13.06.1996

One and the same

Peter Manson continues the debate on the Revolutionary Democratic Group’s theory of ‘democratic revolution’

Dave Craig (Weekly Worker May 30) persists in his accusation that I am advocating the “Stalinist theory” of bourgeois democratic revolution. I would have thought that my letter of the previous week made it quite clear that this is not so. I described as “stageist nonsense” the notion that “bourgeois revolutions are predetermined and have a fixed agenda which must be completed before anything higher can be embarked upon”. To the question, “Are the democratic and socialist revolutions necessarily two distinct phenomena?” I replied, “Of course they are not.”

Yet Dave can still write:

“Peter does not believe that democratic revolution is possible or desirable in the UK. It is therefore misleading for him to debate with me the revolution’s internal stages. It is a disguise to cover up the fact that he holds to the Stalinist theory.”

Dave seems to think that there are only two possible theories of revolution worth considering - the old ‘official communist’/ Menshevik theory and the Revolutionary Democratic Group’s equally stageist schema.

According to the first, because all human society must develop along a predetermined road - starting with primitive communism and progressing through ever higher modes of production via slavery, feudalism, capitalism and then at last to socialism and communism - it was futile to attempt to bypass advanced capitalism in backward countries. This theory was frequently used by ‘official communism’ to excuse its support for ‘the progressive bourgeoisie’ in many countries, when in fact revolution was being deliberately held back to suit the diplomatic needs of the Soviet bureaucratic leadership.

Unfortunately, many good communists were persuaded to drop revolutionary positions as a result. An excellent example is the case of South Africa. Throughout the revolutionary situation during the 1980s the South African Communist Party was not only calling for armed insurrection to overthrow apartheid, but for the necessity of uninterruptedly carrying a successful seizure of power through to socialist tasks. In Soweto, Alexander and Khayelitsha the first signs of dual power emerged. The state’s authority was challenged by the people’s self-organisation through the street committees with their no-go areas.

However, a combination of Gorbachev’s enthusiasm to act alongside imperialism in cooling the world’s ‘hot spots’ and the South African regime’s own recognition of the need to dismantle apartheid finally succeeded in defusing the revolutionary situation with the full cooperation of the SACP. The ANC was unbanned and Nelson Mandela was released. The Party leadership swung away from left centrism and adopted outright reformist positions. The democratic revolution was all but victorious, it was claimed, and socialist tasks could be undertaken through the new state institutions which would replace those of apartheid.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the theory of the bourgeois democratic revolution was given a new lease of life. How could socialism now be built in a medium-developed country like South Africa, the SACP leadership asked, without the might of the USSR behind it? Surely what was needed was the overcoming of the huge areas of backwardness within the country?

In December 1993 I interviewed Tony Yengeni, an SACP central committee member, extremely popular with the revolutionary masses, but out of favour with the leadership for his continued calls for radical action. It is worth looking again at the confusion contained in his remarks:

“The Freedom Charter says, ‘The people shall govern.’ Political power should reside outside parliament, exercised through our own organisations. The only way people can organise is through mass power, mass muscle. If that is denied, then the situation that has occurred elsewhere in Africa - the rule by decree of an elite - will happen here too ...

“We need radical transformation, not cosmetic changes: real changes that people around here, in the townships, will feel improving their lives.”

I asked him how the real changes he talked about would occur without socialist revolution. Did he believe that capitalism could provide it?

“Real change will not come through parliament, but through mass pressure. The internal bourgeoisie must stand on its own feet for some time and the African middle class must be given space to grow. After April we will have a bourgeois democracy. The working class is not organised or aware of its own mission.”

I put it to him that this would surely not satisfy the impoverished masses who are looking for immediate solutions. And surely the people had been organised (by the Party itself), in street committees, for example, when workers seemed very much aware of their mission?

“The leadership decided on the peaceful route: continued armed struggle would have been just too costly.

“It is true that capitalism cannot deliver what people need, but it does have the capacity to develop the productive forces. Campaigns such as those of the unemployed can have their effect. I’m talking about mass-action campaigns to force change through mass pressure. We can march, demonstrate, occupy, disrupt, but power must be organised. Unfortunately this contradicts the official approach.”

The logic of this position was that the organised power of the working class would have to be contained within the limits of capitalism and reined in if it once again developed a revolutionary momentum (see the Weekly Worker, January 13 1994 for the complete interview).

Along with thousands of others, comrade Yengeni was a genuine revolutionary who had fought, been imprisoned and suffered for the cause of democracy and socialism. But the lurch to the right which encompassed the whole Party meant that he now found himself on its extreme left.

Despite the leadership’s displeasure at his ‘immoderation’, his popularity ensured that his name was high up the ANC list for the elections of April 1994, when he was duly elected as an MP. Within a few months he was chairing a parliamentary committee set up to oversee the ‘integration’ of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, into the regular army. As a former commander, he was the ideal man for the job.

