Democracy and Socialism - A SOLIDARITY Viewpoint by Steve Bloom

There was a time, before the first world war, when everyone knew that revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism also stood for democracy.

In fact, the kind of democracy they wanted was far broader than anything which then existed in the world. This connection between socialism and democracy began to change after the Russian revolution of 1917.

That revolution had a promising and extremely democratic beginning, with the majority of Russian workers, peasants and soldiers organized into rank-and-file popular assemblies called "Soviets."

Stalinism

But after a few years a dictatorship, under Joseph Stalin, took power. Stalin murdered tens of thousands of honest revolutionaries who were fighting to defend democracy. His victims included most of those who had actually led the revolution in 1917.

After World War 11, similar dictatorships claiming to be "socialist" or "communist," arose in Eastern Europe, China, Korea and Vietnam.

The pretense that these kinds of governments were, indeed, legitimate representatives of "socialism" was echoed by the ruling classes in the industrialized West. Clearly, it was in the interests of the capitalists to discredit socialism by equating it with dictatorship.

Social Democracy

One group, which goes by the general name of "Social Democracy," continued to defend the idea of socialism in its program while rejecting what happened in Russia.

But it wasn't only the Stalinist dictatorship which they objected to. They also came to abandon the whole idea of a revolutionary struggle by working people against the capitalist system.

Their idea of "democracy," is, in fact, limited to a U.S. or Western European-style "democracy for the rich." Because Social Democracy opposes the idea of revolution, it cannot really be for socialism at all.

At best the goal of these parties is to try to make the capitalist system work a little better. When corporate profits were high, in the 1950s and 60s, Social Democratic governments won real improvements in countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Britain.

But today the capitalist system isn't doing so well. Social Democrats who have remained in power have no choice but to participate in attacks against working people.

Throughout the entire 20th century some socialists have continued to stand for both revolution and democracy.

Solidarity considers itself to be part of that tradition. We believe that if socialism is going to represent the genuine interests of the majority of people then that majority must play an active role in the process of government.

Socialist democracy needs to include free speech, free assembly, and other rights presently set forth in the U.S. Constitution.

But it must also go beyond these things to create a system where every individual feels that they truly exercise a share of power. Until we can actually set up such a society it is impossible to say precisely what it will look like.

Some trial and error will inevitably be involved. But we can certainly project that socialist democracy will involve broad popular assemblies at the workplace and community level.

And it will have to break the monopoly of the mass media that is presently enjoyed by the wealthy.

By taking these and similar measures a revolution that overturns capitalism can bring us back to a mass understanding that genuine socialism will mean a new flowering of democracy unlike anything the world has ever seen before.