The Movement of the Majority'

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THE same people who defend Official Secrecy, the House of Lards, and the monarchy, and who readily respond to 'extraparliamentary' pressures from the City and the IMF, now accuse the left wing campaigners for democracy of being But the issue for Marxists is not the desirability of using and extending parliamentary democracy, but whether it is possible for the majority to win major social change without a violent extraparliamentary backlash from the ruling class; and whether the working class can and must, in the struggle, develop a higher form of democracy than the present parliaA minority coup by the Left would be impossible to achieve (because all the levers for minority power - armed force, the press, the central bureaucratic apparatus, etc - are in the hands of our enemies), ridiculous to attempt, and anyway contrary to our basic principle that 'the emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class In 1941 socialists in the USA faced similar charges to those levelled against the left today. Then they were courtroom charges, against 28 members of the Socialist Workers' Party, of 'conspiring to overthrow the government by violence' etc. 18 were found guilty and jailed.

One of them, James P Cannon, in his court testimony, gave a classic explanation of the true relation of Marxism and democracy. We reprint excerpts, starting with Cannon's reply on the nature of a future socialist government.

Chile: parliamentary road to... army terror anti-democratic!

mentary system.

itself' We think it will be the most democratic government from the point of view of the great masses of the people that has ever existed, far more democratic, in the real essence of the matter, than the present bourgeois democracy in the United States.

What about freedom of speech and all the freedoms that we generally associate with democratic government?

I think in the United States you can say with absolute certainty that the freedoms of speech, press, assemblage, religion, will be written in the programme of the victorious revolution.

Now what is the opinion of Marxists with reference to the change in the social order, as far as its being The Petrograd workers' counci When: we set up the Workers' and Farmers' government in this country, the functioning of this govprofoundly and radically different from the functions the tasks and nature of the bourgeois state, that = = will have to replace it all i he line. From the *=: aning the worksee ras a different and it is diffit nas extrely new accompanied or not accompanied by violence?

It is the opinion of all Marxists that it will be accompanied by violence.

That is based, like all Marxist , docirine, on a study of history, the historical experiences of mankind in the numerous changes of society from one form to another, the revolutions which accompanied it, and the resistance which the outlived classes invariably put up against the new order. Their attempt to defend themselves against the new order, or to suppress by violence the movement for the new order, has resulted in every important social transformation being accompanied by violence. 1, 1917 apparatus, a new state apparatus from top to bottom.

That is what we mean.

Do you mean that there will be no Congress or House of Representatives and Senate?

It will be a different kind of Congress. It will be a Congress of representatives of workers and soldiers and tarmers, based on their occupational units, rather than the present form based on territorial representation. Who, in the opinion of Marxists initiated that violence?

Always the ruling class: always the outlived class that doesn't want to leave the stage when the time has come. They want to hang on to their privileges, to reinforce them by violent measures, against the rising majority and they run up against the mass violence of the new class, which history has ordained shall come to power.

What is the opinion of Marxists, as far as winning a majority of the people to Socialist ideas?

Yes, that is certainly the aim of the party. That is the aim of the Marxist movement, has been from its inception. Marx said the social revolution of the proletariat - I think I can quote his exact words trom memory - 'is a movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority" . He said this in distinguishing it from previous revolutions which, had been made in the interest of minorities, as was the case in France in 1789.

What would you say is the opinion of Marxists as far as the desirability of peaceful transition concerned?

The position of Marxists is that the most economical and preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation, by all means, is to have it done peacefully.

And in the opinion of Marxists, is that absolutely excluded?

Well, I wouldn't say absolutely excluded. We say that the lessons of history don't show any important examples in favour of the idea so that you can count on it.

Can you give examples in American history of minority refusing to submit to a majority?

I can give you a very important one. The conception of the Marxists in that, even if the transfer uf political power from the capitalists to the proletariat is accomplished peacefully, then the minority, the exploiting capitalist class, will revolt against the new regime, no matter how legally it is established.

I can give you an example in American history.

