Shirley Williams on the road to Samara by ERNEST MANDEL demonstrate the strength of her democratic convictions. But the evidence Williams is able to assemble in support of her thesis on the alleged "un-democratic" character of Trotskyism is os meager as can be. In fact, the sum total of this evidence amounts to a few quotations taken out of context. The difficulty for Williams is clear, In its polemic against the Stalinists the Social Democracy can rely on the partial or total justification of repression in the Soviet Union and East Europe on the part of the CPs: "Some of us reject the double standards of those who denounce the vicious suppression of political opponents in Chile and Rhodesia, but fall silent when law-abiding dissenters find themselves thrown into Soviet mental asylums or blown up trying to leave East Germany. " But this sort of argument cannot be used ogainst the Trotskyists, at least not without grossly falsifying the political positions of the revolufionary Marxists. Revolutionary Marxists have been in the forefront of defense of victims of Stalinist repression for more than forty-five years now, including during times when the major leaders of the Social Democracy refused to commit themselves resolutely to this defense — for reasons of "political opportunity, " which is to say crude opportunism. (Note, for example, the Social Democrats' refusal to resolutely defend the victims of the Moscow trials.) They have likewise been in the forefront of the defense of democratic rights in the capitalist countries, including when these rights are restricted or eliminated by Social Democratic ministers (for example the torture and repression introduced on a grand scale in Algeria by the government of the Social Democrat Guy Mollet, the fierce repression introduced in Malaya and Kenya by the Arlee Social Democratic government of the end of the 1940s, the ban on the employment of "rodicals" in the public sector introduced in West Germany by the Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt). The practical balancesheet of the attitude of the Trotskyists and the Fourth International as far as defense of democratic rights is concerned is thus clear and coherent - much clearer and much more coherent than that of any other current of the contemporary workers movement, and certainly much clearer than that of the Social Democratic right.
Unable to rely on the facts, Williams must instead resort to crude sophistry, the two major examples of which as follows: "Do you accept that if the cause of socialism (as you define if) and the cause of democracy should come into conflict, you will stand by democracy?" "The saddest illusion of revolutionary socialists is that revolution will itself transform the nature of human beings so that those who inherit total power in the revolution will act with disinterested fervour for the good of the whole community. It is not what history demonstrates; better by far that the tenure of power is limited both in time and in extent." Our response to this sophistry is unequivocal. For us, socialism is defined by the total emancipation of labor, that is, by the elimination of all forms of exploitation and oppression among human beings. The self-adminiistration of citizens - like the planned self-management of the producers - is on infegral part of the Marxist conception of socialism. Thus, socialism as the Trotskyists understand it cannot exclude the enjoyment of the broadest democratic rights for all, at least in the industrialized countries. There is no socialism without socialist democracy. There is no socialist revolution in these countries without the conscious support of the majority. For the Trotskyists, the Soviet Union is not socialist but a society that has become bogged down and bureaucratized midway between capitalism and socialism as a result of its isolation under conditions of underdevelopment (an isolation for which the co-religionists of Shirley Williams of the 1920s and 1930s, from Ebert-Noske to MacDonald and Leon Blum, bear the major responsibility; Stalin is their offspring, illegitimate perhaps, but theirs nonetheless). True to themselves, from the founding congress of the Fourth International the Trotskyists have demanded a plurality of political parties in the USSR. They did not wait for the belated contorsions of the "Euro-communist" parties before pronouncing themselves forthrightly and without reticence against the principle and practices of the single party and against any form of the monopolization of the exercise of political and economic power after the abolition of capitalism. To present the socialist revolution as a project to establish "total power" in the hands of a small clique is absurd. The whole history of proletarian revolution, from the Paris Commune to the Portuguese revolution, confirms that the revolutionary process is accompanied by an enormous extension and not any reduction of the activity and political power of the broad masses, that is, a distribution and not a concentration of real power. The program of the Fourth International, which integrates all the lessons of the revolutions of the twentieth century in this regard (both positive and negative), aims above all at the institutionalization of this distribution of power through the creation of a society in which direct democracy, the democracy of workers councils, neighbarhood councils, and consumer councils, will seize the essential reins of power now held by the hyper-centralized state. The point is, in other words, to prevent a counterrevolution subsequent to the revolution from depriving the masses of the power they have won. And historical truth requires that it be noted that the Social Democrats have played an equally vigorous role as the Stalinists in these counterrevolutions. Capitalism or socialism But Shirley Williams's argumentation is not only absurd. It is also profoundly dishonest. For this entire tirade against the revolutionary socialists is actually designed to camouflage the deeply antidemocratic