DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM–A CHALLENGE
DR.
R C. GUPTA
Although
democracy and the labour movement appear outwardly antithetical they are, as a
matter of fact, complementary to each other. The labour movement has been powerfully
helped by democracy, especially since the introduction of the universal adult
vote. Though the Trade Union movement was conceived as an economic movement,
yet it has everywhere powerfully affected democracy, by organizing the voting
strength of labour. Likewise, with its rule of law, guaranteeing the liberty of
the individual, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association, and
the party system, ensuring periodical change of government, reflecting the will
of the people, without the use of violence, democracy has accomplished in some
modern countries a socialist revolution through constitutional and peaceful
methods. It has succeeded in greatly modifying the rigours and the injustice of
the capitalist social order. Trade Unionism and democracy thus have mutually
helped each other.
On
studying the history of the labour movement, we find that it has always
influenced the principles and the working of the State. The earliest and the
best known was the Chartist Movement in
The
Chartist Movement grew out of a syndicalist mood of the workers which had been
given, after the disillusion of 1832, an anti-parliamentary slant by Owen. Two
lines of policies struggled for mastery in the movement: the Moral Force Group
led by Feargus O’ Conner and the Physical Force Group led by William Lovett.
The movement led to a tremendous deepening of the Trade Union organizations and
inspired a number of mass actions including a general strike. But the
developments that have given the name to the movement were the elaboration and
adoption of the People’s Charter. The “six-point” Charter made the following
demands: (1) universal suffrage; (2) equal electoral districts; (3) abolition of
property qualifications for parliamentary candidates; (4) annul parliaments;
(5) secret ballot; (6) payment to members of parliament.
The
Chartist Movement focussed its attention on adult suffrage and other demands
that would make the State responsible to the people. But the People’s Charter
did not exhaust the meaning of democracy.
In
fact, the Chartist Reforms do not touch the core of democracy. Surely, citizens
cannot vote once a year and then go to sleep. They have to be associated with
the processes and responsibilities of administration. Its complexity will have
to be broken up for easy association. There may be the Parliament at the
Centre, but below it there must be State Assemblies, District Boards, Village
Panchayats, Cooperatives, Ward Committees, and Community Centres. Their
respective powers have to be allotted and satisfactorily dovetailed. Such is
the pulsating fabric of a democratic State evolved in the past century or more.2
A
positive approach to the problem demands to guarantee to the people adult
suffrage, civil liberties, representative government and the web of associative
life. That the whole drift of industrial civilization needs such a State is the
view of many an acute thinker. R. M. Maciver writes in The Web of Government
(1947): “Not only under democratic conditions, but wherever modern
industrial civilization exists, the nature of authority undergoes a
transformation. A modern society with its complexity of organisation, becomes a
multi-group society. It possesses no longer the homogeneity of culture that has
pervaded former types of society, even when they are sharply divided by class
and caste. There is no longer one religion, one scale of values, one pervasive
indoctrination. A multi-group society is a multi-myth society. Its appropriate
form of government can be based only on some form of myth that accommodates conflicting
myths, and that condition is met by the myth of democracy.”
The
fact that the modern society is a multi-purpose and a multi-group society
demands a necessary change in our outlook towards democracy. It is quite
unfortunate to note that there are people who still believe that democracy
stands only for a particular form of government. Although adult suffrage, civil
liberties and representative government are considered essential for
establishing a democratic society, they cannot make the ideal of democracy
fully attainable. Democracy does not stand so much for a particular form of
government, as it does for a particular form of society. Representative
government is one of the several means to organize a democratic society. The
representation of the people in a democracy cannot be ignored, because in a
democracy, which is known as a government of the people, if the people are not
represented, it cannot be called a democracy at all, in spite of its being a
successful government. But a true democracy is that in which not only the voice
of the people is held supreme, but in which the people participate actively and
consciously in the organisation of the manifold life of society, as also in the
working of government.
From
this viewpoint, every such movement or philosophy which directly or indirectly
aims at setting up such a society, as hinted at, has a close relationship with
democracy. Socialism, in all its forms–Communism, Fabian Socialism, Guild
Socialism and also Syndicalism and Anarchism–aims ultimately at the attainment
of this society. The theories of Democratic Socialism and Welfare State have
also been propounded with a view to realizing the ideal of a true democracy.
With the advancement of the idea of people’s democracy, the objectives and functions
of the State would undergo a radical change. A democratic or a socialist
society cannot be established under a dictatorship on a police state. For that
a highly responsible government with complete decentralization of its powers is
indispensable. It is all the more necessary for realizing the goal of a true
democracy, coupled with the values of socialism.
