Letters

Democratic revolution

Paul Cockshot (Weekly Worker March 28) seems to have an impressive knowledge of the history and meaning of democracy; certainly greater than mine, and I would not seek to dispute his understanding of the matter.

His appreciation of the character of bourgeois democracy, with its professional politicians and alienation of the working masses is reflective of Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State. His identification of real democratic content in primitive communism reasserting itself against the alienated class democracy of the bourgeois republic is central to the content of revolutionary democratic theory espoused by the Revolutionary Democratic Group and the Republican Forum.

I wonder if the main problem Paul has with the RDG is the use of the word ‘republic’. This may be superficial of me, and I may have missed the point. But we could use the word ‘state’, or more correctly, ‘semi-state’ to identify the workers’ democratic class dictatorship. I would ask that he replies to this point.

The main question though is of democracy.

I would start by posing this as a class question. Bourgeois democracy is qualitatively different from proletarian democracy. In theory these are idealised forms. In practice the class forces representing these ideologies struggle against each other. This struggle becomes open political class struggle in the context of what the RDG discusses as the democratic revolution. It is this theory that leads the RDG to advocate a minimum revolutionary democratic programme for a new republic (that word again).

As communists our aim is that, having built the Communist Party and drawn the advanced working class around such a programme, we can, in a rising democratic revolution, fight for the ultimate conclusion - which is working class power and a workers’ republic, as opposed to conceding to reactionaries some form of radical bourgeois republic.

Paul’s posing of “the sovereign mass jury of Greece”, and the “mass people’s courts ... [of] ... the Great Chinese Revolution” against the bourgeois form of alienated democracy is the very stuff of the struggle of the working class in the democratic revolution. So here, he is right. But wrong, I think, to represent Dave Craig as advocating that we make a stageist concession to alienated bourgeois democracy.

Paul also disputes Dave Craig’s notion of the dual power situation, and believes that the “dual power situation only arises when dictatorship or absolute monarchy is defeated in war”. Spain (1936), Chile (1972-3), and Germany (1918-23) would indicate that Paul goes too far here. But the question of dual power is one that needs to be looked at much more fully. What I do not understand from the article is Paul’s alternative view, and what programmatic conclusions he draws from it.

He implies in his letter to Weekly Worker (February 8) that he agrees with Dave Craig on the need for democratic revolution, but his theory of it is different. The RDG’s draft programme is published in the Weekly Worker (December 14 1995), and it is based on our theory. But it is the theoretical debate that is at present of most importance, and Paul’s contribution is appreciated. Paul and the RDG should unite and work it out. He may well modify the RDG draft programme, and at the same time we may modify his.

Finally, I would put forward an example of the relevance and usefulness of revolutionary democratic theory.

Again in Weekly Worker (March 28), there was a letter from Ted Hankin and Tony Clark of Partisan. They complain that “The Weekly Worker persistently talks of Trotskyism and Stalinism as if two doctrines of similar importance are involved.” They dispute the importance of Trotskyism and claim it “never has carried out a revolution anywhere”. Stalinism, represented by the Third International, by contrast was a “real political, ideological and organisational force” which achieved “the forced industrialisation of the Soviet Union, the defeat of fascism in World War II and the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions” in the name of “Marxism-Leninism”. The clear implication being that these historical events were developments in the world proletarian revolution.

Revolutionary democratic theory understands these events in a different light: that of the revolutionary struggle for real democracy. The USSR’s forced industrialisation was akin in character to the primitive accumulation of early capitalist development. The war against fascism represented a division within imperialism, and was resolved in the interests of the world bourgeoisie. And the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were national democratic revolutions: people’s wars of national liberation against US-dominated imperialism.

The first and second examples were of counterrevolutionary reaction. The Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were progressive; but what happened next, and what were the role and aims of the working class in these situations? The existence and health of working class revolutionary democracy is the key question for communists.

This debate about the historical merits of Stalinism against Trotskyism is sterile. It can only be transcended through the identification in our tradition of revolutionary democracy, and the development in relation to current conditions of revolutionary democratic theory. The centrality of working class democracy to our revolution is the key to our future progress.

All communists must join in this development, and unite in building a revolutionary democratic communist party around our programmatic conclusions.

Peter May
RDG

State capitalist

My article on a potential conflict between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan attracted criticism from Marcus Larsen and Mary Carter. To the former, my article was “sloppy”. To the latter, it was a “very poor effort”. I do not believe that what I write is sacrosanct, but I am writing to answer my critics.

First of all, Marcus objects to my opposition to taking sides in the event of a China-Taiwan conflict. He says that it is necessary to first undertake “considerable research, discussion and debate” before deciding on which side, if any, to support in the event of such a war.

