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Democracy: For or Against
Marxists are against democracy? I remember a lot of Marxist thinkers who talked up democracy. Can decisions be made in any sort of rational effective way without some semblance of a democratic process?
I'm aware of the left communist criticism of "democracy", some other leftists (such as anarchists like Malatesta and Bonanno) have also criticized democracy, although when doing so the term has always been bound to the modern conception of the word, i.e. a great leveling tactic through which all citizens, no matter how rich or poor, get an equal say. This democracy is clearly bogus but democracy in the more general sense is not perfect but better than the alternatives, I'd argue.
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
^yeah I was aware of that one, my point was more along the lines of, even in a democratic centralist organization or whatever, like what most Leninist organizations (and for all practical purposes many anarcho-syndicalist organizations as well) are, there is still a democratic process at work. That's what most people think of when they hear the term "democracy". The fact that communists oppose democracy as it's presented today should be obvious, I'd think.
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
Quite right, what Lenin had believed he had established and maintained was the dictatorship of the proletariat; or the last phase of capitalism, to put it simply.
That doesn't diminish the role the Bolsheviks and Lenin played in this.
Bourgeois democracy, yes. Democracy that includes non proletariat, Yes.
I find Bordiga's critique of democracy to be quite, perhaps it's been too long since I read it, confused. It seems to suggest that the only form democracy takes, is bourgeois democracy.
We know that democracy was considered to be a huge part of socialism by the likes of Lenin, Luxemburg, and others.
Well, yes, initially. However he also defined it as a step below state-capitalism, as well as a workers' and peasants' state with serious bureaucratic deformations.
No it doesn't - but that role they played as a part of the working class.
No, it doesn't:
"We cannot state that the decisions of the party majority are per se as correct as those of the infallible supernatural judges who are supposed to have given human societies their leaders, like the gods believed in by all those who think that the Holy Spirit participates in papal conclaves. Even in an organization like the party where the broad composition is a result of selection through spontaneous voluntary membership and control of recruitment, the decision of the majority is not intrinsically the best. If it contributes to a better working of the party's executive bodies, this is only because of the coincidence of individual efforts in a unitary and well-oriented work. We will not propose at this time replacing this mechanism by another and we will not examine in detail what such a new system might be. But we can envisage a mode of organization which will be increasingly liberated from the conventions of the democratic principle, and it will not be necessary to reject it out of unjustified fears if one day it can be shown that other methods of decision, of choice, of resolution of problems are more consistent with the real demands of the party's development and its activity in the framework of history.
The democratic criterion has been for us so far a material and incidental factor in the construction of our internal organization and the formulation of our party statutes; it is not an indispensable platform for them. Therefore we will not raise the organizational formula known as "democratic centralism" to the level of a principle. Democracy cannot be a principle for us. Centralism is indisputably one, since the essential characteristics of party organization must be unity of structure and action. The term centralism is sufficient to express the continuity of party structure in space; in order to introduce the essential idea of continuity in time, the historical continuity of the struggle which, surmounting successive obstacles, always advances towards the same goal, and in order to combine these two essential ideas of unity in the same formula, we would propose that the communist party base its organization on "organic centralism". While preserving as much of the incidental democratic mechanism that can be used, we will eliminate the use of the term "democracy", which is dear to the worst demagogues but tainted with irony for the exploited, oppressed and cheated, abandoning it to the exclusive usage of the bourgeoisie and the champions of liberalism in their diverse guises and sometimes extremist poses."
Yes, there was a debate at the time, Lenin and Luxemburg indeed did use terms like workers' or proletarian democracy. Lenin, of course, came up with the formulation of democratic centralism. I think a hundred years of democracy proved Bordiga right.
As marxists, we are against democracy as in bourgeois democracy but also as in people's power, precisely because we want the power to be in the hands of the proletariat, not the people as a whole. As for democracy as in the decision-making of the majority, this can't be a principle for us because we acknowledge that the majority is not necessarily correct just because it is the majority, and it is important to over-represent the opinions of even the tiniest minority, for the best decision will come out of an actual debate, not a formal vote. We apply majority rule when we have to act and we have to act fast, but it isn't something to be idealized - it is something to be transcended.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
Of course, worthy of consideration is how the ones who count the ballots relate to the means of production. Place "democracy" outside of the actual putting-into-practice of communism, and you end up with some strange "democrats". Pretty soon pigs resemble men, etc.
The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
It still seems he only understands democracy to be that of bourgeois democracy; or at most bourgeois and "people's" democracy, and takes this further into party organizational methods.
