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The revolutionary democratic road to socialism |
Constitutional change is becoming an important issue. It is on the political agenda of the bourgeois parties. The debate has ranged over what to do about the monarchy, the houses of Lords and Commons, bribery and corruption, official secrecy, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the judiciary, Quangoes, local government and whether to adopt proportional representation. The Tories oppose democratic reform. Labour and the Liberal Democrats favour it. At the next election these issues will be put before the British people, along with the constitutional proposals of the various nationalist parties such as Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein and the Scottish National Party. Working class parties should set their own agenda on these questions. How the country is governed is a matter of major political significance for every class including the working class. Some marxists have tended to ignore these issues claiming that they are either a diversion from trade union struggles or because they will all be sorted out under socialism. Others have supported demands for democratic reform, in effect following the demands of liberal democracy. The SWP's attitude to Scottish and Welsh Devolution provides a concrete example. In 1979 during the Devolution referendum, the SWP argued that democratic reform was irrelevant and should be opposed on the grounds that "socialism was the only answer". By 1987 the SWP had changed its mind. Growing support for democratic reform amongst the working class in Scotland, convinced the SWP to support Labour's Devolution proposals. Even then SWP "support" was passive, and not based on any attempt to mobilise the working class. Theoretical issues The current situation places before the communist movement definite theoretical tasks, to clarify as precisely and scientifically as possible our understanding of and tactics in relation to democratic reform, democratic revolution and socialist revolution. The various organisations of British marxists are already realigning themselves in terms of their attitudes to democracy and socialism and the relationship between them. For example the SWP, the old CPGB and Militant supported the demand for a Scottish Assembly, a democratic reform proposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The RDG and CPGB are opposing a Scottish Assembly with demands for Republican Assemblies won by mass mobilisation. Others such as the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain oppose both democratic reform and democratic revolution in the name of "socialist revolution". The Bolshevik tradition We must start with our own traditions. Revolutionary Social Democracy, or Bolshevism as it was called, can be understood, as Hal Draper once remarked, as the combination of revolutionary democracy with revolutionary socialism. The Bolsheviks based their strategy on a revolutionary democratic road to socialism and communism. This had three elements i) Theory of democratic revolution and socialist revolution ii) Theory of revolutionary consciousness iii) Theory of the vanguard party The theory of democratic revolution was so central to Bolshevik politics that it is difficult to understand correctly Lenin's theory of revolutionary consciousness or the vanguard party separately from it. The debate in "What is to be done" between consciousness and spontaneity, economism and politics is in reality a debate between democratic reform and democratic revolution. The concept of the vanguard party was defined in terms of the leading role of the working class in the democratic revolution. Bolsheviks and the democratic revolution
One of the main strengths of the Bolsheviks was in their orientation to the democratic revolution and their rejection of the socialist revolution as an immediate task. But their theory of democratic revolution was incorrect. It was specified in terms of a future Bourgeois Democratic revolution. The idea that the democratic revolution must come first was emphasised by Lenin many times, not least in 1905. In "Two tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic revolution". Lenin explained the Bolsheviks tactics during the 1905 revolution. He makes clear that skipping the democratic revolution is an absurd anarchist (and ultra left) notion. He said "replying to the anarchists' objections that we are putting off the socialist revolution, we say: we are not putting it off, but are taking the first step towards it in the only possible way, along the only correct path, namely the path of the democratic republic. Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy, will inevitable arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and political sense." (Lenin Selected Works 1 p435) The first step cannot be avoided. In terms of tactics, the first revolutionary step is the one that we must concentrate on. Of course the Bolsheviks wanted a socialist revolution. But they understood, even with a mistaken theory and wrong reasons, that the democratic revolution must come first. On this they were absolutely correct. It meant that they were the most militant and revolutionary republican party - nicknamed the Jacobins. They did not deviate from the first task of overthrowing Tsarism. No further than a bourgeois republic?