character of bourgeois society such as it now functions in the West, not to mention the semicolonial countries. In fact, a good dose of sophistry is required to accuse the Trotskyists of harboring an alleged project of "monopolizing power" through a future revolution while simultaneously maintaining silence on the real monopoly of power that exists in Britain today, which is the monopoly of power of big capital and its executive agents, that is, the several thousand members of the boards of directors of the big industrial, financial, and commercial trusts and the high functionaries and executives over whom the majority of the population has not the slightest control, whom it has never elected and whom it can never oust so long as the political conceptions of Shirley Williams are adhered to. Britain today is in the grip of a serious economic depression. There are a million and a half unemployed workers. Real wages are going down and drastic cuts are being made in social spending, which has led to the massive reemergence of the harshest poverty in this country which not so long ago was still presented as the paradise of "well being." Who made the decisions that led to this tragic situation? The masses of citizens and voters? Take a look af the Labour program on the basis of which the present House of Commons was elected and Shirley Williams "governs." There is no hint of any such proposals! Nor will we insult Wilson, Callaghan, Healey, and Williams by suggesting that they prefer unemployment to full employment. It may be said that these decisions were imposed on them by the internal logic of the capitalist economyIt may be said that these decisions were imposed on them by the "gnomes of Zurich and the City, " to paraphrase the famous formula of Harold Wilson. In any event, these are but two sides of the same coin. But in the concrete this means that when Shirley Williams and company were confronted with a specific choice - respect the mandate of the voters, carry out their election promises, stick to the declared goal of their party (which includes the socialization of the means of production, as stated in the well-known clause four of the official Labour program) or else yield to the diktats of big capital - they deliberately opted for the latter path. This proves beyond doubt that under the "democratic representative parliamentary" system combined with the
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WILLIAMS capitalist system, both the "mixed economy" and the "distribution of power" are mere myths. The real powers commanded by ministers and elected deputies are quite minor. Real power is in the hands of big capital. To be sure, the latter has an interest in allowing the "elected representatives of the people" to command the appearance of power so long as conditions permit. But when economic and social tensions become too acute, appearances vanish and realities emerge. The Wilsons, Callaghans, and Williamses make speeches, mislead the workers, and slander the Trotskysists. The "gnomes of Zurich and the City" govern and impose decisions. The real counterposition between the Social Democratic right and the revolutionary socialists is thus not the choice between socialism and democracy: It is the choice between socialism, with the support of the majority, and capitalism. The Social Democratic right rejects socialism. For them, this is odventure and chaos. (I hate revolution like sin, "said Ebert.) And they are prepared to trample on the will of the majority in order to avoid a break with capitalism. Moreover, Shirley Williams affirms this openly, proclaiming that in a democracy one can govern only through "consent"; the alternative would be coercion. The conclusion is clear. When the parliamentary majority is bourgeois, one must bow down before the bourgeoisie, for the bourgeoisie is the majority. When the parliamentary majority is anticapitalist, one must still bow down before the bourgeoisie, for fear of breaking with consent and of being forced to move to coercion. Capitalism or democracy The hypocrisy of the argument is striking. When Shirley Williams uses the word "consent" she hints, without saying so clearly, "consent of the bourgeoisie and only of the bourgeoisie. " For who could suggest that in Britain today the unemployed have "consented" to unemployment, the workers have "consented" to reductions in real wages, the pensioners have "consented" to in grants? In all these cases coercion was most definitely applied, both the coercion of law and the coercion of "economic necessity. " But such is the logic of the Social Democrats that they find it normal to compel the vicfims of the capitalist economy, with no consent whatever, to submit to exploitation. But they are not prepared to eliminate capitalism, except with the assent of the capitalists. Obviously, they will wait quite some time before receiving that assent. In the meantime, coercion is applied in only one direction — against the proletariat and even, on occasion, against the clearly expressed desires of the majority of the voters. Deep is the mystery of this alleged devotion to democracy. We are still not at the end of the ideological incoherence of Shirley Williams. By deliberately confusing democratic rights with "parliamentary democracy" (that is, 14 indirect democracy) she plunges into an endless chain of controdictions. She writes: "Do you share our belief in the liberty of each individual human being, in his or her right to express his opinions and religious beliefs truly and without fear of consequences?