Socialism and Democracy

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66 ... The first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy"

"Conservatives do not worship democracy. For them majority rule is a device... Majorities do not always see where their best interests lie and then act upon that understanding. For Conservatives, therefore, democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

"In Dr Hayek's words, democracy 'is not an ultimate or absolute value and must be judged by what it will achieve'. And if it is leading to an end that is undesirable or inconsistent with itself, then there is a theoretical case for ending it. " 'Numbers in a state' , said Burke, 'are always of consideration, but they are not the whole consideration'. . In practice no alternative to majority rule exists, though it has to be used in conjunction with other Sir lan Gilmour, Tory MP, in his book Inside Right.

"There are things stronger than parliamentary majorAndrew Bonar Law, Tory Party leader, campaigning against the then Liberal Government's Irish Home Rule Bill in 1912.

«The reformists systematically implant in the minds of the workers the notion that the sacredness of democracy is best guaranteed when the bourgeoisie is Foot: takes part in secret Labour Government decisarmed to the teeth and the workers are unarmed" ions on updating Polaris, then calls Peter Tatchell mentary democracy, for Cripple cynicism, and for the de Amidst continued econfacto surrendering of the omic decline and social rights of Parliament to the decay, the prospects for a civil service and the revival of health in Britain's military. parliamentary: demoèratic that parliamentary demo- degree that social struggles in danger from their critics erupt, it will be battered and opponents in the lab- and the ruling class may "Tand : Lenin' and Trotsky'r but that tst kit wagh wuv. JOHN O'MAHONY opens a discussion THE CRY 'For Parliamentary Democracy: the Trotskyists are the enemy of democracy" is - perhaps predictably - the political standard under which Labour's Right and soft Left are trying to rally forces for a counter-offensive against the serious Left.

The direct target is the revolutionary Left. But the main target is the much bigger serious reformist Left.

The slippery Neil Kinnock, eager to preserve a 'left' appearance for himself, has focused on this issue. The obvious intention is to confuse and divide the Left which, when united, secured the victories of Brighton and Blackpool, and which, if it can restore its unity, can still stop and beat back the present right wing offensive.

paign for deputy leader, Kinnock does the direct work of the Right.

Coercion In fact Kinnock merely follows in Shirley Williams' footsteps. Mrs Williams' own commitment to democracy didn't stop her voting against abortion in Parliament - that is, voting to use state coercion to impose conduct dictated by her own Catholic religion on those who don't believe in it. But she tried, back in 1977, to raise a hue and cry against those she slandered as 'the antidemocratic left' Williams' attempt to discredit advocates of reform of existing democratic institutions, or of their replacement by other democratic institutions (workers' councils);

as being against democracy per se, was meant as a preemptive move then. Now it is the chief tool of the witch hunters, fighting to regain the ground they have lost - having also lost Shirley - since then.

Today, though the Right has the union leaderships and the help of the media, it is very weak among the rank and file of the Labour 83 per cent of the Labour Party's individual membership vote went to Benn for deputy leader.

So the possibility of carrying through a purge of the Labour Party which will not gut it and immobilise it as an electoral force for years ahead depends on splitting The Right want to isolate and drive out the Marxists, selectively purge the fighting reformist Left, and intimidate the rest of the Left. The attitude to democracy and Parliament is the wedge which (they hope)

will not only separate off the Marxists, but also inhibit and intimidate all those who want to struggle now against the Tory government in industry and devices"

ities"

Michael Foot coula valk just one year ago of raising an extra-parliamentary 'storm of opposition to the government' , and now some of the union leaders are talking of industrial resistance to Tebbit's anti-union laws - only talking - but there are limits. Parliament must rule -even on the bones of the labour movement. That is what the right wing want to say and get the labour movement to accept..

Lying The first thing that leeds to be said about demı cracy is that they are lying about the Marxists and our attitude.

