WeeklyWorker

29.07.1999

Continue to victory

Dave Craig explains his theory of the ‘dual power republic’

Capitalism can no more solve the question of democracy than it can solve the problem of poverty and low pay. Democracy is a permanently unresolved issue in which the different social classes have different interests. The battle over democracy is the political manifestation of the class struggle, just as the struggles over wages and working conditions is its most obvious economic aspect. Whatever the level of democratic rights, power and influence achieved by past struggles, the working class must defend this and extend it as far as possible.

Revolutionary democratic communism takes as its starting point the class struggle and in particular the struggle of the working class for democracy - that is, for its own conscious democratic power as a class. In recent articles in the Weekly Worker (May 13 and July 1) I put forward three basic propositions of revolutionary democratic communism.

I have explained these propositions fully in those articles and provided concrete examples. So I will not repeat them. Any serious assault on revolutionary democratic communism must show how and why these political ideas do not represent the revolutionary interests of the working class.

Significantly all my opponents (Tom Delargy, Phil Sharpe and Barry Biddulph) have avoided any discussion on where they stand on the basic propositions of revolutionary democracy. They have kept silent on the three propositions. Not a comment. Not a word. Not once have any them told us whether they agree with any of these ideas or how they differ from them. They will argue all day and all night about whether Lenin was a Trotskyist or Trotsky was a Leninist and about who was ignoring the peasantry. But on the basic propositions, they have simply avoided battle.

Worse than this, they have invented statements that I have never made, in order to try to prove that I am a Kautskyist who opposes workers’ power and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Any serious and honest Marxist acquainted with my views, or who reads the Weekly Worker, knows that this is simply untrue. These comrades cannot deal with the message, so they are trying to shoot the messenger.

I have shown that the three basic propositions are consistent with the theory and practice of Lenin and Trotsky. They were revolutionary democratic communists who put these politics into practice. I have shown that this was not peculiar to Russia and that Trotsky continued with this revolutionary method in relation to the Chinese revolution 1926-30. His political line was, in his own words, “revolutionary and consistent (100%) democracy”. He applied the same method to Spain in 1930-31. In the Weekly Worker (July 22) I provided the evidence of Trotsky’s approach to the democratic demand for a constituent assembly and his view of building dual power in the Chinese republic. Trotsky’s views on China happen to coincide with mine: with one exception, and that concerns the character of the democratic revolution (I will deal with this later).

Tom Delargyhas become more conciliatory. He nowasks whether he might be able to play a role in investigating the differences between revolutionary democrats and left Trotskyists. Indeed he can. If he is serious about this, he needs to start by telling us which of the three basic propositions of revolutionary democracy he agrees with. If he could stop his hate campaign against me and concentrate on what he actually thinks about the three basic propositions, we might actually start to get somewhere.

It is tempting to describe all my opponents as left Trotskyists or ultra-lefts. But, if we look at Phil Sharpe’s apparently shifting position, such a characterisation is too crude. Phil might be a revolutionary democrat, in which case his argument about the closure of the Constituent Assembly can be accepted as a debate amongst our tendency. Revolutionary democrats want to replace bourgeois democracy with soviet democracy. But we understand that the development of working class consciousness may mean that these different forms of class democracy can coexist temporarily. In Russia they coexisted even after October 1917. It is not a matter of principle, but one of timing. I think that Lenin was right and Phil was wrong about the timing of the closure of the Constituent Assembly. But Phil’s argument can be considered on its merits. It is no bad thing to question the received wisdom of the past and force us to reconsider how the relationship between the two forms of democracy works out in real situations.

On the other hand Phil seemed to reject the basic ideas of revolutionary democracy and adopt the posture of an ultra-left in which workers’ democracy must be opposed to bourgeois democratic demands. This posturing as a leftist would be gross hypocrisy. Indeed he would be a charlatan of the worst kind. He would be calling us Kautskyists because we dare to suggest that radical bourgeois democratic demands were legitimate in Russia, China, France, Spain and now in royalist UK. Meanwhile he is attacking the Bolsheviks for closing the Constituent Assembly, as Kautsky had done. Make up your mind time, Phil - revolutionary democrat or Kautskyite hypocrite and leftist charlatan?

Phil’s answer is made easier by the fact that he now accepts that Trotsky was a revolutionary democrat in relation to China and France. Phil acknowledges that for France, Trotsky was in favour of extending bourgeois democracy along the lines of “a radical bourgeois democracy that is based on the radical traditions of 1793” (Weekly Worker July 15). Trotsky was not simply in favour of defending French bourgeois democracy against fascism. Neither did he crudely argue that the dictatorship of the proletariat was the only option. Instead he proposed revolutionary action to extend French republican democracy.

Trotsky was also in favour of promoting and building soviets immediately. He was therefore in favour of ‘1793 plus soviets’. Barry Biddulph will tell us that this equals a dual power, transitional or civil war republic. Every class conscious worker knows that ‘1793 plus soviets’ is more radical than ‘1793 without soviets’. You would have to be a complete ignoramus if you did not understand which was closer to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Phil has now paddled up the revolutionary democratic river. But he seems to have only one paddle left. He invents a difference between Trotsky and myself. He accepts that Trotsky and Craig want a ‘1793 republic with soviets’. Therefore he says: “However, contrary to Dave Craig, Trotsky is not content with this form of bourgeois republic.” This is pathetic. There is no evidence that I would be “content” with a radical ‘1793 republic with soviets’. On the contrary I have specifically rejected this time after time after time. Phil’s tactic of inventing differences where none exist means that he is up the creek without any paddles. How could any Marxist or indeed any worker be “content” to live in a civil war republic threatened directly with fascism? The so-called ‘theory of contentment with dual power’ is the last bastion of someone who is arguing like a scoundrel and not like a Marxist.