The American Civil War resulted from the fact that the Southern slaveholders couldn't reconcile themselves to the legal parliamentary victory of Northern capitalism, the election of President Lincoln.

Can you give us an example outside of America where a reactionary minority revolted against a majority in office?

Yes, in Spain - the coalition of workers' and liberal parties in Spain got an absolute majority in the elections and established the People's Front government. This government was no sooner installed than it was faced by an armed rebellion, led by the reactionary capitalists of Spain.

Do you believe you can accomplish the control or acquisition, shall we say, of governmental power by being elected to it?

We can accomplish it if we are not interfered with by violence on the part of the capitalists.

You mean, the are not going to elected?

When we say that it is an illusion to expect that we can effect the social transformation by parliamentary action, that doesnt mean that we don't want to do it, or that we wouldn't gladly accept such a method. We don't believe, on the basis of our knowledge of history, and on the basis of our knowledge of the greed and rapacity of the American ruling class, that they will permit that kind of action. capitalists let you get clearer confession of subversion of Parliament. Perhaps that's too long ago and far away. What then of the last Labour government and the £1 billion cuts and wage freeze dictated by the IMF? Where were the leaders of the PLP to stand up to that particular extraparliamentary pressure? (Answer: on their knees).

Or the still extant (99 years old and kicking)

Lord Denning, who not only believes election manifestos are so much confetti, but also that the judiciary You mean like this, then: have the right to overrule ''To accept his argument Parliament in the interest would mean that the of the "nation' • One could Queen's First Minister was go on to the military and being asked to ring down police chiefs with similar the curtain on parlia views. The civil service... mentary democracy by The list is long and ugly. accepting the doctrine that The narrow-minded defan election in Britain was a enders of class privilege all farce, that the British have their apologists (and peopie could not make a sometimes, hirelings) choice between policies and among the PLP, whose that policies were directed tolerance is quite elastic from outside the country, in a rightward direction but mainly by people who did liable to snap at the merest not understand Britain and mention of accountability. relied for their information Can we expect the Footupon the advice of people tings to bring these 'subwhose motives varied from versives' to justice?

We got them, then!

Caught in the act of black- FRANCE'S President Mittmailing the Prime Minister, errand has called a halt to mobilising sinister outside the government's proforces to undermine the gramme of nationalisation. democratic choice of. the He says there will be no majority. Racks at the more nationalisation for the rest of his seven year stint as President.

The writer is Harold Recently finance minister Wilson. The time the early Jacques Delors called for a months of the 1964 Labour 'pause' on all reform programmes. Prime Minister Government. He is speaking of the Governor of the Pierre Mauroy rebuffed behind him the internat- Bank of England, and Delors, saying reform would go ahead. Mitterrional speculators who had and's formula seems to plunged the country into a be the government's agreed compromise.

You couldn't ask for a The reason Mitterrand gives is that employers are confused about "the rules of the game" because of the amount of new legislation.

The truth is nothing of the kind: the employers want the programme of nationalisation to stop and are threatening economic sabotage - an investment strike - if they don't get their way.

they have found tha v screaming loudly thei can get as good service for a Socialist Party government as from the previous right-wing governments.

Did anyone say : 'extraparliamentary pressure'? Ruth Lawrence, at the age of 10, has just become the youngest person ever to be accepted by Oxford University. Let's hope she doesn't follow in the footsteps of the previous youngest student there and make another record: as the youngest ever unemployed graduate.

John Nunn played chess at 3, did quadratic equations at 4, O levels at 12, As at 14 (Daily Mail at 93?)

Before his 15th birthday he was accepted by Oriel College, Oxford, where he got a first class degree followed by a doctorate at 21.

Now, aged 26, he's unemployed. Mrs. Nunn commented: 'He was dedicated. Every vacation he would spend each day working on his maths. Now it's rather sad. He spends his time leafing through the Higher Education Supplement to see if there are any jobs"

That's capitalism for you, reward for effort and all that.

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ernment, its tasks, its whole nature, will be so