Those Liberals who 'entered' the Labour long ago and made careers as servants ot tne 1L -ruling class there, and those soft 'Lefts' like Kinnock who seem to believe in the divine right of the Liberals to rule the Labour Party, lie through their teeth when they say that the revolutionary Left is not concerned with democracy or is opposed to democracy, or will not defend democracy and fight for it.

The basie truth of the socialist labour movement, and of unfalsified Marxism concerning the relationship of socialism toldemocracy, is this: whoever is not a democrat is not a socialist (nor a communist in the sense that Marx and Engels Tand: Lenin' and sTretsky:

Marx and Engels, 1347 Leon Trotsky, 1938.

4 _ 11. •drentand the word and the goal) - not a Marxist unueiswuu vie socialist who looks to the working class as the subject and the agent to realise its own self-rule in socialism, as the only agent of social change and of the future collective workers' power.

The working class needs democracy for the same reason as it needs things like trade unions and political parties - because; unlike the bourgeoisie, it does not own major private rule in society and in the state only collectively. It can only know its own mind, assess its own experience, set its own goals and adjust them, and take care of all its own affairs, collectively, and therefore only democratically.

This is true of the working class as a force struggling within capitalist. society, and to transcend it. It is even more true when the working class is the ruler of society, administering a planned economy:

The capitalist economy could thrive inside a police dictatorship. The nationalised Stalinist economies stifle because of it.

Trotsky compared the function (and the irreplaceability) of democracy for the labour movement within capitalism and after it has overthrown it, to the function land irreplaceability) uf oxygen for an animal.

There are many qualifications (as we shall see), but that is the basic truth a threat to parliamentary democracy....

about democracy for socialists.

When the Right and the soft Left say the issue is parliamentary democracy, cracy to an ideal present they give it to be under- condition. stood that the Left are simply undemocratic, and the horrors of Stalinism are evoked, openly or implicitly. They are engaging in a fraud.

For its effect, the right wing's accusation depends on ignorance of what some socialists propose by way of reform of parliaWing Parliament. mentary democracy, or of what other socialists would replace it by. It depends on identification of 'parliamentary democracy' with democratic rights, as the opposite of tyranny and totalitarianism and the only alternative to them - and the acceptance of what now exists as 'the best in the best possible of all democratic worlds' It is a thoroughly dishonest exercise in intellectual card-sharping, dependent on the mental equivalent of sleight of hand.

system.

They define democracy in terms of only one of its historic forms, and try hereby to rule out of court those who would advocate either a different form of democracy or a more or less radical democratic transformation of the existing Parliamentary system.

Now the existing British system has had many ict not hicthrical stages our movement!

Tony Benn has done tremendous work to bring to the attention of the labour movement the reality that now clothes itself in the traditional garb of the British parliamentary democratic system.

The permanent civil service to an enormous extent determines policy and ensures its continuity whatever government is in power: Benn once received a civil service brief marked, 'For the new Minister, if not Mr Benn"

Prime ministerial patronage ensures that Parliament's role as a scrutineer is undercut and atrophied.

Real control of the armed forces - whose subordination to parliament at the end of the 17th century was the decisive final act in securing parliamentary rule in England - is therefore less and less exercised by Parliament.