Proletarian democracy, both in terms of party organization and wider decision making, does not exclude the debate. What it does exclude, is a tiny elite who can decide who wins this debate. Bordiga, to me, seems to be expressing his concern that, should we allow the wider class conscious proletariat to vote, the rank and file members of the party, an undesirable outcome will arise most of the time. This way of thinking has a serious flaw; ignoring the notion that the revolution must be of the class itself, that [FONT=Times New Roman]"...[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee." - R.L.
There's merit in Onarato Damen's critique of this "organic centralism": "Centralised Party, Yes - Centralism over the party, No!"
Here's a good excerpt:"[/FONT]For the Bordigists of “Programma” the problem is posed in terms that come from the counterrevolutionary practice of Stalinism. This is how they tried, finally, to clarify their extraordinary theory that goes under the name of “organic centralism.” We have reproduced it above in the same words in which it was formulated.
But we need to clarify once and for all the relationship that must exist between the centre and the base so that the party is structured and operates according to Leninist principles. An ongoing dialectical relationship exists between the members and the party centre. It is obviously on the basis of that relationship, in the context of theoretical and political platform already agreed that the party leadership develops its tactical action. Lenin never advocated, either in theory or in his political actions, any other way in which the organisation could act. And how can we understand the organisational formula of a Central Committee or of a leader who relies only on himself, on his capacity as related to a “set” of already planned possible moves (our emphasis) in relation to no less foreseen outcomes whilst the “so-called membership can usefully be ordered to perform actions indicated by the leadership?”
It simply means the same as the policy of the Central Committee under Stalin, once all working class elements had been eliminated from the dictatorship of the proletariat. It means a deep and irreparable rupture between the members of the party and its directing centre and the resulting slide into the open reconstruction of capitalism. It also means that the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and Stalin himself was tied to a “set” of possible moves that were perfectly planned in advance, that would be carried out with equal accuracy, in terms, and in a reality, we all know. What we are denouncing are the disastrous consequences which occur in a supposedly revolutionary party when its central organ, as a body, operates outside of the bounds and control of the organisation’s membership.[FONT=Times New Roman]"
[/FONT]
Part of that dynamic (organic centralism) is that the body that is the Party has attained a level beyond the individuals who make up the Party membership - that the collective work of all the independent parts that make up the Party is its own dynamic. If we understand that the ideas of the ruling-class are the ideas that dominate, why is democratism exempt from this? Can it not be considered an idea of the ruling-class which has seeped into the working-class (much like nationalism etc.)?
-Bordiga, Characteristic Theses of the Party, 1951
Edit:
From a report on Party meetings, International Communist Party (Il Partito Communist, Communist Left):
Last edited by subcp; 5th February 2013 at 00:58.
No it doesn't. He understands democracy to be three phenomena: a) the parliamentary system, or bourgeois democracy; b) democracy as in the people being in power, as the term itself means coming from demos - the people and kratos - power; c) simply the mechanism of majority rule.
The first phenomenon being presented as the second, combined with the idealization of the third form the democratic ideology, which is, naturally, a bourgeois ideology. We can remember that all ideologues, of course, according to Marx, turn the world upside-down. Engels defines ideology as false consciousness.
Here's another excellent point against democracy: "Democracy is, as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy (theology, as we Germans call it), at the bottom. Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery; the appearance of liberty, and therefore the reality of servitude. Political equality is the same; therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must ultimately break to pieces: hypocrisy cannot subsist, the contradiction hidden in it must come out; we must have either a regular slavery — that is, an undisguised despotism, or real liberty, and real equality — that is, communism."
You think this is a Bordiga quote?
Nope, Engels.
No, neither does bourgeois democracy. The focus, however, is the vote - not the debate; the opinions of the majority, not the discussion of the objections of the minority.
Which was not what Bordiga was advocating when he wrote the democratic principle, although this bureaucratic practice was unfortunately what came into being in post-War Bordigism. However putting the democratic system against a bureaucratic one is a false dilemma. Voting itself is, in the end, a bureaucratic procedure.
Yet he wasn't. In The System of Communist Representation (1919), he writes: "What characterizes the communist system then is the definition of the right to be an elector, a right which depends not on one's membership of a particular trade, but on the extent to which the individual, in the totality of his social relations, can be seen as a proletarian with an interest in the rapid achievement of communism, or a non-proletarian tied in some way or other to the preservation of the economic relations of private property. This extremely simple condition guarantees the political workability of the Soviet system of representation. In parallel to this system, new and technically competent techno-economic bodies will emerge. They must, however, remain subordinate to whatever the Soviets lay down in terms of broad policy guidelines; for until classes are totally abolished, only the political system of representation will embody the collective interests of the proletariat, acting as the prime accelerator of the revolutionary process."