But the Bolsheviks formulated this first step in terms of a bourgeois democratic revolution. They did not see that it was possible or necessary to continue the democratic revolution beyond a bourgeois republic. In this they were mistaken. Lenin's April thesis in 1917 recognised this error and redefined the tasks of the democratic revolution in terms of the transfer of power to the working class and the Soviets. There was no reason why the democratic revolution should remain within the confines of a bourgeois republic. Some Marxists think that the April theses meant the democratic revolution was replaced by the socialist revolution. An alternative interpretation is that the democratic revolution was being redefined in terms of the democratic tasks of the working class. The democratic revolution was now being seen as part of the long road of the permanent or ongoing revolution. Krondstadt - end of the democratic revolution
The Russian democratic revolution began in February 1917 and continued through the October uprising and the civil war. By the end of 1920 the forces of the democratic revolution were victorious but exhausted. The working class survivors had put up with terrible privations. They tolerated the military dictatorship and so-called "war communism" as a necessary evil to defeat the white counter-revolution. Now the mood changed. Workers wanted the fruits of victory, not simply in improved food rations, but in greater freedom and democratic rights. This led to the final major armed confrontation of the revolution, begun by striking workers in Petrograd and spreading to rebellion in Krondstadt. Krondstadt was the first victory for counter-revolution. In this violent split, communists fought on both sides of the barricades. In March 1921 factions were banned at the 10th party congress. In the aftermath, the power of the bureaucracy began to grow. Eventually Stalin's faction became the leader of a new emerging bureaucratic ruling class. We now know that the working class was unable to establish a stable system of democratic government based on workers councils. This was not simply due to the mistakes of the Bolshevik leadership in 1921. The working class was only a minority of the population. The civil war destroyed workers democracy as it slaughtered the advanced workers. No workers democracy can, in the long run, survive the power of the world market and the dictatorship of the "law of value". The triumph of the counter-revolution has left its mark on Marxist theory. Stalinism maintained the counter-revolutionary theory of Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and this shaped the politics of Communist parties round the world. A new theory of proletarian democratic revolution that was emerging from the April theses was buried. Now after the break up of the USSR it is time to rediscover the lesson of Kronsdadt, that the only class that can lead a modern democratic revolution to real democratic victory is the working class. The vanguard party must stand at the head of the democratic masses instead of crushing them. National political and international economic revolutions A starting point for a critical examination of the theory of revolution should not be terms which Stalinism and Trotskyism has left us, (i.e. bourgeois democratic, national socialist revolutions.) We should begin with two important features of the modern capitalist political economy. Modern capitalism is a global system. Lenin called this highest stage, imperialism, or international capitalism. Globalisation has gone much further over the last 80 years and especially during the 1980's. Communists aim to transform this world market system, not to retreat back to nationalism. The world progressive class must advance to higher forms of internationalism, than is possible under present day imperialist rivalry. An international economic revolution is now objectively necessary. The revolutionary transformation of the imperialist world market can take us from capitalism to communism. World market forces must be replaced by the conscious social planning and co-operative organisation of the international working class. This is not a task that can be carried out by any one or even a few national sections of the international working class. In to-days world system any national socialism or national economic planning would represent economic retardation, somewhat equivalent to replacing the multi-national corporation with the corner shop. Even in Marx's day, national socialism was a utopian project. It is a thousand times more so to-day. Any dabbling in national socialism or any ideological concessions to it is exceptionally dangerous for the working class. Given the prevalence of national socialism in the working class movement this point cannot be emphasised too strongly. National revolution
Does this mean that national sections of the working class are powerless in the face of global capitalism? Not at all. Despite its internationalisation, the political form taken by capitalism is still the nation state. The working class must win political power on a national basis, by means of a national political revolution. This must precede the international economic revolution. Every popular political revolution or revolution "from below" has one common cause. A crisis in the social order causes the popular classes to struggle for democracy. Democracy is a powerful impulse because it symbolises the idea that the people should control their system of government. This impulse can be found for example in the English, North American, French, Russian, Irish, Spanish and more recently in the Iranian and South African revolutions. Which class or classes can lead the national democratic revolution? Certainly to-day it is not the bourgeoisie. They hold power throughout the world. They are a counter-revolutionary class. Why would they want to overthrow themselves? There are only two classes that can lead the national revolution, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Alongside working class leadership of the Russian revolution we have plenty of examples of petty bourgeois leadership. We can sight the examples of the Chinese, Cuban, Nicaraguan and South African revolutions. The question of which class will take power in the course of a national revolution is by no means predetermined. But we must rule out the possibility of bourgeois leadership, whilst being