The former Chief of the General Staff, Lord Carver, has publicly admitted that in 1974, when the last Labour government was returned amidst massive industrial struggles, there was serious discussion "among fairly senior" officers of army intervention". The top brass put a stop to it then. - but of growth and develop- the top brass of the Chilean ment, and it has certainly armed forces who were not known a steady perfect- represented in Salvador ing of parliamentary demo- Allende's cabinet didn't stop the fascistic coup of 1973 which pulverised the On the contrary, the Chilean labour movement. decline of the direct con- They organised it. trolling power of the elect- In Britain the "fairly ed chamber, the House of senior" officers of 1974 Commons, has been going are now probably "senior" on for over 100 years: in or close to it. parallel to the extension of Not the British Parliathe franchise after 1867, ment, but the IMF, decided the ruling class has system- on the savage cuts introdatically created parallel uced by the LabourParty levers of power, diminish- champions of parliamentMary democracy when they The cry that parliament- held power in 1976: when ary democracy is in danger they had the parliamentary is a truly ridiculous weapon majority, they accepted the to find in the hands of IMF's dictates. Labour parliamentarians The list could be vastly who - like Michael Foot, extended. The point is that for example - have for parliamentary democracy is years and decades, in gov- hollowed out, decrepit, ernment and out, allowed enfeebled in face of the themselves to function as permanent state apparatus. so many mere gargoyles, The ruling class increasingdecorating and camouflag- Ly exercises its rule through ing the structure of unelect- direct ties to that apparaed bureaucratic and tus. And in its international military power which has parliamentary grown to dominance within democracy is subordinate the facade of Britain's to the dictates of forces not ancient parliamentary elected by the British people, in fact not elected Many of them bear direct by anybody at all. personal responsibility for the diminishing of parliathe growth of political And now they discover. system are nil. To the attempt to cripple it or. Stalin: enemy of democracy, enemy socialism destroy it to defend themselv » and their interests from the labour movement.

Tony Benn has recently summed up the state of British democracy, basing his assessment to a large extent on his own experience as a member of Labour Cabinets which were supposedly in control of Britain. These are some of his conclusions:

"Despite all that is said about democracy and our traditional freedoms, the people of Britain have much less control over their destiny than they are led to believe... and a great deal less than they had a generation ago.

"In short, the powers which control our lives and our futures have become progressively more concentrated, more centralised, more internationalised, more secretive and less accountable. The demo cracy of which we boast is becoming a decorous fac. ade behind which those who have power exercise it for their own advantagt and to the detriment of the public welfare"

Allegiance

Benn is especially con cerned with the loss c British autonomy to th IMF and the EEC. But th following has nothing di 11.- with Dritoin' ectly • to ao will DuvawI position in the world.

"A hereditary House ‹ Lords, topped up by th pliable recipients of prim ministerial patronage, sti has great power to dela or obstruct the policie adopted by an electe House of Commons. It als has an unfettered veto, i law, to protect itself fro abolition. The Crow still retains 8 equally unfettered leg authority to dismiss & elected governmen dissolve an elected Hou of Commons, and preci itate a general election :

any time it chooses. 1 do so it need only call upr its prerogative powers:

used by the Governor Ge eral of Australia in 19 when the Labour Gover ment of Gough Whitla was dismissed...

"All Cabinet ministe derive their executive aut ority, in its legal sens not from election as leade of the majority party in ti Commons, but as membe of Her Majesty's Gover ment, formed by the prin minister at the Crowi invitation.:. But courts and the armed forc swear allegiance to t Crown and not to the ele ed government Though Benn's writin are of tremendous value opening the eyes of t broad labour movement the realities behind t parliamentary facade, no of this is very startling Marxists. For examp Trotsky wrote this •Where is Britain Going in 1925:

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Socialist Organiser no. 67 January 7, 1982 Page 11 Books and pamphlets that you should read Everton Williams introduces 'Out of the Ghetto' ', Joe Jacobs' account of antithem arm against Britain's elected government Democracy Ulster Volunteers: Tories helped clare the royour Party lead- " 'The royal power' deers, "does not interfere' with the country's progress The royal power is weak because the instrument of bourgeois rule is the bourgeois parliament, and because the bourgeoisie does not need any special activities outside of Parliament.

"But in case of need, the bourgeoisie will make use of the royal power as a concentration of all nonparliamentary, i.e. real forces, aimed against the working class..