Yes, there is merit in Damen's criticisms of the practices of the various Bordigist International Communist Parties. These criticisms do not apply to Bordiga's early writings from the days of the Communist Party of Italy, however, of which Damen himself was a militant, and obviously he didn't see a need to object to Bordiga's criticisms of the democratic ideology at the time.
Comrades of Battaglia Comunista (where Damen was a militant), while I don't agree with some of the organizational conclusions they've drawn, were right in their criticisms of the functioning of the post-WW2 Bordigists. However, this does not mean they were defenders of the democratic ideology - they were, and remain, its determined opponents.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
My problem with this is that it does, whether you claim it does or not, pose the rank-and-file class conscious membership to be incompetent, or unable to listen and vote for the correct path.
As well, you continue to tie in, as Bordiga seems to do, bourgeois democracy. Taking the democracy to mean that everyone votes. No. I am suggesting the class conscious working class, that are operating within councils, to vote.
This was Engel's discussing the bourgeois form of democratic government. Please, use context.
So, this "inherent flaw" cannot be fixed, so we must make all decision making lay in the hands of a minority?
Again, if the majority aren't going to vote the right way on major issues, I have SERIOUS DOUBTS about the party and the socialist movement in totality. Again, I refer to the Luxemburg quote.
Yet, the solution to cutting red tape shouldn't be creating an elite minority who does rule in the party, where the rank-and-file are disconnected from the party core.
This quote seems to actually justify proletarian democracy through workers councils.
Again, could you clarify yourself, without excessive quoting?
Yet, he says Organic Centralism is akin to Stalinist party organization.
I don't see what Damen working with Bordiga early has to do with anything.
Again, Damen does criticize democratic centralism, but clearly says it is the least flawed, and is necessary.
How can you have common ownership of the means of production without direct,proletarian democracy? Also as Red Enemy suggested, Marx and Engles were criticizing bourgeoise democracy and believed it to be contradictory to fundamental democratic concepts since it was controlled by an oligarchic minority as opposed to it being "people rule",which they agreed would only come about under a socialist democracy.
"You can have all my shine I'll give you the lighttt"
I don't know that anyone's saying the organization of society would not have democracy (the councils, committee's, assemblies, etc.). Organic centralism and the critique of democracy has to do with the organization of the communist minority (i.e. in revolutionary organizations and the International); not society at large (that's been my reading of it anyway).
The critique of democratic centralism is that it gives power and rise to a party bureaucracy because of the internal democratic mechanism's. The Great Purge, Trotsky's expulsion (and his faction), were accomplished through bureaucratic measures within the party. Without an internal democratic structure, the idea is that factionalism (and what comes with it in Trot groups and trade unions- slates) and the hierarchical layers of leadership (through successive voting) being non-existent would prevent something like the Stalinist counter-revolution (Thermidorian reaction from within the party) happening again.
Just because it is against the fetishism of the majority? I don't think so. He isn't saying the rank-and-file are incompetent, or that the leaders are always right, or that the majority is always wrong. He is saying that, regardless of where the rank-and-file and the leadership stand on an issue, the majority isn't necessarily right, just because it is the majority. Claiming it to be something else is demagogy.
So does Bordiga. He just doesn't sanctify the process of voting, or the opinions of the majority.
Oh, does he? Then why did he not feel the need to specify? He is talking about democracy as a form of government in general.
Where has this been suggested at all?
Bordiga isn't against applying majority rule in decision making - he is saying that this isn't a principle, quite the contrary it is a limitation which should be transcended in the future. When writing the democratic principle, he didn't pose an alternative and he certainly didn't say a minority should make all the decisions.
Consensus decision-making, for instance, is a much more desirable model compared to the democratic rule of the majority - however suggesting it as an ultimate solution to majority rule simply isn't effective in the present conditions of struggle against capitalism, where at times there is a need to take decisions rapidly.
However we shouldn't make a virtue out of necessity. Even when applying the majority rule i.e resorting to a vote to take a decision, we should keep in mind that the majority might well be wrong, the discussion should continue and the minority should be given the opportunity to keep arguing for its case as much as all this is possible to do so while taking the action related to the decision. Obviously one can't keep discussing while charging against an enemy. Nevertheless, continuing a debate after the vote is obviously an undemocratic practice, as it doesn't acknowledge the divine righteousness of the holy majority.
Not seeing majority rule into a principle but as a last resort when a vote is, for whatever reason, an absolute or urgent necessity means being on guard against perfectly democratic maneuvers, such as rendering the debate meaningless or empty by making all the debates about voting or ending the debate by forcing a premature vote. Both are common democratic manipulations. Besides, it is easier to buy votes than opinions and arguments.
Organic centralism as practiced by the post-WW2 Bordigist organizations. Yes, there were similarities.
