent apparatus to that which The clearest Europe where revolutionary crisis developed the one Soviet tanks crush Hungarian revolution, 1956 socialist organisation was inadequate to actually The degree of decomposition and chaos of the state apparatus in Portugal was qualitatively more advanced than anything seen in Europe since While in Italy in 1969, Spain in 1970-76 tremendous working in no case qualitative split other. develop within the ruling class or state existed in Portugal. Portugal was the one case in the imperialist countries of Western both elements of a The way the Portuguese ruling class intervened into the crisis which confronted it, in order to maintain its Caught between a concept socialism which excluded democracy on the one nana, model of 'democracy' which excluded any attack on capitalism on the other, the Portugese working class was completely split. Reactionary demonstrations by the Socialist Party on the one side, and militant but incoherent and ineffectual mobilisations by the 'far left and Communist Party raged throughout the summer of 1975 In this situation of hopeless split in the working class the Portugese capitalist class inevitably emerged triumphant — this being accomplished by the small scale mopping-up operations of 25 November 1975. 'Order' was restored in Portugal. of pro-Moscow all donna es and a working class in a fundamentally unchallenged way.
In France the pro-Moscow Communist Party is now easily surpassed by the Socialist Party on the electoral field and challenged, the trade unions. In Spain the Comhas on the declined from being the chief political party of the working class for 40 years to a situation , where it is overshadowed by the Socialist Party. In Italy the Communist Party re mains dominant but only by distanc ing itself radically from Moscow and to a degree, the space that a social democratic party would take. Portugal therefore actually exaggerated the size of that section of the working class which could of Africa socialist •Prague Solidarnosc against committed capitalism socialist bureaucracy forward Genocaus Communist Europe the organisation OI lne developing Tony Scargill since 1968, in both split politically increasingly occupying amples exploitation of literally thousands of millions on a world scale. That the foundations of capitalist democracy in Western Europe and the United States is unbelievable barbarities such as the US war in Vietnam, its wa against Nicaragua, and the existence regimes such as that of South and srael. A struggle for Western Europe is first and foremost a struggle against imperialism.
Secondly the blockage which exists to democratic socialism-socialist democracy in Western Europe is intrinsically bound up with the struggle in Eastern Europe. It is events such a the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the Spring of 1968 Czechoslovakia, the development of that help break up the Stalinist monolith in Eastern Europe.
The struggle in Western Europe must not only be amenao ou also a specifically European one. The social revolution against capitalism in Western Europe is intimately tied up with political revolution against the bureaucracy in Eastern Europe.
That is the concretisation today of the famous, and correct, slogan of the 'United Socialist States of Europe'.
Revolution Finally this perspective means developing a socialist and democratic left in Western Europe. One that is 100 per cent committed to the struggle imperialism, the in the imperialist coun tries, and 100 per cent on the side of struggle against Eastern Europe and precisely out of this, one that puts an authentically socialist Western The importance of forces around the 'Benn-Scargill-Livingstone' left in Bevelop is there are posit positions Benn on , or Arthur on Cuba Central America, or Ken Livingstone on a whole series of issues do begin to raise the nossibiitv of such alettmany of their supporters in the base of the labour movement of course go much further. All this is despite many weakness - of which Tony Benn's refusal to come out against NATO and Arthur Scargill's wrong positions on Solidarnosc This is a current, furthermore with deep historical roots in the strug gle of the British working class for civil rights