* Our response is "yes, " without any restrictions, precisely because we are convinced that there can be no counterposition between these rights and the struggle against the exploitation, degradation, and alienation of humanity and the toiler. But the response of those who, out of desire to win the consent of the bourgeoisie, place maintenance of the social status quo on the same level as defense of elementary democratic rights and on a higher level than struggle against capitalist exploitation cannot avoid ambiguity. So long as the majority of the workers occept the "rules of the gome" of bourgeois society in exchange for reforms and material concessions, this contradiction can remained veiled. But as soon as the accentuation of social contradictions, the aggravation of the political crisis, the growing radicalization of sectors of the broad vanguard of the toiling population, and the growing politicization of the workers shake this equilibrium, a new painful choice is imposed on the Social Democratic leaders. The defense of the "consent" of the bourgeoisie, that is, of capitalist law and order, then requires restrictions on democratic rights. "Each human being must be free to express his or her opinions without constraint, " except if they are "subversive, * revolutionary Marxist, "anarcho-spontaneist" opinions. The February 2, 1977, issue of The Sun reported that right Labour MP Neville Trotter had accused a group of young revolutionary socialists of having distributed "inflammatory leaflets" that "provoked anarchy" in a school in Newcastle. The aim of the leaflets was to organize protest against corporal punishment of the pupils. What convictions are involved here? The dictatorship of the proletariat? Not hardly! Simply the need for pupils to organize to fight against corporal punishment and police repression. Is Shirley Williams in favor of corporal punishment, a barbaric and despotic practice if ever there was one? We do not know. Is she prepared to guarantee the right to agitate through the spoken and written word ogainst this barbaric practice, even if the consequence of this "freedom of conviction" as expressed in leaflets is that "anarchy" takes hold in the school? We have strong doubts in this regard, but we would be pleased to be wrong. If, However, our suspicions are confirmed, what does this mean if not that the "law and order" of the despotic stick wielders is more important to the Social Democratic leaders than the complete defense of Freedom of speech and the press, and that they are prepared to resort to repression and to limit freedom of the press in order to avoid "agitation" and "anarchy"? Then the
formula of Shirley Williams becomes: "We are prepared to guarantee the right of every human being to freely express her or his convictions, except when such expression really threatens the "law and order' of the bourgeoisie, in other words capitalist exploitation. Let us take another example, Under the Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, any person in West Germany who expresses Marxist opiniors, let alone revolutionary Marxist ones, knows that he or she will no longer be able to find a job in the public sector. Doesn't this mean that there is "fear of consequences" and enormous intimidation, especially for the hundreds of thousands of students who have no alternative but to seek employment as teachers in the public schools? We are unaware of any vigorous campaign on the part of Shirley Williams in favor of freedom of conviction, speech, and the press for German revolutionaries and Marxists. Undoubtedly, it must be concluded once more that faced with the choice of "defending bourgeois law and order" or "completely defending the freedom of conviction of all individuals without fear of consequences, " the Social Democratic leaders prefer to defend capitalism and restrict democratic rights. It may be objected: The cases you are citing concern the limitation of the rights only of a few thousand or tens of thousands of revolutionary "extremists, " dangerous agitators. This objection, however, would be inconsistent from the very outset, since it is Shirley Williams who insists on the need to recognize and guarantee the right of freedom of opinion for all individuals. Why grant this freedom to the (very small) minority which is the big bourgeoisie and refuse to grant it to the revolutionary minority? But be that as it may, the concrete dynamic, confirmed by all recent experience, demonstrates that limitation of the democratic rights of "small revolutionary minorities" is but the beginning of (if not the pretext for) a much brooder repression against an entire wing of the organized workers movement, if not against the working class as a whole. In the situation of aggravated social crisis of late capitalism, given the pronounced fall of the average rate of profit and the prolongation of conditions that hover around stagflation, capitalism is less and less able to tolerate the unrestricted right to strike, the freedom to negotiate wages, the free organization of the workers struggle against the implacable class struggle waged by big capital, particularly through the introduction of massive structural unemployment. Hence the universal offensive of the bourgeoisie for an incomes policy, enthusiastically supported by the Social Democratic right. Now, given the present relationship of class forces, it is impossible to impose an incomes policy without limiting the right of free expression. How can wildcat strikes be outlawed without also outlawing calls to wildcat strikes? How can factory occupations be outlawed without suppressing written defense of factory occupations? How can layoffs of "dangerous agitators" in the factories be legalized without suppressing the right to speak, distribute leaflets, and produce newspapers calling for active solidarity with workers who are laid off? The leaders of the German Social Democratic party who set the infernal machine of repression in motion in West Germany have already been faced with a situation in which a portion of their own organization is subject to state repression for reasons of opinion, For the Franz-Josef Strausses, "agitation" in favor of the collective appropriation of the means of production is "contrary to the constitution. "But this call for collective appropriation appears in the basic program of the DGB, the West German trade-union federation equivalent to the British TUC. Can one be so naive as to fail to understand