12.09.1996
Democratic illusions
Dave Hulme sees stageism in the RDG’s draft programme
The draft programme of the Revolutionary Democratic Group, published in the Weekly Worker (July 11 1996), states: “...Republican Marxism fights for a workers’ republic, but recognises that a bourgeois republic is a step forward” (in Britain!). This step forward (phase of fighting for a bourgeois democratic republic) would not be a socialist revolution or the result of a transitional programme. It would be the expression of the minimum programme. In other words a democratic (bourgeois) stage.
The most democratic form of this bourgeois republic, which would be the result of militant and revolutionary struggle, would be something the RDG describe as a “dual power republic”. This abstract phrase is produced from nowhere. There is no attempt to relate it to the historical examples of dual power. Compare this to the historical method of Lenin, who in the midst of 1917 studied Marxist writing on the Paris Commune. The use of the phrase “dual power republic” shows an astonishingly light-minded attitude to the history of the communist movement.
Dual power is not a constitutional regime. It is a struggle of hostile classes for domination. The working class does not aim for dual power. The revolutionary party should aim for power. In a sense, dual power is a miscarriage. The reason the power was not seized in February 1917 in Russia was because “of insufficient class consciousness and organisation of the proletariat and peasantry” (VI Lenin Between the two Russian revolutions Moscow 1976, p78). Power was surrendered by Bolshevik leaders in the soviets, who had a minimum programme of Bolshevism for a democratic republic.
According to the RDG schema, their dual power republic would not solve the problems of the workers, who would realise the “democratic revolution” could not be fully established under bourgeois rule. In a dual power republic, the capitalist state would still exist. So the workers would press on to the next phase of the revolution and seize political power from the bourgeoisie. Transitional demands would be used to transfer power.
But there would still be state capitalism, because “only through the internationalism of the democratic revolution will it be possible to move towards socialism” (quotes from RDG draft programme, Weekly Worker July 11, unless otherwise stated). Apparently it does not matter that the RDG does not have a theory of state capitalism. They disagree with Tony Cliff’s version of state capitalism but have yet to work out an alternative. But that does not stop the RDG from having the confidence to dump Marxist criticism of the theory of state capitalism.
In the dual power republic, when the power is transferred to the workers, it will be taken by the armed working class in workers’ councils. If this is confusing, it should be rememberedthat many things communists have regarded as an aspect of socialist revolution, and transitional demands which go beyond the democratic minimum programme, are now regarded by the RDG as essential to the “democratic revolution”. So the foundation of the democratic republic is workers’ power in the workplace and the minimum programme includes the armed working class electing all state officials with instant recall or attempting to smash the state!
What is the point of replacing “socialist” with “democratic” or describing what the Marxist movement has understood to be transitional demands as ‘minimum demands’? These semantic games just cause confusion. And there is already a great deal of confusion in the RDG about the history of the Bolshevik tradition in general and the nature of the Russian revolution in particular. The RDG appears to believe the Russian revolution was a democratic revolution which adopted soviet forms of workers’ democracy. They seem to think the dynamic of the Russian revolution of 1917 included a distinct stage of democracy.
Prior to 1917 Lenin expected the character of the Russian revolution to be bourgeois democratic. The road to socialism ran through the stage of the democratic republic or the minimum programme. The Bolshevik perspectives were most clearly articulated in Lenin’s Two tactics of social democracy in the democratic revolution. He dismissed talk of the conquest of power by socialist revolution as semi-anarchist.
As Lenin wrote, “The democratic revolution will not directly overstep the boundaries of bourgeois social and economic relationships” (VI Lenin Two tactics of social democracy in the democratic revolution Peking 1975, p53); or again: “We cannot jump out of the bourgeois democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries” (Ibid p47); lastly:
“We must not forget that there is not, nor can there be at the present time any other means of bringing socialism nearer than complete political liberty, than a democratic republic, the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry” (Ibid p123).
In 1905 when Martynov had the temerity to suggest the Bolsheviks could not hold state power without putting into effect the maximum programme or bringing about the socialist revolution, Lenin retorted that Martynov “confounds the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution, the struggle for the republic with the struggle for socialism” (Collected Works London 1977, Vol 8, p294). Lenin went on to lecture Martynov further. “For this reason social democracy has constantly stressed the bourgeois nature of the impending revolution in Russia and insisted on the clear line of demarcation between the democratic minimum programme and the socialist maximum programme” (Ibid p294). And then we have some rather unfortunate (in hindsight) words from Lenin that “if the march of events will compel the social democratic party in such a position to set about achieving the socialist revolution despite itself - our programme would be incorrect” (Ibid p294).
