Let’s Talk About Democracy

One of the explanations the bourgeoisie uses to justify their rule is that capitalism and only only capitalism can provide for a free, democratic society. In the west, many people see communism as inherently authoritarian and undemocratic. This turns out to be quite harmful. Under the banner of false democracy, it is much easier for anti-communists to justify their actions. That’s why it’s so important that workers know the truth; that capitalism, not communism is truly the opposite of democracy.

We know from our study of historical materialism that state power is but an expression of economic power. In capitalist society, the capitalist class holds all political power. They are able to lobby against popular demand, pushing for policies that benefit them. This is undemocratic for anyone who is not a capitalist; most people are workers, not capitalists, so most people hold little or no political power. Since most people lack political power, capitalism cannot be democratic.

Section 3 of Chapter I of Vladimir Lenin’s State and Revolution sufficiently explains the role of the state in capitalism:

In a democratic republic, Engels continues, “wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely”, first, by means of the “direct corruption of officials” (America); secondly, by means of an “alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange” (France and America). …

Another reason why the omnipotence of “wealth” is more certain in a democratic republic is that it does not depend on defects in the political machinery or on the faulty political shell of capitalism. A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.

[Source]

Socialism, in contrast, is democratic. In socialism, the working class, the majority of society, controls the state, the means of production, and society in general. Workers’ representatives are chosen to lead the party and the state. While this is tyrannical for the bourgeoisie, it is democratic for the workers, who choose their managers and representatives and have a say in how their workplaces, communities, and countries work. The people are also able to supervise their managers and representatives, and they can use the state that they control to remove revisionists and corrupt officials, replacing them with genuine communists and good leaders. There may only be one party in power, the communist party, but this party is under the control of the proletariat. If capitalist-roaders try to take power within the party, the workers must be able to report and remove them, maintaining the proletarian dictatorship.

The USSR was the first example of a long-lasting dictatorship of the proletariat. It was truly democratic for the workers and peasants. Pat Sloan’s book, Soviet Democracy, describes this in its introduction:

A very great deal is being said and written nowadays about democracy and dictatorship. We repeatedly hear it said that democracy must be defended; and as an example of the kind of dictatorship of which we must beware the Soviet Union is often quoted. And yet, at the same time as this Soviet Union is described as a dictatorship, well-known people of different political views make statements which suggest that, in the Soviet Union to-day, there exists a system of government which possesses all the essential features of democracy. …

We are sometimes inclined, I think unwisely, to treat democracy and dictatorship as two mutually exclusive terms, when in actual fact they may often represent two aspects of the same system of government. …

Democracy, then from its origin, has not precluded the simultaneous existence of dictatorship. The essential question which must be asked, when social systems appear to include elements both of democracy and dictatorship is, “For whom is there democracy?” and “Over whom is there dictatorship?” …

[In the Soviet Union, t]he urban and rural workers, together with the poorer peasantry, made up over 95 per cent of the population of Russia. So that this dictatorship was to be a government by the vast majority of the people—those who worked. …

The Soviet State introduced universal suffrage for working citizens, without property or residential qualifications, and irrespective of sex, nationality, or religion. The right to vote and to stand for election was made available to all such citizens from the age of eighteen upwards. But those who employed labor for profit were deprived of electoral rights. The Soviet State in this way provided a degree of democracy for the working people such as they do not enjoy in any other country even at the present time; but over the employers this democratic power exercised a dictatorship. The small circle of the employers of labor had no voice whatever in the making of the laws to which they were subject.

[Source]

The workers in the USSR were more involved in political life than the workers in capitalist countries. Take the UK, for example. The chart below compares the two systems.

In addition to trade unions, the workers and farmers had various soviets, or workers’ councils, and their respective courts to vote for. The UK had far fewer councils, and all of the candidates were bourgeois.

China was another example of socialism in practice. In Chinese enterprises, the workers held real power over bourgeois elements. In “Industrial Management in China”, Ma Wen-kuei wrote:

Socialist state-owned industrial enterprises require a system of management which meets the demands of large-scale modern production and at the same time helps foster the revolutionary initiative and creativeness of the working class.

Democratic centralism is fundamental in the administration both of our state and of our socialist state-owned industrial enterprises. Comrade Liu Shao-chi has pointed out: “The system adopted in managing our enterprises is a system which combines a high degree of centralization with a high degree of democracy. All enterprises must abide by the unified leadership and planning of the [Communist] Party and the state, and, by observing strict labour discipline, ensure unity of will and action among the masses. At the same time, they should bring into full play the initiative and creativeness of the workers, develop the supervisory role of the masses, and get them to take part in the management of their enterprises.”

All managment in our enterprises must conform to the spirit of democratic centralism. This fully suits the socialist nature of our industrial enterprises and the objective demands of modern industrial production. Both the nature of ownership by the whole people of the enterprises and the highly socialized nature of modern industrial production call for a highly centralized and unified leadership. Failing this, socialized production cannot be carried out in a normal way, nor can the principles, policies and plans of the Communist Party and the state be implemented thoroughly. But the centralized leadership of socialist industrial enterprises, in which staff and workers are also masters and enjoy the right to participate in management, is fundamentally different from the arbitrary dictatorship existing in capitalist enterprises. It should and can be combined with extensive democracy. Our system of democratic centralism is centralism based on democracy, and democracy under centralized guidance.

In leading socialist construction in China, our Party has developed a whole system of management which integrates a high degree of centralization with a high degree of democracy. Practice has proved that its correct implementation helps bring about in our industrial enterprises a vigorous and lively political atmosphere in which there is both centralism and democracy, discipline and freedom, unity of will and personal ease of mind. As a result, problems arising in the enterprises can be solved more correctly and production developed with greater, faster, better and more economical results.

The following are among the major features of this system of management: the director assumes full responsibility under the collective leadership of the Communist Party committee; a conference of staff and workers’ representatives; cadres participate in labour and workers participate in management; and close co-operation among leading cadres, technical personnel and workers.

[Source, also found here]

Because the workers control the economy and the state, there is real democracy in socialism, for the workers are the majority of the population. Democracy is power in the hands of the majority, and the proletariat (and its allies, in underdeveloped countries; the proletariat is small in such regions, but it is allied with the peasantry) is that majority, so to have real democracy, it must be in power. Capitalism is undemocratic because the capitalist class, which is in the minority, holds total political and economic power. It owns the means of production, buys workers’ labor-power, and controls the state’s armed and administrative bodies. To have real democracy, us workers must smash the capitalist state, seize the means of production, and build a state run by and for the workers and their party, as well as an economy managed by workers’ representatives.