I am sure Dave Craig will agree that this sad episode demonstrates how the ‘official communist’ theory of the bourgeois democratic revolution played no small part in ensuring that South African revolutionaries ended up acting as a stabilising force for the capitalist order. Nevertheless, the South African experience poses some interesting questions for the Revolutionary Democratic Group.

The RDG sets out three universally applicable stages in its own version of the democratic revolution (see the Weekly Worker, February 29 1996): “First, the overthrow of the existing constitution. Second, the emerging dual power republic. Third, the transfer of power to the soviets.”

Dave has stated that it is only after the existing constitution has been overthrown, leaving the bourgeoisie in disarray, that the opportunity to challenge its rule arises. It is at this point that we see the appearance of the “dual power republic”. So was the revolutionary action of the South African masses which reached its peak in 1985 hopelessly misplaced? Perhaps they should not have attempted to set up their own alternative authority - dual power - while the apartheid constitution was still in place?

But how can an existing constitution be “overthrown” without such mass action, without the likelihood of dual power? Surely Dave will agree that it was precisely their revolutionary action that finally persuaded the regime that it was necessary to abandon its apartheid constitution?

And what of the present situation? I know that Dave will not advocate the immediate official proclamation of a dual power republic, so where does that leave us? Presumably we have to go back to stage one and formulate a new set of democratic demands for the South Africans to take up in order to dispose of the newly agreed constitution.

Dave is quite correct when he says there is a democratic deficit in every capitalist country without exception. But equally without exception it is tied up inextricably with the very nature of capitalist rule. Nowhere under capitalism can we have real control over our own lives, so the fight for democracy and against capitalism is one and the same. If we try and separate the two elements by means of artificial, predetermined stages - first the democratic revolution, and only later the destruction of capitalism itself - we will never get beyond the democratic stage, because a democratic deficit will still remain.

In every country without exception communists must take up democratic demands, not only because their achievement is desirable in itself, but because their concession by the ruling class may prove to be so difficult that they will offer real revolutionary possibilities. This is doubly the case with countries like apartheid South Africa - not because it was a backward country and needed its ‘bourgeois democratic revolution’, but because the lack of democracy was so absolute. It was impossible for the working class to struggle for economic demands, let alone see itself as a class for itself, without challenging the pass laws, employment and residential restrictions, anti-trade union laws, banning orders, detentions, bloody police repression, etc.

But that does not mean that the sweeping away of those horrors had to be achieved before socialist revolution could be contemplated. The destruction of the old constitution was a great victory for democracy, but because it was seen as an end in itself - a stage to be reached before socialist tasks could be undertaken - the revolutionary momentum was lost. The new South Africa is clearly much more stable for bourgeois rule than it was under apartheid, although no doubt this will prove to be a temporary state of affairs.

What about Britain? Communists must be in the forefront of the fight to destroy the monarchy, for self-determination for Scotland and Wales, for genuine women’s equality: in short for each and every democratic demand. But we should not be fooled into thinking that such demands will automatically prove to be revolutionary, let alone into imagining that they must be achieved before we can make further progress towards achieving working class rule.

For example, why does the RDG think that bourgeois rule would necessarily be fatally threatened by the sweeping aside of the monarchy, when there are countless examples of stable bourgeois republics? Are the lives of workers so affected by the monarchy’s existence that they are ready now to die to be rid of it?

As post office workers look set to strike against an organisation called Royal Mail, would Dave consider it useful at this stage to issue the call for a Republican Mail? If we want to place the abolition of the constitutional monarchy at the very centre or our work, if we are convinced that only its prior destruction will open the way to working class rule, then surely we need to persuade workers that it is not so much Royal Mail, but the Royal House of Windsor that must be defeated? Or would Dave perhaps agree with me that most workers would be hard pressed to identify any area of their lives that is clearly affected in practice by the monarchy’s existence?

We must stress the democratic questions that are actually finding a resonance at any given moment. If however it is economic issues that seem likely to provoke the strongest feelings against the ruling class, then we must lay greatest emphasis on those demands.

Dave is baffled by the conclusion of my letter of May 16. I wrote:

“The main problem we have is that we cannot build socialism in Britain alone. Yet the working class cannot run capitalism for an extended period. No matter how many of the old institutions we have smashed or how many new, democratic, working class bodies we have created, the bourgeoisie will retain real power where it counts - at the point of production. If we do not succeed in spreading the revolution, we will fail.”

Dave says the RDG agrees with this, so he cannot understand why I should argue this so emphatically. The point is that it is from this correct premise that the RDG’s stageism has arisen: ‘We cannot build socialism in one country, so we must limit our revolution initially to democratic tasks. Once the universal democratic revolution has begun to even itself out and national democratic revolutions have occurred in several countries, then the international working class will really get down to business with the transfer of power to the soviets. In the meantime we will keep our foot in the door with our “dual power republic”.’

I do not think it is a flaw to admit that I cannot predict how the British revolution will be achieved. I do not know what will spark it. I am sorry that Dave finds it difficult to conveniently categorise my views using one of his ‘Stalinist’ or ‘Trotskyist’ labels.

Perhaps it is time to ditch the labels, along with the dogmatism and stageism they represent.