There
are many socialists who therefore believe that in democracy alone socialism can
be cradled a positive state, working on behalf of the workers, peasants and the
poor, is the very foundation of all further achievements.
Lassalle
was among the first socialists to develop such a positive attitude towards the
state. Of him Rosa Luxembourg had said: “He dreamt of marrying science with the
working class movement.” He also thought of making the state an instrument of
workers’ emancipation. It was he who said that “if you will not make use of the
state as an instrument, you will confront it as an obstacle.” Therefore, he
said, workers must demand adult suffrage, and fight for it. Once they get it,
with the large number of votes they command, provided they are conscious and
well-organized, they can capture the state machine, and use it, for their own
ends. He linked up his view with his theory that the state cannot be a mere night
watchman. The functions of the state can never be confined to that of a ring-master.
The state must have a positive role. Lassalle was the father of the
“Welfare State”, though he did not coin that phrase.
The
Fabians were keen about the local bodies. George Bernaard Shaw, one of the
greatest men of letters, began his political career from a borough council.
Although Shaw was a vain person, he did not hesitate in addressing “soap-box”
meetings. The Fabians believed in building from the bottom; they were not
ashamed of working in a borough councilor a minor municipality. Their approach
was to take even these little bodies significant, vital, and, above all, endow
them with democratic content. Every election, no matter how small it was, was
meaningful to them. Whatever be the committee, the Fabians approached their
work with such thoroughness and industry that not only they made themselves
indispensable but made the committee fruitful. Their favourable view of the
state was based upon the belief, shared by Jean Jaures and many other
contemporary socialists that the capitalist state is, or can be made, penetrable
for socialism.
Socialists,
like G. D. H. Cole, held that real democracy was to be found, not in a ‘single omni-competent
representative assembly’, but in a system of coordinated functional
representative bodies3. Such a system of functional democracy is
much superior to the present irresponsible parliamentary government. The Guild
Socialists wanted to realize socialism on the essential basis of the guild.
They believed in evolutionary transformation of society. Their object was “the
abolition of the wage-system and the establishment by the workers of government
in industry through a democratic system of national guilds working in
conjunction with other democratic national organizations in the community”. A
democratic society according to them, is a net-work of co-ordinated, functional
representative bodies. They were against an omnipotent central authority and felt
that true democracy would remain a mere dream without decentralization of
functions and powers.
Like
these socialists, Karl Marx was also not averse to the idea of a true
democracy, although he was polar opposite to bourgeois democracy. He wrote in the
Communist Manifesto (1848): “Communists support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of things….They labour
everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all
countries.” It means that communism is not an anti-democratic movement. On the
contrary, it works in agreement with the democratic parties of other countries.
But it is opposed to the existing set-up, because it is capitalistic. In a
capitalist society, the workers have no choice, but to sell their labour to the
capitalist class which controls not only the industrial and economic life of
the society, but which also directs the policies of the government in its own
interests. Such a system is cumbersome and coercive in which the condition of
the workers is not, in any way, better than that of slaves.
Viewed
in this way, the aim of each labour movement, whether it has been sponsored by
the communists or by the socialists or by the trade unions, is to restore to
themselves again, the authority of the people which has slipped away from their
hands to the state or to some other section of the community, either due to
their own ignorance or due to some other reasons. The idea of the Communist
Manifesto was not to replace one dictatorship by another; it meant that
victorious workers must cut out those features of bourgeois democracy which
were incompatible with socialist democracy–the army as a special caste, for
example, and a bureaucracy and a judiciary hostile, both by tradition and
class-composition, to the fulfilment of socialist purposes. It purports that
the power, after the revolution, should remain in the hands of the workers
themselves. Prof. Harold J. Laski remarks in Introduction to his book, Communist
Manifesto: Socialist Landmark. (1948), that “The Manifesto did
not propose the exchange of one dictatorship for another; it proposed the
democratization of power by putting the authority of the state into the hands
of the working class. It assumes that the decline of capitalism has produced a
working class mature enough to recognise that it must take its destiny into its
own hands and begin the building of socialism.”
Thus
the real aim of commuaism, like that of democracy and socialism, is to awaken
the consciousness of the workers and of those who have so far remained
subjected to all types of humiliation and exploitation. It was quite
unfortunate that in Soviet Russia, after the Communist Revolution, the
authority could not be entrusted to the working class, and there emerged a party
dictatorship, in its worst form, instead of a workers’ democracy. The reason is
that the revolution of which Lenin was the supreme architect was made by the
methods evolved by him, no doubt , upon a Marxist foundation, to fit the
special conditions of
But
the unfortunate betrayal of Marxian purpose, particularly under the leadership
of Stalin, cannot change the real spirit of The Manifesto and the
intents of Marxian Socialism. And if the people living under the Communist
Dictatorship are given a chance of expressing their real desires, without any
fear of reprisals, they would assuredly throw out their present governments,
and not re-establish capitalism, but proceed to build up by trial and error,
through failure and success, a democratic socialist society. It will not be
unwise to comment here that the Soviet Prime Minister, Mr. Nikita S.