that for the British bourgeoisie, the witcir-hunt in the Labour party ogainst the Trotskyists is merely the preparation if not the pretext for a repression waged by the employers and the state against the most combative trade-union militants and the most combative wing of the proletariat? Already, according to the February 4 Sun, the Social Democratic Alliance, a right Social Democratic grouping, has accused Jack Jones, a major trade-union leader, of being "a declared opponent of Wester parliamentary democracy" and an odvocate of soviets! The witch-hunt is thus now spreoding to a whole section of the trade unions. A sign of the times! Implacable logic of class struggle In this sense, the identification the Social Democracy makes between "representative democracy, " institutions of the bourgeois-democratic state, and government through the "consent" of the bourgeoisie on the one hand and democratic rights on the other hand leads the Social Democracy into genuine suicidal disasters. The "consent" of the bourgeoisie and respect for the bourgeois state apparatus is partially compatible with the survival of democratic rights for the masses only during relatively stable and prosperous periods for bourgeois society. When social and economic instability mounts increasingly, social contradictions sharpen in such a way that the bourgeoisie seeks to crush the freedom of action and organization of the workers movement, including that of the Social Democracy itself. Toward this end the bourgeoisie uses the permanent state apparatus, of which the repressive apparatus is the decisive element. The only means by which to avoid the advent of bloody dictatorships when the objective basis for parliamentary democracy disappears is the extraparliamentary mobilization and action of the masses to break the conspirators and their inspirers in time, that is, to break the repressive state apparatus of the bourgeoisie. But for the Social Democrats this is to depart from the terrain of "legality" and "consent. " Fixated on the impotent parliament until five minutes past midnight, they stand powerless before the liquidation of democratic rights and their own annihilation, for they reject the only possible defense of these democratic rights, which is the unrestricted mobilization of the masses, which en-
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WILLIAMS tails going beyond the "law and order" of the bourgeoisie. In curbing, fragmenting, discouraging, and even breaking this mobilization during a period of inevitable general class confrontation, the Social Democratic leaders dig their own graves as well as the grave of democratic rights. The tragic examples of the rise to power of Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet attest to the price paid in blood by humanity for this parliamentary cretinism. "But this can't happen here, where the army has a deep democratic and constitutional tradition, " reply the Williamses and Callaghans, just as Allende replied in Chile. Really? All our quotations from Williams's speech come from the January 22, 1977, issue of The Guardian. On page 24 of the same issue of the same newspaper, under the revealing heodline "Unions Helped to Avoid Coup, * we read the following report of a speech by Jack Jones, a major British trade-union leader. "Two years ago we could have easily faced a coup in Britain. The fear of hyperinflation was strong. There was talk of private armies being assembled. There was talk of the end of democracy.' ...Questioned afterwards, Mr. Jones insisted that there had been what he describes as "loose talking' around the top echelons of society. He maintains that the people then - 'colonel this and captain that' - were still around and were not concerned about providing decent conditions for working people in Britain. They only wanted to 'keep the workers down.** The typical reaction of the Social Democrats in face of such a situation is to retreat, bow down, and demobilize the masses "so as not to provoke reaction. " If the social crisis is grave, this is the surest road to a coup. Granted, Britain is not yet at that point. But Chile in 1973, Spain in 1936, and Germany in 1933 all arrived there, in particular because of parliamentary cretinism and refusal to defend democratic rights effectively, thus clearing the way to dictatorship. Under similar conditions which could develop in the future, the British General Kitson will not be any better than the Chilean General Pinochet. An old Arab legend retold by the British author W. Sommerset Maugham recounts the story of the servant of a Baghdod merchant who was frightened when he met Death in the market. To escape, he hurries to take to the road to Samara. "Why did you frighten my servant," the merchant asks Death. "I didn't mean to frighten him," replies Death. "It's just that I was surprised to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him in Samara tonight. " Shirley Williams wants to defend "democracy." At the same time, she does not want to break with the consent of the bourgeoisie and wants at all costs to respect the "law and order" of big capital, upheld by a repressive apparatus which is anti-democratic by nature. Let her take to the road to Samara, then, over which hover the shadows of Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet. February 3, 1977 16
THE WORKE
The Adolfo Sudrez government had reason to
23. Its relations with the opposition were m unfree elections to parliaments and not cons
For their part, the workers were continuing created by the political copitulation of thei trade-union federations in face of the emple
Those demands most strongly felt among the especially the demand for total amnesty. No this point. On January 23 the association of
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An explosive reaction swept the country, ag was called for January 26. There were strik them, Mari Luz Najera, a 19-year-old wo gas bomb fired of point-blank range shatter the five leftist lawyers. This was the "black the