The slogan of democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry defined the state structure of the revolutionary regime as democratic, not socialist. It left open the question of which class would lead or predominate in the revolutionary dictatorship. The sharpest and most accurate criticism of this strategy came from Trotsky in 1905. The snag with the slogan and strategy was that it dissolved the workers’ revolution into a democratic coalition. The struggle for socialism would only reappear after the definitive establishment of the democratic republic. But before the direct struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat could be undertaken, the workers’ party would have to subject itself to a bourgeois democratic limitation.
This limitation would amount to a betrayal of the demands of the proletariat. Any party subjecting itself to this limitation would begin to cease to be a party of the proletariat in the sense of organically representing the workers. As Trotsky sarcastically put it, everything is saved if, having achieved power together with the peasantry, the proletarian party is fully aware the dictatorship is merely democratic! In the revolution the workers would make inroads into capitalist rights and property, the capitalists would respond with attacks on the workers’ organisations: lockouts and so on. In turn, the workers would begin to make socialist demands on the capitalists, attempt to control then seize the factories. And this was what happened. Trotsky described the slogan of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry as an illusion.
And so it turned out in 1917. Lenin half glimpsed the necessity to go beyond the minimum programme or the democratic revolution, to use the words of Marcel Liebman, when he used the phrase ‘uninterrupted revolution’ in an article in September 1905. But one insight or phrase which was overlooked in the period of reaction which followed 1905 does not make a theory of revolution. In the crucible of 1917, Lenin re-armed the programmatic basis of the Bolshevik party from the minimum programme of democratic demands to transitional demands going beyond bourgeois democracy.
In State and revolution written shortly before the October revolution, Lenin intended to outline the lessons of 1905/1917. But he stopped writing about the revolution to make the revolution, a far more rewarding experience. In State and revolution Lenin not only criticised bourgeois democracy and the democratic republic from the point of view of socialist revolution, but deepened the critique of democracy to advocate the overcoming of political democracy in the new type of semi-state where the bureaucracy would be abolished. This pamphlet was a vital weapon in the fight against democratic illusions.
He cited the remarks of Engels justifying the use of the word ‘communist’ for the party after the misuse of ‘social democracy’ because its “ultimate political aim is to overcome the whole state and consequently democracy as well”. Paraphrasing Engels, Lenin stated: “It is constantly forgotten that the abolition of the state means the abolition of democracy” (VI Lenin State and revolution Moscow 1972, p75). Further: “Democracy is the systematic use of force by one class against another” (Ibid p75).
As for bourgeois democracy, instead of stressing the superiority of democracy over pre-capitalist features (Two tactics), Lenin stessed the class limitations of the democratic republic (the democratic revolution). To give just one example: “To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarianism, not only in parliamentary constitutional monarchies but also in the most democratic republic(my emphasis - Ibid p43).
Lenin returned to the theme of comparing the most advanced democratic republic unfavourably with the soviets or the embryo of the commune state in his polemic with Kautsky, The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky. What Lenin was defending was the socialist character of the Russian revolution. One anti-bourgeois democratic commentary will suffice: “Even in the most democratic bourgeois state, the oppressed masses at every step encounter the crying contradiction between formal equality proclaimed by the democracy of the capitalists and the thousands of real limitations and subterfuges which turn the proletarians into wage slaves” (The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky Peking 1970, p24). Time and again Lenin hammered home the same points: not democracy in general, but proletarian democracy; a democratic state will be a democracy for the exploiters.
What particularly enraged Lenin was Kautsky’s claim that the Bolsheviks were anti-democratic because they had dispersed the constituent assembly. The constituent assembly was part of the minimum programme. But it was inferior to the institutions of the workers’ state. It was unrepresentative when it was summoned, and could have acted as a focus for counterrevolution. And moreover the alliance between the proletariat had been consummated in the soviets or the dictatorship of the proletariat. Indeed the vital class content of the democratic revolution was the nationalisation of the land. This democratic demand was implemented by the socialist revolution under the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
But in Two tactics of social democracy in the democratic revolution written in 1905, Lenin stated categorically: “There is no doubt, finally, that in Russia too the success of the peasants’ struggle - ie, the transfer of the whole land to the peasants, will signify a complete democratic revolution, and constitute the social basis of the revolution carried through to its completion, but this will by no means be a socialist revolution” (my emphasis) (Collected Works London 1977, p136). And again: “The success of the peasant insurrection, the victory of the democratic revolution will merely clear the way for a genuine and decisive struggle for socialism on the basis of the democratic republic(my emphasis, Ibid p136). Very clear and very wrong.
Those who argue that an open-ended strategy like democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry is flexible and a good thing are also wrong. The dynamic of the revolution will not of itself clarify the character or strategy of the revolution. The Bolshevik determination to take the revolution to the end as far as it would go was conditioned by the old minimum programme. So pushing the democratic revolution as far as possible placed the Party leaders in the camp of petty bourgeois democracy and out of step with the dynamic of socialist revolution in 1917. The old Bolshevik leaders were fighting to complete the democratic revolution.
