ocialist democracy: the Trotskyist view
IN DEPTH The historic events in East Germany, following on the upheavals elsewhere in eastern Europe, In the Soviet Union and the movement against the Chinese bureaucracy which was so ruthlessly cut down in the Tienanmen Square massacre all ralse the issue of polltical revolution. What Is the Trotskyist view of the type of democracy we should be fighting for In a political revolution? A major resolution on just this question was adopted by the 12th World Congress of the main Trotskyist International organisation, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, In January 1985. Here we reprint relevant extracts, taken from section 4 and section 12 of the resolution which is entitled Socialist Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat One Party and Multi-Party Systems *Revolutionary marxists reject the sub- elitist and stitutionist, patemalistic, bureaucratic deviation from Marxism that sees the socialist revolution and the conquest of state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat, as a task of the revolutionary party acting "in the name" of the class or, in the best of cases, "with the support of the class. If the dictatorship of the proletariat is to mean what the very words say, and what the theoretical tradition of both Marx and Lenin explicit- ly contain, ie. the rule of the working class as a class (of the las- sociated producers'); if the emancipation of the proletariat can be achieved only through the activity of the proletariat itself and not through a passive proletariat being 'educated" for emancipation by benevolent and enlightened revolutionary administrators, then it is ob- vious that the leading role of the revolutionary party both in the con- quest of power and in the building of a classless society can only con- sist of leading the mass activity of the class politically, of winning political hegemony in a class that is increasingly engaged in inde- pendent activity, of struggling within the class for majority support for its proposals, through political and not administrative or repressive means. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat in its complete form, state power is exercised by democratically elected workers' councils. The revolutionary party fights for a correct political line within these workers" councils, not to substitute itself for them. Party and state remain entirely separate and distinct entities. But genuinely representative, democratically elected workers' coun Page 22
Lenin: no call for one-party state cils can exist only if the masses have the right to elect whoever they want without distinction, and without restrictive preconditions as to the ideological or political convictions of the elected delegates. (This does not apply, of course, to parties engaged in armed struggle against the workers" state, ie, to conditions of civil war, or to the conditions of the revolutionary crisis and armed insurrection itself, to which this resolu tion refers in a later point). Likewise, workers" councils can function democratically only if all the elected delegates enjoy the right to fom groups, tendencies, and parties, to have access to the mass media, to present their different platforms before the 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, which would be contrary to the historical interests of the working class, to the need to consolidate workers" power, to the interests of world revolution and of building socialism.
Obviously such rights will not be recognised for parties, groups or individuals involved in a civil war or armed actions against the workers" state. Neither do such freedoms include the right to organise actions or demonstrations of a racist character or in favour of national or ethnic oppression.
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 the 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 ever appear. The theories
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
developed later on, such as the crude theory Stalinist that 1l The Now! throughout history social classes have always been represented by a single party, are historically and serve only as wrong apologies for the monopoly of political power usurped by the Soviet and its bureaucracy idcological heirs in other bureaucratised workers' states, a monopoly based upon the politi- cal expropriation of the working class." The bureaucratised workers' states, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the rise of political and anti-bureaucratic revolution. "From a theoretical point of view, the USSR and the other bureaucratised workers' states are distorted and extremely degenerated forms of the dictator- ship of the proletariat, inasmuch as the economic foundations created by the socialist October revolution have not been destroyed by the bureaucracy. In that sense, the necessity of the defence of the Soviet Union and workers' states against any attempts to restore capitalism - which would represent a giant historical step backwards - flows from the fact that these are still degenerated or deformed workers" states ie degenerated forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But it does not flow from this that there are various historical forms of dictatorship of the proletariat which we consider all more or less equivalent, with socialist workers democracy as described by our programme being only the ideal norm", from which reality has deviated and will strongly deviate in the future. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a goal in and of itself: it is only a means to realise the goal, which is the emancipatation of labour, of all the exploited and oppressed, by the creation of a worldwide class less society, the only way to solve the burning problems facing humanity, the only way to avoid its relapse into barbarism. But under its extremely degenerated form of the dictatorship of the bureaucracy. the "bureaucratic" dictatorship of the proletariat not only does not allow workers to advance towards that goal, it holds back the transition be- tween capitalism and socialism. It becomes a major obstacle on the road towards socialism, an obstacle which has to be removed by the proletariat through a political revolution. So it follows that far from being only one amongst different variants of the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialist democracy, the rule of the toiling masses through democratically elected workers" and peoples" councils, is the only form of the dictatorship of the proletariat compatible with our socialist goal, the only form which will make it an efficient weapon for advancing toward world revolution and world socialism. We fight for that form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and for that form alone, not for reasons of morality, humanitarianism, or historical idealism (the at- tempt to impose certain "ideal" processes upon the historical process), but for reasons of political efficiency and realism, for reasons of programmatic principles, for reasons of immediate and historical neces- sity from the point of view of the interests of the world proletariat and world socialism. Furthermore the 'bureaucratic" dictatorship of the proletariat can only arise, — as it did in the Soviet Union - as the result of a disastrous and lasting political defeat of the working class at the hands of the bureaucracy. It is not accidental that Trotsky uses in that context the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
IN DEPTH The New Hork Times. HUNGARY ASKS SOVIET ARMY TO HELP PUT DOWN REVOLT Khruschev sends in the tanks: Hungary 1956 Any identification of the workers' bureaucralic self-management.
formula "political appropria- LATE CITY EDITION tion of the proletariat by the bureaucracy'. As proletarian revolutionists we are not neutral or indifferent in front of the question of political victory or defeat of our class. We try to assure its victory. We try to avoid its defeat by all means possible. Again it follows that we can only fight for the form of the dictator- ship of the proletariat which enables such a victory and avoids such a defeat. Only the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat exercised through political power in the hands of democratically elected workers' councils assures that. Politically, the question is by no means purely academic. It is a burning issue in all those countries - not only the imperialist ones - where the working class has by and large assimilated the crimes and the real nature of Stalinism and of labour bureaucracies in general. *dictatorship of the proletariat with nationalised property only, irrespective of concrete conditions of exer- cise of power by the working class in the state and the economy, be- comes in all these countries a formidable obstacle on the road towards victorious socialist revolution and the realisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It objectively helps the bourgeoisie, the petty-bour- geoisic, the social democrats, and the CPs to maintain the working class in a straightjacket of the bourgeois democratic state. It is an even more burning question in all the bureaucratised workers" states themselves, where the political revolution is on the agenda. In these countries, any attempt to present the present variants other than workers" democracy as goals for that revolution, would con- demn those who make such attempts to extreme isolation from the rising masses. Indeed it would risk involving them in the same hatred with which the proletariat view the bureaucracy, 'the new masters". The concrete experiences of the Hungarian Revolution of October- November 1956 and the Polish revolution of August 1980-December 1981, which went furthest on the road to a full-blown anti-bureaucratic political revolution, as well as of the "Prague Spring' of 1968-69 has al- ready permitted the drawing of highly significant lessons on the dynamic of the political revolution. The 'Prague Spring" and the politi- cal revolution in Poland also benefitted from taking place in the social. economic and political conditions of countries where the working class represented the vast majority of the active population and could base it- self on an old tradition of socialist, communist and trade union mass or- ganisations, as well as in Poland, on a rich experience of anti- revolts and struggles for workers" These three experiences of the beginning of political revolutions confirm that the contents of socialist democracy as set forth in our programme and further explained in these theses are but the conscious expression of what millions of workers and toilers fight for when they rise against the totalitarian rule of the bureaucracy. The struggle against its secret police, for the liberation of political prisoners, against repression of political and trade union activities which undermines the power monopoly of the ruling bureaucracy. against press censorship, against juridical arbitrariness (i.e. for written law and the right of defendants to be judged and defended in line with the law), against the one-party system, and against the bureaucracy's Page 23