If you want me to stop quoting people, then you should try not to misrepresent their positions. Here's what Damen said: "Lenin, at his most personal and most decisive, by which we mean the Lenin of the “April Theses” had a desperate determination to “go to the sailors,” beyond the formal organisation of the Bolshevik Party’s Central Committee whose positions which were based on misunderstanding and compromise. Lenin was not operating on organic or even democratic centralism here, but acting as the chief pillar of the coming revolution, the only one who had understood and endorsed the demands of the working class and this is because his feet were firmly on a class terrain (...) In this constant dialectical relationship between the membership and leadership of the party, in this necessary integration of freedom and authority, lies the solution of a problem to which professional objectors have perhaps paid too much attention (...) The elementary tactical principle of the revolutionary party in action, is that it must take into account the characteristics of the terrain on which it works and that its members are adequately prepared for their tasks. We do not believe there needs to be disagreements on the question of centralism. These only begin when we talk in “democratic” or “organic” terms. The use, or worse, the abuse, of the term “organic” can lead to forms of authoritarian degeneration which break the dialectical relationship that must exist between the leadership and the members. The experience of Lenin is still valid, and it is vital to be able to fuse together, in a single vision, the seeming contradiction between “democratic” and “organic” centralism."
For those who are allergic to quotes, Damen basically opposed "dialectical centralism" to both organic and democratic centralism.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
Split from learning.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
I am really enjoying the discussion so far, but I just wanted to make a quick comment on this:
This poses a serious problem, because workers councils are made up of just that, the working class in its entirety; the issue with leaving certain decisions up to the workers councils is that there will always be backwards and reactionary sections of the proletariat. This is why I am of the opinion, that in certain material conditions, the soviets must be subjugated to the proletarian mass party. Far be it from being a condescending view towards the working class, it is simply the view that class conscious workers will be able to best express their class interests through the mass party of the proletariat (which will have membership controls, thus ensuring only the class conscious proletarians have political say over important decisions) as opposed to the soviets where backwards and reactionary sections of the class can gain political sway.
If the decisions of certain workers are so reactionary then i don't think that they'll gain any significance in a form of governance controlled by a revolutionary socialist majority
"You can have all my shine I'll give you the lighttt"
Your "mass party" is going to have those very same problems that you attribute to councils, though.
The difference between a mass party and a vanguard party is that the former seeks to integrate the whole of the class regardless of politics with only modest controls over the political character of the party, while the latter incorporates only the most politically advanced sections of the class and instills a stricter degree of theoretical discipline so as to properly maintain the communist character of the party.
So you can't say that councils are flawed because they give a voice to the more politically backward sections of the class when you disregard the need for a party that doesn't give a voice to the very same types of people.
Except I don't advocate allowing anyone other than class conscious proletarians into the political party of the proletariat. To assume that a mass party can't be created, without allowing reactionary elements of the class in, seems to run on the assumption that the majority of the working class cannot become class conscious.
I also don't enjoy employing the term vanguard as much anymore due to the fact that its place in Marxist terminology seems to have been constructed after the death of the man who supposedly invented the theoretical contribution of the vanguard party to Marxist thought. I think a mass party is much more in line with what we are attempting to create.
Now unless you are talking about pre-revolutionary situations, where at times parties have certain reactionary elements in them, this is a different discussion. However I don't see how this is any different then the history of the RSDLP? The party is built and a certain point in the class struggle a split is necessary to form the revolutionary party of the proletariat and to preserve the communist character of the party.
A "mass party" is exactly what you call a "vanguard party". The former does not seek to integrate the whole of the class regardless of politics, otherwise the Marxist mass-parties of the 20th century like the RSDLP/RCP wouldn't have made agreement with the Marxist programme a requirement for membership. Collecting all the politically advanced sections of the class into one organization is useless unless these sections are then utilized to educate their worker-comrades.
A mass party cannot be created without allowing non-revolutionary elements in it, no. One of the main things that led to the degeneration of the Second International was the admittance of reformist elements into it. Of course, the revivalists of classical social-democracy will tell us that it was the result of petite-bourgeois influences and the allowance of the petite-bourgeoisie into the party that sparked its degeneration, but that is quite demonstrably nonsense unless one accepts the ridiculous premise that by virtue
of being a proletarian one either automatically has revolutionary socialist politics or has acceptable politics, no matter what the hell they are, so long as they are the politics of a member of the working class.
I think it would be accurate for me to say that I fully respect your initiative to not use the term vanguard party and instead opt for the use of the term mass party for the same reason that I choose to use the term vanguard party and opt not to use the term mass party. The reason this is is because I support the formation of a vanguard party of the most politically advanced sections of the working class and I do not support the formation of a mass party that seeks to integrate the whole of the class just because they are workers.
