mental democratic rights. This on its own would not be sufficient to keep workers confined within, the straitjacket of bourgeois However, one also has to take into aceount the lasting negative impact of the experiences of Stalinism in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
Any successful struggle for socialist in the West will thus have to be mote democratic than what exists today in both its organisation and its alas in order to succeed. In other cords, socialist democracy must be institutions of struggle.
democracy.
return to the Tories.
'most powerli seen to operate in all the proletarian Our aim as socialists must be to stimulate and aid ail developments which lead to the mass entry of the working class into political activity at . question of whether workers should wait five years before embarking on struggles against the We are, naturally, in favour of the Illass struggles to defeat Tory policies. But is the British labour movement prepared to accept the Tory challenge on the question of 'democracy'?
Not even the left wing of the labour movement has thought out a serious to these ICSOUlSC vuesliens. social-democrats are addicted more so than the young Nye Bevan -the Houses or Commons. he House Commons. revolutionary left, meanwhile, tended to regard all questions about bourgeols political order irrelevant, merely anticipating that it will all ultimately be swept away by the tide of mass struggle and replaced with soviets.
If the first approach reveals the utter bankruptcy democracy, the Left weakness of the far left, because all it can offer is propaganda. However, if it is accepted that the aim is to involve masses in workplace, then has attempt (including within the present political system) has to be made to develop such a project The objective political and economic situation clearly favours such a project. For because of the gravity of to be in developing representatiol our armoury.
There Pucalel force returned at all? Appeal assert government. the Tories way as to prevent of latter reveals the politics the every possible problem society.
society. democracy. This means that a number of radical, democratie demands have prioritised both within the institutions of the working class and our challenge to the institutions of the bourgeoisie.
Starting off from the democratic organisation of strikes (regular mass meetings, accountable strike committees, etc.), these will have to include the democratisation of the unions and Labour Party throuch demanding more democratic forms of within the existing bourgeois state.
One of the central demands of the Chartists was for annual parliaments It was never seriously considered by the British ruling class and was soon abandoned by the workers movement after the defeat of Chartism. And yet the demand is an important part of can be little doubt that annual elections would create interest in poltics. would the labour movement introduce politics in the workplace, and would make bourgeois governments more accountable. Would an election next vear returt Thatcher with the same majority - if she was From this it is obvious that we stress the primacy of the masses in struggle For us real, effective democracy is mass democracy - the very opposite of bourgeois democracy And the right of the labour movement to appeal to the masses or that basis against the policies of this A democratically organised labour movement, which is not frightened of raising political questions on the shop-floor and which ends the absurd division between politics (in Parliament) and economic struggles (in the workplaces), is capable of taking on and defeating them on every possible terrain.
Furthermore, it needs to be stressed that the ruling class does not accept the division between economics (City of London) and politics (House of Commons, the Lords). Their democracy is, in reality, organised in such a maintain the existing economic divisions. The result is that the House of Commons is subordinated to the needs of national and international capitalism.
Boardrooms The vital decisions concerning the economic life of this country are not made in the House of Commons. They are decided in the boardrooms of the City and the planning meetings of the International Monetary Fund. The link between these bodies and the civil service is a little studied phenomenon, precisel be cause of the secrec necessary to prevens capicapposition from the The labour movement has no need to be defensive in the face of the bourgeois ideological offensive pro vided it puts its own house in order and is prepared to fight back The we should state, is that there s too little democracy in The strongholds of the workers movement should be utilised to change this situation and create the basis for the transformation of British Socialist Challenge 6 September 1979 Page 7