IN DEPTH control over the economic sys against the exorbitant tem, malerial privileges of the bureaucracy and in favour of substantial progress in socio- economic equality - all these planks were the key motives which brought the Hungarian and the Czechoslovak masses onto the streets against the bureaucracy. It will be the same tomorrow in the USSR and the People's Republic of China too. They have nothing to do with the restoration of private property, or the restoration of capitalism, as the Stalinist slanders falsely alleged in order to justify the counter- revolutionary suppression of these anti-bureaucratic mass uprisings with the use of the Soviet army in Hungary or Czechoslovakia or the imposi- tion of martial law in Poland. In that sense they have noth ing to do with the overthrow of the dictatorship of the proletariat either. In Hungary in 1956 the workers" councils and the Central Workers' Council of Brezhnev's crackdown: Czecoslovakia 1968 Budapest, after long debates, declared themselves in favour of a defence of nationalised property and of the freedom for all political parties except the fascists. In Czechoslovakia, during the Prague Spring, the demands for unrestricted freedom of political organisation, of political clubs, tendencies and parties, first defended by the most radical protagonists of the movement, was taken up by large tendencies inside the Communist Party itself, and supported by the great majority of trade unions and workers' councils that sprang up in the final part of that movement. The working class was energetically in favour of a free press - while, significantly, the Stalinist spokesmen of the bureaucracy. those who prepared, facilitated and collaborated with the Soviet bureaucracy's counter-revolutionary military intervention, concentrated their fire on the so-called "iresponsible", "pro-bourgeois" writers whose freedom to express themselves they wanted to crush at all costs - with its overwhelming majority, supporting the the working class, in freedom of the writers. In Poland 1980-81, the working class drove forward the broadest experience of struggle for political democracy in a workers' state, for sixteen months. The intemal democracy which the ten million or- ganised Polish workers adopted within the Solidamose union demonstrated the attachment of the working class to the principles of proletarian democracy. The slogans of "socialisation of the means of production and of planning and of 'construction of a self-managed republic, put forward by the mass movement, clearly expressed its aspiration to wrest the control of the economy as well as of the state from the bureaucracy, and to subject them to the collective democratic management of the workers, an aspiration which materialised in the struggle for workers' self-management and the building of workers" councils and their coordination. The programme adopted by the nation- al congress of Solidamose, stating that "ideological, social, political and cultural pluralism must constitute the basis of democracy in the self- managed republic" also added that: *Public life in Poland requires a deep refor that should lead to the Page 24
final institution of self-management, democracy and pluralism. That is why we struggle both for a change in the structures of the state and for the creation and development of independent self-managed institutions in all walks of social life'.
In defence of "the citizens" total freedom of association", the programme said:
*We believe that the principles of pluralism must apply to political life. Our union will aid and protect initiatives that aim to propose different social political and economic programmes to society'.
It is most likely that similar confrontations will occur during every future political revolution, especially in the USSR and the People's Republic of China. Revolutionary marxists cannot hesitate or sit on the fence. Neither can they present them as purely tactical choices. They must align with the overwhelming majority of the toiling masses in defence of unrestricted democratic freedoms, against the censorship and repression of the bureaucracy.
In the beginning of the actual political revolution, the toiling masses make the distinction between those sectors of the bureaucracy which strenuously, including by the use of violence, try to oppose mass mobilisations and organisation, and those sectors which, for whatever motivation, yield to and seem to go along with the mass movement. The former they will pitilessly exclude from all renascent genuine organs of workers" and popular power. The latter they will tolerate and even conclude tactical alliances with, especially when they are under attack by the most hated representatives of the bureaucratic dictatorship.
In the final institutionalisation of workers-council power, the toiling masses will, most probably, however, take all appropriate measures to ensure their numerical, social and political preponderance inside the reborn soviets, in order to prevent them from falling under the sway of technocrats and "liberal' bureaucrats.
This is also possible by specific electoral rules and does not require any banning of specific parties or ideological tendencies ...
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