theirs? "DEMOCRACY", we keep being told, 'is under threat." Whether it be the Brighton bomb, the striking miners or the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the world - if we believe the mass media - is now peopled on the one hand by a sturdy band of true blue "defenders of democracy', and on the other by its psychopathic, sub-human, generally unspeakable opponents.
All this proves is that "democracy"' is currently one of the most abused and exploited words in the English language. In defence of "democracy", , Ronald Reagan, newly re-elected by less than 34% of the American electorate to his landslide victory, makes daily attempts to overthrow the newly reelected Sandinista government in Nicaragua which received votes from over 54% of the Nicaraguan electorate. In tryng to force the Nicaraguans to comply with his demands, the
'democratic" Ronald Reagan bribes Nicaraguan politicians and parties to withdraw from the elections, while his mercenary army of invading "contra"' guerillas, helped on by a CIA handbook, threaten to murder any Nicaraguan voter who goes to the polls.
The same double standards of course apply across the western "democratic" countries. Margaret Thatcher's government, elected by only 47% of the electorate, takes steps to abolish elected local councils that make decisions she disagrees with. Faced by a challenge from the miners, the "democratic" British state has revealed its hidden resources of brute intimidation the nationwide, unconstitutional police riot squads, accountable to nobody; the appointed, reactionary judges, with sweeping powers to cripple the
workers movement, who have never been in any way accountable; the magistrates at lower level. Through a network of appointed, stooge health authorities, purged in many areas of any dissenting opinion, the "democratic" Tory government is forcing home its programme of cuts and privatisation. The list is endless.
Another example is useful. The assassination of mass murderer Indira Gandhi - whose troops slaughtered 1,800 Sikhs in the Golden Temple - brought forth an avalanche to tributes from far and wide. Everyone - from Margaret Thatcher and David Owen at the one extreme to Neil Kinnck and Tariq All at the other - was full of praise for her commitment to India's "democratic institutions.
Yet barely ten years ago, having been found guilty of electoral corruption in 1971, Indira Gandhi stood at the head of a dictatorial regime, under which thousands of her political opponents were jailed. For Gandhi, as a steadfast defender of India's capitalist class, "democracy'' was not a principle, but a means to an end: if she could rule without it, she was prepared to do so. Since her return to office in 1980, her concern for "democracy'' has been shown in anti-union laws and other attacks on the working class. Gandhi's resort to totalitarian methods - like similar periods of despotic rule in much of Latin America, and the brutal regimes of South Korea and the Philippines - brought only the most muted criticisms from the leading "Western Democracies'. On the try, The Times newspaper and other pillars of "democrac, were Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 1
Allende's elected "Marxist" government in Chile in 1973. the capitalist class is of the elent mask, but tre for the capitalist class is often a convenient mask, consistent feature beneath the surface is the dictatorial rule of capital and its institutions. The judges and the police in Britain are not isolated exceptions to a rule of "democratic" control: their unelected, unaccountable power is the mirror image of the power of the capitalists who own the banks and big firms, who meet secretly in boardrooms and golf-clubs; of the permanent bureaucracy of top civil servants; and of the MacGregor may call for a ballot of miners - but he was not elected by any ballot (and might well lose a vote of con-
I HAVE BEEN CRITICIZED FOR MEETING WITH A LEADER OF THE NICARAGUAN EXILES... I, HOWEVER, FAIL TO SEE ANYTHING IMPROPER IN OUR DISCUSSION
fidence from his own managers). Michael Edwardes' reign in
British Leyland was characterised by periodic resort to ballots
of the workforce. Where they endorsed Edwardes, he enforc-
ed them; where they opposed him, he ignored them. That is
how the capitalists see democracy: and it is one reason why
they have such contempt for mass meetings and open
Yet amid this inescapable evidence of the cynical exploita-
tion of the word and concept of "democracy' for misleading
the workers, we find Neil Kinnock lending his two pen-
At Labour conference he leaned heavily on the argument to
the effect that: "If we seek to enforce our policies through
the law when we're in government, then we need to abide by
the Tory laws now." And he has criticised the anti-union
"bringing the law into disrepute. Of course Kinnock has made it quite plain that he does not
intend to challenge capitalist rule in Britain. He believes that
the timid reforms he has in mind can be pushed quite easily
through Acts of Parliament. Other people to the left of Kin-
nock share this general view: "Militant" for example, argues
"Enabling Act" to procure their dream of
nationalising the top 250 monopolies; the Communist Party
too expects that Parliament will legislate socialism.
Not only does such political strategy leave out any practical
role for the working class (other than as individual voters) in
the achievement of "socialism", it rests (as did Allende) on
"democrats" would sit back and allow their wealth and pro-
perty to be seized, without mounting the most fierce, armed,
The mercenary anti-Sandinista gangsters being
financed by Reagan in Nicaragua and the grisly figure of
Pinochet of Chile are a more accurate reflection of the kind of
response the capitalists would offer.
Far from idealising bourgeois "democracy"' and trying to "law and order" , socialists should be
fighting tooth and nail to expose the naked class dictatorship
embodied in the rule of a Thatcher or a Reagan. Far from look-
ing to parliament as an instrument for decisive social change,
we should emphasise that workers themselves will need to
organise on a factory, area and national level, and challenge
the power of the capitalist state, in order to lay the basis for a
new, workers state to emerge. Just as the capitalist state
represses and exploits the majority of the population in pur-
suit of the profits of the minority, so a workers' state would
repress the minority of capitalist reactionaries in establishing
a socialist society in the interests of the majority. That, sure-
- if it means "rule by the majoriBECAUSE HIS FORCES SEEK THE MILITARY OVERTHROW OF THE NICARAGUAN REGIME AFTER ALL - HE'S A U.S. GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE Dan Wasserman Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 2