Let us turn to Barry Biddulph. He also fails to say where he stands on the three basic propositions of revolutionary democracy and which, if any, he agrees with and how he differs from them. For the record China in the 1920s is not the same as Britain in the 1920s or in the 1990s. The differences would take too long to number. But we are applying the same revolutionary democratic methods of class struggle to both distinct societies.

Barry wants to apply different political methods to so-called ‘advanced’ and ‘backward’ societies. He therefore concentrates onthe nature of revolution and the question of dual power. Trotsky says that the fact that “the Chinese revolution at this stage is national-democratic - ie, bourgeois - is elementary to us all” (Trotsky on China New York 1974, p156). The problem is that this ‘elementary’ standard formulation, accepted and agreed by all, is ambiguous and wrong. My argument, not necessarily accepted by other revolutionary democrats, is that the Chinese revolution in the 1920s was national-democratic, but not bourgeois. I need to repeat the words “not bourgeois” because my opponents will completely ignore this. Their brains cannot believe it, cannot compute it, cannot understand it and therefore they block it out.

By “not bourgeois” I mean a democratic revolution that is not led by the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie and not limited to establishing bourgeois democraticinstitutions or a bourgeois republic. It can and should be ‘crowned’ by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Trotsky has a problem with his own formulation. He says: “Comrade Martynov proceeds very clearly and explicitly from the old Menshevik conception that since the revolution is bourgeois, but anti-imperialist, the section of the Chinese bourgeoisie whose interest is to overthrow imperialism cannot step aside from this revolution. Chiang Kai-shek answered Martynov on this score by making a deal with the imperialists and crushing the Shanghai proletariat. This is precisely where comrade Stalin goes astray, since his general definition of the revolution as non-proletarian and bourgeois leads to the conclusion that, therefore, soviets are not necessary. He wants to replace the actual course of the class struggle with a timetable for the classes. But this timetable is derived from formalistically defining the revolution as bourgeois. This totally incorrect position contradicts everything Lenin taught” (ibid p156). Both Stalin and Trotsky agree that the revolution is bourgeois, but disagree as to what this means.

The second question raised by Barry is the dual power republic. I described the situation in Russia from February 1917 to October 1917 as a dual power republic. This is a very significant period because it shows the transition period between the old regime and the workers’ state. Barry says, “Dual power is not a republic.” Of course I accept, as Trotsky says, you can have elements of dual power even under a constitutional monarchy or tsarism. But a dual power republic is more than elements of dual power. It is what develops in the power vacuum after the overthrow of an existing regime. It is the dual power or civil war republic.

Barry is desperate to oppose this idea. So he invents his own theory of anarcho-dual power. Under anarcho-dual power, there is no republic, no state, no government. Therefore there is no class dictatorship. Rival classes simply contend for power in civil society. This has never happened. If it did it would surely be an example of the notorious Kautskyist “pure democracy” in which democracy existed without any class in power. This is the nonsense that Barry is led towards in his opposition to the civil war republic.

The point about the civil war republic of February-October 1917 is that it was a bourgeois republic, albeit a special type of bourgeois republic. There was a state and a government, which represented the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. There can be no messing about with anarchist concepts. The dual power republic is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie constrained by powerful soviets.

The centrists and ultra-lefts will do everything possible to hide the class nature of the dual power republic. The centrists will paint it in very radical colours. They will call it a red republic, a socialist republic and even a workers’ republic. We on the other hand will be telling the truth. It is a bourgeois republic. Barry’s theory of anarcho-dual power has the same result as the centrists. It denies that dual power is a bourgeois republic. It is the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or, in French terms, ‘1793 plus soviets’. We will continue to call a spade a spade, and therefore make clear that a dual power republic is a bourgeois republic and not anarchy without class rule.

The next mystery is why Barry is so extremely hostile to the dual power republic. We have to consider this from a class point of view. Revolutionary workers are not frightened of a civil war republic. After all a low-intensity civil war is taking place now under the constitutional monarchy. Under a dual power republic, the civil war between the classes will be out in the open and much more intense. However, the working class will be in a much stronger position, organised into soviets with the possibility of taking power.

By contrast the petty bourgeoisie are horrified by the thought of a dual power republic. This will mean civil war and violence. There would be a danger that the working class led by the communists may come to power. This might destroy the petty privileges that the middle classes enjoy. It is no surprise that the petty bourgeoisie are therefore are totally opposed to a dual power republic. A normal bourgeois republic without civil war, introduced from above by the bourgeoisie, might be acceptable to them. The working class would be kept firmly in their place.

No wonder that the theorists of the petty bourgeoisie express in theoretical terms the absolute class horror, fear and trepidation of a civil war republic. Down with the dual power republic! It doesn’t exist! It cannot exist! We don’t want it! If it does exist, we oppose it absolutely!

Either some lawyers or managers are paying Barry to oppose the dual power republic or his own ultra-left ideas (which are rejected by Trotsky) have accidentally made him the theoretical spokesperson for the horrified and frightened petty bourgeoisie. Eventually everybody will see what class interests are behind Barry’s continuous refrain: ‘Don’t listen to Craig - he only wants a civil war republic and nothing more.’

I agree with James Connolly’s sentiment for permanent revolution: when we achieve our republic, we will need to hang on to our weapons and continue to victory.