As 1905 had shown, the creation of soviets does not guarantee victory, but is a precondition for it, as 1917, illustrated. If the revolutionary wave subsides, or is defeated by a counter-revolutionary response, then the soviets will also be dispersed.
“They cannot become “normal” institutions of the bourgeois state. But in that case, too, that is, if the soviets are liquidated before the insurrection, the working masses make an enormous acquisition, familiarizing themselves with the soviets in practice, identifying themselves with their mechanism. During the following stage of the revolution, the more successful and more extensive creation of soviets will thus be guaranteed: although, even in the phase that follows it may be that they do not lead directly, not only to victory, but even not to the insurrection.” (p 199)
If the KMT had convoked a National Assembly, in the period after the defeat of the second revolution, what would have been the response of Marxists to it?
“We would pitilessly unmask the lie and duplicity of the Guomindang’s parliamentarism, the constitutional illusions of the petty bourgeoisie: we would demand the complete extension of electoral rights; at the same time we would throw ourselves into the political arena to oppose, in the struggle for the parliament, in the course of the elections and in the parliament itself, the workers and the poor peasants to the possessing class and their parties.” (p 200-201)
Does that, in any way signify support for bourgeois-democracy? Of course not; it signifies only use of it to expose it, and discredit it, along with the bourgeoisie, whose political regime it represents.
“But in this case, is it not clear that the Party can and must not only participate in the elections if the Guomindang promulgates them, but also demand that they be held by mobilizing the masses around this slogan?” (p 201)
And, Trotsky says, this was no longer a hypothetical consideration, because the defeat of the revolution had led to a stabilisation of the economy, and its recovery. In such conditions, as seen in 1848, as in the Arab Spring of 2011, the bourgeoisie seeks to impose itself as against both the old ruling-class, and any Bonapartist regime. It seeks to introduce a parliamentary regime, because, as Lenin describes, in State and Revolution, it is its most effective means of exercising its social dictatorship.
“It is not the Opposition which has posed this question, but rather the evolution of Chinese political life. Here too one must know how to perceive a tendency at the very outset. The more audaciously and resolutely the Communist Party comes forward with the slogan of the democratic Constituent Assembly, the less place it will leave all sorts of intermediary parties, the more solid will be its own success.” (p 201-2)
The struggle for these bourgeois-democratic rights and freedoms means also freedom of the press, organisation, and to strike. All of these too are a sham for workers, because their ability to exercise them depends on its own strength, not on the bourgeois-democracy itself. Freedom of the press, theoretically, means, also, the workers' press, but, even if that is allowed, it never has the resources that the ruling-class has to spread its ideas and propaganda through society, though the development of the Internet and social media has made that slightly less the case. But, as seen repeatedly, in conditions where that would matter, the bourgeoisie, and its state simply closes down the internet.
A right to assembly is easy to grant in a condition of social peace, but, even then, it is actively and legally constrained, and the same applies to the right to organise, strike and so on. The implementation of lockdowns, was only the most recent example, but a look at Tory anti-union laws, or The Battle of Orgreave, are more graphic illustrations of the sham nature of these bourgeois democratic rights, when it comes to their use by workers.
No comments:
Post a Comment