A
Different Sort of Democracy
The following article was written as an introduction to C.L.R.
James' Every Cook can Govern. It has been slightly edited for
publication with the author's permission.
Celebrations of the 2,500th anniversary of the creation of a
democratic society in ancient Greece took place in 1991. Dignitaries
from the various Western democracies attended ceremonies in Greece.
The hypocrisy of these celebrations seems obvious in light of the
fact that the modern parliamentary and congressional democracy is, in
many ways, a violation of the principles of direct democracy that
were established in ancient Athens.
What passes for democracy in the modern world is generally held in
contempt by the citizens of those very countries which call
themselves democracies. In this century, the leading democracies,
first and foremost the United States, have been involved in two
devastating world wars, the pillage of the peoples of Latin America,
Africa and Asia, the support of brutal dictatorship whenever it
suited their imperial interests, and so on. At the same time, they
have been unable to provide all their citizens with the minimum
levels of comfort and culture that a modern technological society is
clearly able to produce.
The human race, and the world in which we live, is in a desperate
situation. Poverty and unemployment, racism, sexism, bigotry are
endemic in the modern world. Two centuries of industrialization have
wreaked havoc on the environment. People starve, not because there is
no food, but because food is distributed only when it can make a
profit. Even the wealthiest nations are ridden with debt. Corruption
is common in politics and business. Disease, random violence and
homelessness are eating the heart out of every major city on Earth.
Work, for most people, continues to be drudgery, with fewer and fewer
opportunities for creative initiative.
In October 1956, in the totalitarian Communist dictatorship
of Hungary, the people rose up and demonstrated the possibility of a
revolutionary direct democracy in the modern world. A large and
growing demonstration of students and intellectuals was under way in
a major square in Budapest when it was joined by thousands of
Hungarian workers. They proceeded to create workers' councils and,
within 48 hours, took over control and direction of all the means of
production, service and communication in Hungary. The old Communist
government was overthrown. The Hungarian people were working their
way toward a new kind of society which was neither Communist (as that
was understood in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union) nor
capitalist. There was nothing in Hungarian society that could
withstand their attempt to create a new society.
The revolution was overthrown by the invasion of Soviet tanks. The
West, led by the United States, took whatever propaganda advantage
that it could from the Soviet oppression, but also took care that the
Hungarian Revolution would not spread to other countries. Before
1956, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America had called for East
Europeans to revolt. After 1956, that call was never heard again.
(While the Soviet Union was crushing the Hungarian Revolution,
England, France and Israel invaded Egypt in an attempt to steal the
Suez Canal.)
The Hungarian Revolution was direct democracy in action in the
modern, industrial world. Workers and others did not act through
elected representatives, professional politicians. In the workers
councils they acted directly and in concert to assume control of
their own lives and their own society. All employees of an
establishment met at their workplace as often as everyday to make
decisions. Delegates were chosen to carry out decisions or to
represent the council at city-wide or regional bodies. All delegates
were subject to immediate recall.
In 1968, something very similar happened in France . The entire
working class of the country occupied all of the factories in France
and came within a hair's breadth of overthrowing the DeGaulle
government. In the same year, the people of Czechoslovakia attempted
to do the same and were crushed by another Soviet invasion. In 1980,
after many years of struggle, direct democracy appeared in Poland in
the form of Solidarity. (By the Solidarity of 1980 we do not mean
Lech Walesa in 1990 trying to sell Polish factories to American
capitalists.)
The world has recently seen the destruction of totalitarian
dictatorships in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We need to
understand that the first blows to weaken the Soviet empire were
struck by the workers of Eastern Europe and, to some extent, Western
Europe. Decades of working class resistance, punctuated by
revolutionary attempts to assert direct democracy, made Eastern
Europe, and then the Soviet Union, ungovernable. The revolutions in
these countries - the attempts to create new societies - have only
just begun. China's Tiananmen square, the overthrow of military
dictatorships in Africa and the crowds at the Russian legislature
during the Moscow coup are well-known examples. Less well-known was
the 1989 strike of Soviet coal miners. The strike committees became
centres of activity for whole communities. Under the slogan
"perestroika from below" these committees began to assume political
functions.
Western politicians and journalists would have us believe that
these battles and sacrifices were somehow intended to replace
totalitarian dictatorship and state capitalism with "free enterprise"
and what passes for democracy in our own countries. They have tried
to convince us that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and
that the greed, corruption, poverty and violence of our society are
minor aberrations.
In the West, the differences between politicians are minor and
cosmetic. Policies, platforms and promises are marketing tools to
entice the electorate. The campaign speech has been reduced to the
eight second sound bite. To be successful, politicians must lower
their horizons to the next election. The goal of political parties is
not to exercise power wisely but only to achieve power and maintain
it.
[The] flaws in representative democracies are still well
known to their peoples. The popular attitude towards politicians is
anger and contempt.
In Canada clumsy and secretive attempts by the federal and
provincial governments to amend the constitution have led to demands
for a constituent assembly composed of non-politicians as well as
referenda to ratify any changes. In the United States, where half the
eligible propaganda refuse to even take part in the charade of the
electoral system, disgust with incumbent has sparked proposals to
limit the number of terms that federal and state legislators can
serve.
While not the direct democracy of the Hungarian Revolution or
ancient Greece, these developments show a growing desire to get away
from government by professional politicians, which is what
representative democracy is.
We do not want to suggest that the democracy of ancient Greece was
perfect or that it can be easily be copied in the modern world.
Greece was burdened by the dual crimes of slavery and the inferior
status of women, as were all ancient societies in the Mediterranean
basin and in Asia. What distinguished ancient Athens was that, in
that society, human beings began to break out to produce new forms of
self-government. That they could not solve all the evils of that time
should not be surprising.
How useful is this example for the huge, industrial societies of
today? One of the things which Greece had, to a significant extent,
was a sense of community. In our world, that is substantially absent.
How do we envision the possibility of a new, free, cooperative
society while we are enmeshed in one that is driven by greed and
bigotry? The answer does not lie in electing a new set of
legislators, or a different political party to replace the
discredited old ones. The answer lies in seeing in the Hungarian
revolution of 1956, the French Revolt of 1968, the Polish Solidarity
of 1980, the modern forms of the direct democracy of ancient
Athens.
The answer lies in ending the separation of economics and
politics. It involves people taking control of their workplaces,
their neighborhoods, their communities - directly and without
mediators. Without bureaucrats, capitalists and managers standing in
the way, it should be possible to build a sense of community, of
unity, of cooperation. This will obviously provide tremendous
opposition. Hungarian, French and Polish workers confronted the
economic, political and military might of their societies. Either we
will find the strength and will to do the same or we will sink
further into the decay that is now destroying us
Martin Glaberman
Martin
Glaberman Archive / Home