Actually, I do not agree. I think the question of what China was and is does need study. Speaking personally, I am inclined to think that China today fits the label of ‘state capitalism’ more than any of the other states left over from ‘actually existing socialism’. I also think China’s leadership was wildly ultra-left during the Cultural Revolution, then connived with US imperialism against the Soviet Union, provoked war with Vietnam in 1979, and defended the murderous Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea.

Later, it took a turn towards capitalism, following the infamous dictum (of Deng Xiaoping, I believe), that “to get rich is glorious”. Since then there has been considerable economic penetration by foreign capital, and features such as widening income disparities, increasing unemployment and exploitation of workers for profit have appeared, especially in the free economic zones. By the way, such zones have been set up in Russia under Boris Yeltsin, and no-one would call that a socialist country.

I repeat, the question needs more study.

However, wars and even rumours of wars do not allow placid reflection and discussion extended over time. They require a swift response. My article was an effort to make one. Since war has not actually broken out and probably will not in the near future, perhaps lengthy discussion of China is now possible.

For her part, Mary Carter objects to my use of a Guardian article by John Gittings. Well, Gittings is a Chinese speaker who has written about China over a period of several decades. I remember an edition of the now defunct US publication, Problems of Communism, which was close to the State Department, castigating Gittings back in the 1970s for being a Maoist sympathiser. No doubt he has moved to the right since then (like China), but I still consider his views worth citing.

If Mary wants, though, I can quote Chinese sources too. There was a report by the Beijing-based Zhongguo Xinwen She news agency on March 16. This said that residents of 41% of cities in the PRC received less income in 1995 than the previous year due to the high price of basic necessities, defaults in the payment of wages and unemployment. There were cities where income rose, but there was a developing trend for cities in China’s interior to lag behind the coastal cities in income terms. It is the coast which is most open to foreign capitalist influence in China. My guess is that if some cities and regions are getting poorer and others richer, the same is true of individuals.

Xinhua news agency on March l4 reported that mergers and bankruptcies were and are under way in China’s state sector to establish “the survival of the fittest”. This meant 1.4 million workers “retiring from active duties” in 1995, according to the agency. Does that sound like redundancies? To me, it sounds like capitalism.

To conclude: I see China and Taiwan as both representing social systems I do not think communists can defend in peace, let alone in war. I should have said more about Taiwan and repression of workers there. If my article had been longer, I would have done so - and also said something about US policy there. I was certainly attempting to express the CPGB’s viewpoint. I will leave others to decide how successful I was, but I do not consider that either of my critics was correct.

John Craig
Berkshire

Cut the crap

I was very disappointed at the lack of theory in Bob Smith’s ‘Theory of leader centralism’ (Weekly Worker March 21). I had genuinely hoped to find at least the bare bones of a theory which could cast some light on the problem of “leaders and the led”. Comintern in its early theses on organisation pointed to this problem and argued that it resulted both from the passivity spontaneously generated by bourgeois society and the legacy of social democracy within our movement.

However, instead of an attempt to get to grips with serious ideas like this, we are treated to yet another caricature of our organisation. Yes, he is correct that there is unevenness among comrades, as there is within every organisation, including Open Polemic. Clearly this is not a good thing. We need to consciously fight this unevenness so that all members can become communist theoreticians. But to depict us as having a cynical and inactive leadership, which presides over an empty-headed, drone-like membership is simply outrageous, and untrue.

Bob Smith knows this. He also knows we are not trying to depict ourselves as perfect. Why else would we publish Problems of Communist Organisation, warts and all, if not to learn openly about our organisational and political experience and mistakes.

So cut the crap, Bob, and let’s get down to some serious criticism.

Siobhain Mc Loughlin
Brent

All victims?

Julian Jake’s column (March 21) reminded me that class and materialism are as much concepts of bourgeois thinking as they are of Marxism. Only without the dynamic of internal development through the contradiction between developing social conditions and human free will.

His quotes from Living Marxism on China presented a picture of a homogeneous sociological reality from which the peasantry cannot escape. Yet some 50 years ago an even more backward peasantry fought with unmatched courage to create a state in which all children would be properly cared for.

His quote on Rwanda totally ignores sociology and explains the slaughter there in purely political terms. This partiality smacks of old fashioned ‘official communist’ apologetics. He avoids drawing attention to the counterrevolutionary politics of ‘communist’ China and glosses over the rapacious social nature of Africa’s ruling elites on the grounds that they are victims of imperialism. The ordinary people are, but the elites are not.

Lurking in there is the old Menshevik theory of stages, in which only fully developed capitalist countries are ripe for revolution.

Phil Kent
Rochester