sufficiently elastic to allow for the possibility of either petty bourgeois or working class leadership. Permanent revolution reformulated Any reformulated theory of permanent revolution should be based on working class leadership of the national political revolution and the international economic revolution. These must now be connected to the ideas of democratic revolution, socialist revolution and communism. We can now replace the term national political revolution with national democratic revolution. This focuses attention of the democratic tasks facing society. Each class will view the democratic tasks differently in terms of its own interests. Only on the basis of working class leadership of the democratic revolution can the revolution continue. This is the theory of the proletarian democratic revolution. The democratic revolution is a universal category, that is applicable to all countries regardless of whether they are "advanced" or "backward". A democratic deficit exists in every state, but its particular form depends on the historically specific "democratic deficit" in each country. The international economic revolution should be called the international socialist revolution, the lowest phase or stage of communism. This defines the socialist tasks of the working class in internationalist terms. The theory of permanent revolution is the theory of an ongoing uninterrupted revolution. This means that the democratic revolution is directly linked to the socialist revolution which in turn is linked to communism. The connection is the power of the working class. Only if the working class comes to power during the course of the democratic revolution, as in Russia 1917-21, and this political revolution is internationalised does it become possible to move on to the international economic revolution. The working class must make the revolution permanent. The stagiest or Stalinist theory? Stageism takes the formula "democratic revolution-socialist revolution-communism" and imposes certain theoretical restrictions on it. These are as follows i) that the democratic revolution must be bourgeois democratic ii) that the democratic revolution, now defined as "bourgeois" applies only to "backward" states not advanced ones. iii) that the bourgeois democratic revolution must be separated from the socialist revolution by a whole period of peaceful capitalist economic development. The revolutions are not linked. Indeed any attempt to move from one to the other is adventurist because it defies the "laws" of economic development iv) that the bourgeois democratic revolution must either be a) led by the bourgeoisie or b) restricted to bourgeois democratic republican institutions. v) that the socialist revolution is a national socialist revolution These restrictions mean that in practice the revolutionary democratic road is either impossible in advanced states, where the bourgeoisie is in power with bourgeois democratic constitutions. In so-called "backward" countries the working class must restrict themselves to achieving bourgeois rule and bourgeois democracy. This theory has aided the counter-revolution in China 1927 and Spain 1936. To-day it is used by ultra lefts in the UK to "prove" that a national political or democratic revolution can only be bourgeois democratic and therefore is either impossible or inventing a new stage. This is why, among British Marxists, militant revolutionary republicanism is replaced by passive liberal republicanism of the SWP type. The theory of bourgeois democratic revolution denies the leading role of the working class on the republican question in the UK. The concept of the national "socialist" revolution is also problematic. Is it defined by its political tasks, such as the dictatorship of the proletariat, or by its economic tasks such as central planning and nationalisation. And are these the economic tasks anyway? Since capitalism was transformed into a higher stage of imperialism, then socialism must be an alternative to imperialism or it is nothing. The socialist revolution must destroy imperialism. It must be international. No national economic revolution can do this. What is wrong with Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution?
Our reformulation differs from Trotsky's theory, even though aspects of it are compatible. Trotsky's theory begins with the incorrect conceptions of stageism - bourgeois democratic and national socialist revolutions. He then modifies them by linking them. His theory is a house standing on rotten stagiest foundations. Like the Stalinists, Trotsky thinks of the democratic revolution as "bourgeois". It is only applicable in "backward countries". Consequently his theory of permanent revolution is a theory that can only be applied in "backward" countries. Advanced countries can proceed immediately to a national socialist revolution. This may begin but cannot be completed on a national level. The Russian revolution was for Trotsky an incomplete socialist revolution or half a socialist revolution. Trotsky's theory of degenerated workers state defends Russia on the grounds that half a socialist society was better than none. Conclusion.
The British Marxist movement has in the past pursued two main strategies. The old CPGB and the Militant Tendency followed the parliamentary road to socialism. The IS\SWP followed the syndicalism road with their rank and filist strategy. We must now return to the Bolshevik's revolutionary democratic road to socialism. This needs reformulating as a universal strategy. We must reject completely the stagiest theory of bourgeois democratic revolution for proletarian democratic revolution. We must reject the national socialist revolution for the international socialist revolution. We must integrate this into a new theory of permanent revolution. The revolutionary democratic road to socialism combines a theory of permanent revolution with Lenin's theory of political consciousness, the idea of the vanguard party and the leading role of the working class in the democratic revolution. We must put this forward as our strategy for solving the political and constitutional crisis of British "democracy" in the interests of the working class. Dave Craig (RDG) Date 3 January 2000 (or possibly 1997-8)t |
Without revolutionary theory, no revolutionary movementRevolutionary Democratic Group: contact@rdg.org.uk
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