Khrushchev, was fully conscious of the evils of dictatorship. He was the first
Russian leader, after the establishment of the Communist Dictatorship in
Russia, who appears to have been keen on loosening the grip of dictatorship over
the Russian people and promoting the democratic forces in Russia and other
parts of the communist world. It is an encouraging attitude towards the
realization of workers’ and people’s democracy, although the Stalinists in
Russia and the communist leaders in China and Albania consider it an attempt to
betray the ideal of revolutionary socialism and help the progress of bourgeois
democracy.
Though
it is an admitted fact that the goals of democracy and Socialism are more or
less the same and that both have mutually helped each other, or that democracy
cannot realise its fundamental ideals of liberty, equality and justice to all,
without embodying values of socialism in its contents, and vice versa, yet
it is difficult to say how a democratic socialist society will shape and work
to realize its ultimate aims. No one today can answer this question completely.
Neither Marx nor Engels nor Kautsky nor Liebknecht nor Luxembourg nor Plekhanov
nor Lenin answered that in full. Nor the picture that Lenin drew of Soviet
Russia has been realized there. Lenin had said, for instance, at the Eighth
Congress of the Communist Party in 1919, that “there is nothing more stupid
than the idea of compulsion with reference to economic relations with average
peasants.” And yet in no less than two decades twenty million peasant families
were forced, at the risk of death or banishment to Siberia, into two lakhs of
collective farms. Perhaps, there is no other instance in history where a meagre
minority having captured power was able to coerce such a vast majority of
people in such a total manner.
It
makes us think as to what are the reasons for the advancement of wrong and
incomplete solutions and for the failure of democracy or socialism. First, each
thinker or political leader is a product of a particular country and its
special circumstantes. His ideology and thought-process are shaped by the
peculiar habits, beliefs and traditions of the country in which he is born and
brought up. All this conditions his mind to think primarily in the context of
his own country. His limited horizon makes the universal application of his
solution impossible. He fails to take full cognizance of the social and
political conditions and understand the traditional beliefs and
thought-processes of the peoples
“Of
different countries. Even in his own country, his approach is found hardly
correct. If he is too academic in his thinking, his approach may be ideal, but
it cannot touch the core of the problem. If, on the contrary, his judgment is
too practical, then it cannot inspire confidence even among his own people and
it will be considered nothing more than mere opportunism. In both cases, his
solution is liable to fail.
Secondly, the conservative and authoritarian attitude of the leaders makes the task of democracy almost difficult. Where men are trained in democratic traditions, where there is a habit of sending “heresy, of whatever kind, to Parliament, rather than to the hangman”, social changes can take place by adjustments. In the name of social or political transformation, to silence opposition is to rob people of their sovereignty. “To suppress the opposition” said Ferrero, “is to suppress the sovereignty of the people. “ To safeguard against such an attitude of the leaders, is to awaken the political consciousness of the masses. Only in the climate of freedom and cooperation can the constructive tasks of democracy or socialism be adequately fulfilled.
Thirdly,
the leader or leaders who guide the revolution may, and do often, change as
soon as they come into power and begin to shape events. A leader engaged in a
revolutionary fight and the same leader in power and authority are often two
different individuals. We see examples of this metamorphosis in recent history.
Mussolini and Hitler began their revolutionary careers as socialists. Supposing
they had remained firm in their socialist faith, it is quite possible that
their followers would have remained loyal to them and paved the way for the
establishment of socialism in Italy and Germany. Even in a democracy a leader
in opposition does not remain the same when he gets into power. The labour
movement in England received a set back because of the change in the outlook of
Macdonald when he was installed in power. And a leader in power gets corrupt and
becomes irresponsible because of the authority which he wields. Thomas
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi 5 were unique
exceptions in the political history of the modern world.
