Fighting ecological catastrophe in Siberia munists at the base of the Stalinist parties, history has already answered the question of whether they can be transformed into instruments for socialist democracy; by and large they are finished; their working class base will increasingly look elsewhere.
The fight for workers' self organisation must involve the fight for independent trade unions and workers" councils independent of the Stalinist parties. The most important example of developments of this kind was the mass working class movement and an extensive network of workers councils which characterised the emergence of Solidamose in Poland. Under these conditions the working class, as an organised force, were the driving force in the process of political revolution. It involves the fight for new political parties based on socialist democracy and the programme of workers self-management.
Socialists must combine the fight for socialist democracy with a strug gle around transitional demands in defence of the material interests of the workers which will everywhere come under attack. Key among these demands are a sliding scale of wages to protect the workers against the rampant inflation in several East Buropean countries, and the fight for a 35 hour week against the long working hours and growing unemployment. This fight must be complemented by the demand for radical egalitarianism and the end of all vestiges of bureaucratic privilege.
Integral to the fight for political revolution is the struggle for real, as opposed to juridicial, equality for women. In east European countries women are completely integrated into the workforce - in the GDR for example they are 51 percent of the labour force. But in general real equality does not exist, either in terms of employment opportunities or in
terms of childcare or the socialisation of 1247261 domestic labour. In одИН several countries aborНА ВСЕХ tion and contraception
rights are de facto restricted. The fight against ecological catastrophe assumes particular force in castern Europe. Stalinism's absolute priority to extensive production and large-scale industry has created some of the worst ecological problems in the world. Thus the programme of political revolution must include the demand for a workers' inspectorate to supervise the environment and the transition to ecologically-sustainable economic growth.
In several parts of eastern Europe the national question increasingly raises its head. Socialists demand the right of national self-determination, including the right of separation, for oppressed nationalities.
Above all, the programme of political revolution must be centred on the fight for a democratically centralised planned economy, under workers' control. The first stage of this is the fight for workers" veto over central economic plans and a regime of workers" control at the level of the factory. This programme does not exclude all marketisation initiatives -for example the creation of small firms in the service sector with profits supervised by the state, or agricultural and other co-operatives. But the key to regenerating the economies is the unleashing of the creative power of the masses, around production objectives democratically decided.
Rational democratic planning assumes not autarky, but an international division of labour. That is why the fight for an international federation of democratic socialist republics, in eastem Europe and the Soviet Union is vital. But the key to regenerating production historically is to link production and markets east and west - in particular to unify the economies of the Soviet Union and Germany. This is the centre of the demand for a United Socialist States of Europe.
In particular the programme of political revolution involves the struggle for democratic workers" councils (soviets), the separation of party and state and the smashing of Stalinist control of the police, military and secret police. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 20, Dec-Jan 1989-90
Western 'democracy' in practice? West Berlin cops rough up demonstrators, while East Berlin workers look on aghast The question of