Tony Benn asks what would happen, 'if a government elected by a clear majority on a mandate of reform were to introduce legislation to complete the process of democratic advance' • This: • The Lords veto, the prerogative of the crown to dismiss and dissolve, and the loyalties of the courts and the services to adjudicate upon legitimacy and to enforce those judgments might all be used to defend the status quo against a parliamentary majority elected to transform it' was proved - on a small scale - by the judiciary's veto against the London electors and the GLC's right to rule London according to their electorally endorsed policies. It is one of the most dramatic direct legal interventions in politics in modern history, and a precious warning • to the labour movement, which can learn from it what will happen if it ever tries to take drastic measures against the ruling class.

It is the measure of the soft Left, though no more than you would expect from the Labour Right, that just at this point they discover that it is the serious Left which threatens the future of parliamentary democracy in Britain!

It is the ruling class who threaten the democracy we have now. If, from the beginning of mass suttrage, they have consciously erected 'safeguards against democracy' in the form of the civil service and armed forces bureaucracy, and kept a formidable array of powers in reserve outside revolt in Army. They armed and drilled a large private army (with German guns).

They succeeded. They forced the Liberal government to abandon its plan to solve Ireland's British problem by way of an all-Ireland Home Rule parliament. Eventually, partition and all that has flowed from it was the direct result of the Tory revolt.

And that was in defence of a section of the landlord class. What when the whole ruling class faces crisis?

Spiral

Under the pressure of the social crisis, British parliamentary democracy can and probably will enter a downward spiral of decline - especially when the working class and the labour movement begin to recover from the effects of the slump and start to fight back.

The reckless distortion and savage misrepresentation of the Left by the Establishment media which is poisoning the political Denning: judges should vet the voters' decisions fascist struggle in the 1930s.

IF YOU only intend to read one book about everything in the world, don't read the Bible, read 'Out of the Gietto' by Joe Jacobs.

This book deals with all the experiences of growing up Jewish in the East End of London through the difficult pre-war years, particularly the traumatic thirties.

Firstly, it is a human story of the real down-toearth problems of life. It is well written, humorous in places, exciting as well as sad, describing the anxiety of developing personal relationships and the pleasures you. experience. It's so relevant and truthful that you can understand and recognise its strengths.

Secondly, it's about the struggles and experiences of a real class fighter. Joe Jacobs gives you the feelings and situation of an active participant.

The most important part of the book for me was Joe Jacobs' account of his antifascist work.

Joe Jacobs joined the Young Communist League (YCL) and Communist Party (CP), and was secretary of the Stepney branch. However, Joe's loyalty to his class often came into conflict with the party, and he had to resolve and struggle for his politics against it.

The chapter on the battle of Cable Street on October 4th 1936 is the most exciting. I read it crying, swearing, and feeling proud of Jacobs.

On October 4th, 250,000 workers blocked the predominantly Jewish area of East London to stop Mosley's blackshirts marching through it.

For those of us who have to stand in small numbers at Chapel Market or get beaten up at gigs, you get a fantastic feeling from that chapter.

You realise that the working class will smash the Nazis, and the book gives you a sense of the power we have to do it.

It moves something in your heart, I'd call it proletarian pride.

The book exposes well the myth that it was the CP who mobilised and fought the Nazis. It was partly for this reason that Jacobs wrote the book. He received a lot of pressure from the CP leadership for advocating no platform and building on the streets to mobilise against the Nazis.

He also attacked the CP for its 'parliamentarian' attitude to the unions. It won posts, but did nothing with them.

Jacobs' loyalty to the CP - what he considered to be the real workers' party -was strong though misplaced. He fought against the party line, not to carve out a clique for personal gain, but for the needs and interests of the class.

I love the book because it said many things I hope I would have said and done in the thirties.

Joe Jacobs' book is invaluable reading for any antifascist activist. It gives you confidence and guidance in the struggle to alert others to the danger of fascism and against pacifism, abstention, or reliance on the police.

I promise anyone with class instinct a brilliant read. It's clear, simple, and honest.

Books available from Socialist Organiser include:

Cannon, Notebook O an Agitator, 02.20 Trotsky, The Transitional Programme, 30j Please add postage and order from SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8

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property, and can own the means of production and