Fourthly,
the masses are generally kept away from the administration. Upheavals are
usually created by or with the help of the masses and ostensibly in their
interest. The slogans raised are idealistic: ‘No taxation without
representation’, ‘Liberty, fraternity, equality’, ‘Land to the tiller’,
‘Government of the people, by the people and for the people’, ‘From each
according to ability, to each according t0 want’, ‘Banish poverty and ensure
economic minimum to all’, ‘We fight for democracy and socialism’ etc. But in
the hour of triumph and rearrangement the masses are usually nowhere on the
scene, nowhere near the seats of power. For them generally there is only a
change of masters. As often as not, the new masters are no better in their lust
for domination, and for the good things of the world, as the holders of power
whom the revolution overthrew. Often they are those who have felt in the past
that their importance and worth were not adequately recognised in spite of
their ability or their growing social importance. Their ambitions may have
grown because of newly acquired wealth, position or even power. But one thing
common to all successful revolutionaries and leaders is that those at the helm
must have initiative, vigour, drive and some kind of fascist tendency. It is
necessary because they want to supplant old authority be it of kings, princes
or landed, industrial or financial barons or imperialists or dictators. It
would seem that no society can work effectively without the guiding and
controlling direction of some sort of an elite. The old elite, because
of the corrupting influence of power and the enervating effect of luxurious and
easy living, which sooner or later follows the acquisition of power, cease to
perform any useful social function, which would entitle them to the prestige
and the advantages they enjoy. They must therefore yield place to the class
struggling for power. And the ambitions of the new aspirants to power will
again be clothed in idealistic terms of justice, equality and fraternity–all
meant for the advantage of the oppressed and suppressed masses. But in reality,
it is nothing more than a mere transfer of power from one hand to another due
to the lust of the leaders for power and domination.
Fifthly,
it is difficult to bring about a change in the social, economic and political
conditions of the masses without the divestment of vested interests. So long as
vested interests are not divested, no revolution can effectively change the lot
of the masses. And divestment takes place when authority has been decentralized
and the masses actively participate in the general administration of the
country through various committees and unions, democratically constituted,
without any party politics. But generally it does not happen. What interests
will be liquidated, and what kept, depends upon the wishes of the new rulers.
When in power, they may not find it convenient to keep their pledges. They
might keep some and violate others. They might be revolutionary about the
capture of power and quite conservative about the changing of the social order.
We can see this process taking place in our own country. Many of those who in
the Congress were revolutionary for the capture of political power are either
reactionary or at best stand for the status quo so far as social and
economic equality is concerned. It is these reactionary forces that are just
like a halter round the neck of the progressive forces in the Congress party.
And if socialism, for which Congress stands since 1954, is not making any
headway, it is mostly due to these reactionary elements. Congress socialism is
Nehru-deep, and it was he, and only a handful of other progressive Congressmen,
who were enthusiastic about the growth of the idea of socialism, as also about
its implementation.
Sixthly,
there is a general tendency in the leaders to stick to the principles of their
political parties more than to care for the welfare of the masses. They value
their own principles so much that they lose human touch and become
inconsiderate to the views of the opposition groups, as also to the views of
the common people. Also, their conservative and dogmatic outlook leaves no
chance for time-to-time modifications in their own principles and policies to
suit the changing needs of the society. The growth of a democratic society gets
stunted in the absence of variety of experiences.
Seventhly,
the leaders do not undertake seriously the psychological study of human nature
in action. They fail to analyze properly the human mind and heart, the
political behaviour of the individuals and the political atmosphere in the
society, which is very essential for them to build up a sound theory of the
State and Government. As a result, their theories mostly fall when they try to
put them into practice.
Eighthly,
the political leaders are in the habit of divorcing religion from politics.
They shun religion and ignore human and moral considerations, while forming
their political ideologies and principles. And politics, devoid of moral and
religious considerations, is nothing more than mere opportunism. I am certain
that a healthy democratic society cannot be established, if we continue to
ignore human and moral values of life. Lack of faith in moral and religious
ideals ultimately tells upon the character of the people. Corrupt leaders have
no right to ask their people to behave nicely and morally. A nation which has
no moral character cannot progress much, and it is bound to be doomed sooner or
later. Even Machiavelli, the first among political thinkers, who attempted to
separate politics from religion, soon realized that a healthy society could be
built up only on the basis of a faith in religion. As such, he did not despise
religion. Those who expect him to have despised religion will be surprised to
read the title of a chapter in his Discourses: “The importance of giving
religion a prominent influence in the State, and how Italy was ruined because
she failed in this respect through the conduct of the Church of Rome.” He also
said: “Princes and Republics who wish to maintain themselves free from
corruption must above all things preserve the purity of all religious
observances and treat them with proper reverence; for there is no greater
indication of the ruin of a country than to see religion condemned.”6
He regarded the church as necessary for the health and prosperity of State. In
fact, true religion does not serve as a barrier in the way of the social,
economic and political progress of a country. It does not stand for any kind of
dogmatism and narrowmindedness, and it is not opposed to rational thinking. On
the contrary, it helps us to find out a correct and permanent solution to many
of our problems. It calls upon us to treat all human beings as our brothers and
serve them with honesty and with the spirit of self-sacrifice. True religion is
that which fits to our highest reason. It is what we call a correct explanation
of the term dharma (religion), according to the Hindu Nyaya Shastra. And
no political leader can afford to ignore true religion. Gandhiji was cent per
cent right when he remarked that politics devoid of religion was a death-trap.
