21.12.1995
The revolutionary democratic road to socialism - part I
At the CPGB school this year Dave Craig outlined the Revolutionary Democratic Group’s theory of permanent revolution. Here he opens the debate, to be continued in the next issue
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, quangos, local government and whether to adopt proportional representation.
The Tories oppose democratic reform. Labour and the Liberal Democrats favour it. At the next election constitutional issues will be put before the British people, along with the constitutional proposals of the various nationalist parties.
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 they will all be sorted out under socialism. Others have supported demands for democratic reform, in effect following the demands of liberal democracy.
The Socialist Workers Party’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.
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 Marxists in the UK are already realigning themselves in terms of their attitudes to democracy and socialism and the relationship between them.
We must start with our own traditions. The Bolsheviks based their strategy on a revolutionary democratic road to socialism and communism. This had three elements:
- a path from democratic revolution to socialist revolution and communism
- a theory of revolutionary consciousness
- a 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.
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 term 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 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. This meant that they were the most militant and revolutionary republican party. They did not deviate from the first task of overthrowing Tsarism.
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. Lenin’s April theses 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.
The democratic revolution was being redefined in terms of the democratic tasks of the working class. The democratic revolution could now be seen as part of the long road of the permanent or ongoing 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 counterrevolution. 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 Kronstadt.
Kronstadt was the first victory for counterrevolution. 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 counterrevolution has left its mark on Marxist theory. Stalinism maintained the counterrevolutionary 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 Kronstadt: 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.
A starting point for a critical examination of the theory of revolution should not be terms which Stalinism and Trotskyism have left us (ie, bourgeois democratic, national socialist revolutions).
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, especially since the 1980s. Communists aim to transform this world market system, not retreat back to nationalism. The world progressive class must advance to higher forms of internationalism than are 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 cooperative 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 today’s 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 today. Any dabbling in ‘national socialism’ or any ideological concessions to it are exceptionally dangerous for the working class.
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 today it is not the bourgeoisie. It holds power throughout the world. It is a counterrevolutionary class. Why would it want to overthrow itself? 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 cite 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.
Any reformulated theory of permanent revolution should be based on working class leadership of the national political revolution and the international economic revolution.
We can now replace the term ‘national political revolution’ with ‘national democratic revolution’. This focuses attention on 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 conditions 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 until communism.
Stageism takes the formula ‘democratic revolution - socialist revolution - communism’ and imposes certain theoretical restrictions on it. These are as follows:
1. That the democratic revolution must be bourgeois democratic.
2. That the democratic revolution, now defined as ‘bourgeois’, applies only to ‘backward’ states, not advanced ones.
3. 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.
4. That the bourgeois democratic revolution must either be
a) led by the bourgeoisie or
b) restricted to bourgeois democratic republican institutions.
5. That the socialist revolution is a national socialist revolution.
These restrictions mean that in practice the revolutionary democratic road is impossible in advanced states, where the bourgeoisie is in power with bourgeois democratic constitutions. In so-called ‘backward’ countries the working class must restrict itself to achieving bourgeois rule and bourgeois democracy.
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.
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 stageist 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.
The Marxist movement in the UK 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 syndicalist road with their rank and fileist strategy. We must now return to the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary democratic road to socialism. This needs reformulating as a universal strategy. We must reject completely the stageist 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.