In his April theses Lenin began to win the Bolshevik party over to an understanding of the real nature of socialism and the Russian revolution: “We must look forward to the emergent new democracy which is already ceasing to be a democracy, for democracy means the domination of the armed people” (Between the two revolutions Moscow 1976, p109). He explained that the Russian revolution was creating a higher type of democratic state on the model of the Paris Commune. This was the living reality. The old strategy of democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry was dead.
It is not true that Lenin argued that the February revolution represented the completed bourgeois democratic revolution, as the first stage of the revolution. This is a myth. What Lenin wrote in the April theses was: “State power in Russia has passed into the hands of a new class, namely the bourgeois and landowners who had become bourgeois. To this extentthe bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia is completed” (my emphasis, Ibid p80). The phrase “to this extent”is an important qualification which meant some features of our previous conception have become reality, but that’s as good as it will get.
After all, in the opening lines of the theses, Lenin said the old Tsarist power had not been destroyed, the monarchy had not been formally abolished and the landed estates had not been abolished. Kamenev made the obvious point that the constituent assembly had not been convened, let alone established. Dual power meant state power had not passed definitively to the bourgeoisie. The thrust of the April theses was the point that the struggle for a parliamentary regime would be a backward step compared with the potential of the soviets.
Lenin’s fight against democratic illusions was not easy. At the eighth session of the 2nd Congress of the Communist International, Lenin explained why the Bolsheviks were forced to call elections for the constituent assembly: “Taking account of these backward masses [peasants], we had to call the elections and show the masses by example and by facts that this constituent assembly, which was elected at a time of the greatest general need, did not express the aspirations and demands of the exploited masses” (The 2nd Congress of the Communist International Vol 2, London 1977, p80). He regarded this conflict as a battle between soviet power and bourgeois power.
Trotsky made similar points in his polemic Terrorism and communism against Kautsky. In response to the allegation that the Bolsheviks had repudiated the constituent assembly and democracy, Trotsky replied: “If we did not formally repudiate the constituent assembly beforehand, it was only because it stood in contrast not to the power of the soviets but to the power of Kerensky” (Terrorism and communism New York 1975, p65).
This was a reference to the power of official democracy or the influence of democratic illusions among the less politically advanced elements among the workers. The constituent assembly was a democratic demand to fall back on if bourgeois democracy proved too strong or powerful for socialism. Lenin made the same point when he once said it would be foolish to drop the democratic demand for the constituent assembly before the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, in case there was an ebb in the struggle for the workers’ state.
But there was a great deal of confusion, hesitation and contradictions within the Bolshevik Party about the democracy in general and the constituent assembly in particular. With the benefit of over 70 years’ hindsight and the negative lessons of defeated revolutions (Spain 1936, China 1927 among others), we can see more clearly the contours of permanent revolution. Pursuing the illusion of the democratic stage leads to counterrevolution.
Or rather, it should be clearer. But the RDG with its self-conscious new schemas of a stage of democratic revolution repeats the old confusion of the pre-1917 Bolshevik minimum programme. Worse, it dismisses altogether the Bolshevik view on which the Russian revolution was based that the advanced capitalist countries were ripe for socialism. For Lenin there was no uncompleted bourgeois revolution in western Europe. The RDG’s democratic deficit is an unacknowledged development of Tom Nairn’s notion of the unfinished bourgeois revolution as other comrades have noted. In turn many critics of Tom Nairn’s theses have drawn attention to its semi-Menshevik stageism which involves a false or ideal revolutionary model of bourgeois revolution and the bourgeoisie. This is why the RDG comrades sometimes sound like radical democrats.
There seems to be an alarming lack of historical perspective in claiming reformists cannot be republicans. The idea that the slogan, ‘Abolition of the British monarchy’, is the dividing line between reform and revolution is way off historical target. The RDG claim that that the monarchy cannot be abolished from above has not been heard for some time. Recently a Fabian Labour politician called for the abolition of the monarchy. Even the reformist SLP constitution wants to “abolish the unelected, undemocratic house of lords and introduce a democratically elected head of state”.
All this is not to suggest communists do not make democratic demands in the struggle for socialism. But we should not impose the self-limitation of the RDG’s democratic revolution or the stage of a bourgeois federal republic as a route to socialism. Lenin criticised Kautsky for seeing democracy as an ideal neutral framework beyond class content. This criticism applies with equal force to the manipulations of the concept of democracy by the RDG.
In Russia in 1917 democratic illusions took over the consciousness of leading Bolsheviks at crucial points in the revolution. The dangers of the influence of democratic illusions is far greater 70 years later in western Europe. There is no democratic stage on the road to socialist revolution.
Dave Hulme