Lastly,
trade unions, economic groups and political parties, which come into being to
fight on behalf of the workers and common people and to protect their rights
against any kind of encroachment either by the State or by any dominant group
in society do not function democratically. Their internal organizations remain
so hierarchical that the top-level leaders almost lose contact with the
ordinary members. The ordinary members do not have any say in the formulation
of policies. Either they do not understand things, or they are kept ignorant of
the high-level politics. Whatever is decided upon by their leaders, they
silently acquiesce in. The leaders either have no time or they feel apathy to
contact the rank and file with a view to knowing their grievances and
discussing with them the policies which ultimately would concern them. In such
a state of affairs, the masses do not feel secure, and the dream of
establishing a democratic socialist society remains far away from its
realization.
Also,
the election system today is highly defective. The methods employed by the
candidates and the political organizations to win the votes of the electors
are dirty and discouraging. The voters can be easily hypnotized by deafening
propaganda and the exploitation of the sub-conscious non-rational elements in
human nature. Education of the people is in fact no remedy. Instead of
minimising the evil, it tends to maximise it. Since elementary education gives
to the voter merely the power to read, it leaves him or her at the mercy of the
clever manipulator of public opinion even more than before. Even the
intelligent people act in excitement and are liable to be exploited equally by
false propaganda. Thus the voters–both intelligent and unintelligent, vote for
the candidates, not on the basis of their personal knowledge of the latter, but
because they have been asked or excited by the political leaders or by some
demagogues to do so. The result is that there remains no contact between the
electorate and the representatives. The representatives soon become
irresponsible and forget their pledges which they made to their voters at the
time of their election. In short, the representatives soon turn to be the
masters, and it leaves no chance for a cooperation and understanding between
them and the people which is highly essential for the working of democracy. A
government without consent is a complicated and ugly process.
After
reflecting on these facts, we feel that the attainment of democracy or of
socialism, clothed in democratic garb, remains even today a perplexing problem.
Its success is still as doubtful and uncertain as it was a century or two ago.
The fascist and imperialist forces are as dominant today as they ever were in
the past three or four centuries. In spite of all our industrial and scientific
achievements we have failed in changing the human heart and mind without which
no progress is significant and continuous. If we want to realize the dream of
true democracy or of socialism, we will then have to change the human
outlook towards the national and international problems,
reorganize the political parties, if at all we feel they are necessary for a
democracy, educate the masters to put pressure on
governments to act in a more responsible way, divest the vested interests,
decentralize the State powers to the greatest extent, stop the dirty propaganda
to befool the masses, particularly, at the time of election, to strengthen the
trade unions and to give due consideration to human and moral values, while
deciding upon political and economic questions.
In
a country like India, where the voter suffers from the hangover of a cruel
past–from the inhibitions of centuries of political, social and economic
slavery and of old harmful customs and superstitions as well as from family,
communal, caste and provincial prejudices, we have to make every effort, over
and above, to broaden his mental horizon by removing these inhibitions and
prejudices. Let each democratic party make up its mind and, even at the risk of
temporary unpopularity and misunderstanding, show that it stands for the
removal of harmful social customs and that it would work against communalism,
casteism and provincialism. So long as we do not fight combinedly against them,
all our efforts to bring about social and political changes in our country will
go waste.
Further,
the problems like hunger, poverty, exploitation and colour-bar continue to
challenge us. Their removal from India is as much necessary as from any other
part of the world. In the face of their continuous challenge, we cannot build
up a true democratic and socialist society anywhere in the world and our boast
of calling ourselves civilized and progressive is false.
1
M. Beer: A History of British Socialism (1921)
2 Cf.
M. Follete: The New State (1918) R. M. MacIver: The
Modern State (1926)
3 G.
D. H. Cole; The Social Theory (1920)
4 Rosa
Luxembourg: Die Russiche Revolution (1918), p. 113.
5 Although
Mahatma Gandhi was the supreme leader of the Indian movement for freedom, he
always disliked to come into power. Had he lived for a few years more and
agreed to come into power, he would have presented, I am sure cent per cent, a unique
example of a just rule.
6 Machiavelli:
Discourses, Chap. xii.