Shirley Williams, Minister of Education in the Callaghan Cabinet. is one of the maior representatives of the Labour Britain, On 21 January she delivered a speech entirely devoted to an attack on Trotskyism, a speech which received very broad coverage in the British press. The day SOCIALISM OR DEMOCRACY?
In her speech, Shirley Williams tried to bring together the major arguments with which to justify in the eyes of the average British worker a declaration of incompatibility between membership in the Labour Party and the revolutionary socialist conmcnons or ine majorty or ine tar-lett militants of this party. She thus deliberately abandoned the field of organisational and administrative quibbling ('entryism', 'party wanin ine party, outside manipulanon and even the claim, as ridiculous as it is from abroad®), which has been the preferred terrain of most of the right-wing Lab our bureaucrats. She at least has the merit of placing herself on the field of ideas, of problems of principle, tactics and strategy or the socialist movement. This enables us to better grasp the ideological coherence and incoherence of social democracy today.
Williams's main argument for the expulsion of the Trotskyists from the Labour Party is the alleged contempt for democracy of Marxists in general and Trotskyists in particular. This is also the argument that was joyfully taken up by the bourgeois press to support the campaign for. the witch-hunt within the Labour Party. It is SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY!
Unable to rely on the facts, Williams must instead resort to crude sophism, the two major examples of which are as follows:
*Do you accept that if the cause of socialism (as you define it) and the cause of астосасу snould come into contice, you will stand by democracy?' *The saddest illusion of revolutionary socialists is that revolution will 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: DCLICE by far that the tenure of power is limited both in me and I calen Our response to these sophisms is uncouvoca. Cor Us. socia ism is defined by the total emancipation of labour, that is, by the elimination of all forms of exploitation and oppression among human beings. The self-administration of citizens - like the planned self-management of the producers - is an integral Dall oi 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 indusCAPITALISM 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 anti-democratic character of bourgeois society such as it now functions in the West, not to mention the semi-colonial countries.
In fact, a good dose of sophistry is required to accuse the Trotskyists of harbouring an alleged project of monopolising power' through a future revolution, while simultaneously maintaining silence on the real monopoly or power inat exists un 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 nas not tne signest control, wnom it nas never elected and whom it can never oust so long as the political conceptions of Shirley Williams are adhered to.
brlam today Is in tne gup or a senious economic depression. There are a million and a half unemploved workers. Real wages are going down and drastic cuts are being made in social spending, which has led to the massive re-emergence of the harshest poverty ta country which not so long ago was still presented as the paradise after her speech, the liberal daily Guardian gave net inc main headline on the iron page as well as close to a full page inside.
Obviously this is no accident. Shirley Williams's speech, like the press campaign of the bourgeoisie. is part of a systemati preparation for a witch-hunt against the thus that she prepares the way for state repression against a wing of the workers movement - all the better to demonstrate the strength of her democratic convictions.
But the evidence Williams is able to assemble in support of her supposed thesis on the alleged 'undemocratic" character of Trotskyism is as meagre as can be. In fact, the sum total of this evidence amounts to a few quotations taken out of context.
Ine anniculty for winams is cicar, In 1s polemic against the Stalinists, social democracy rely on ine parnal or tom justification of the repression in the Soviet Union and castem curope on me part or the CPs: "Some of us.. reject the double standaras or tose acnounce une vicious suppression of political opponents in Chile and Rhodesia. but tall silent wher law-abiding dissenters find mental asylums blown up trying to leave East Germany? DUL US SOIL O arEunCIL CanOL DC UsCE against the Trotskyists, at least not without grossly falsifying the political positions of the revolutionary Marxists.
Revolutionary Marxists have been in the forefront of defence of victims of Stalinist repression for more than forty-five years now, including during times when the trialised 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 society which has become bogged down and bureaucratised midway between capitalism ane socasin as a result or is isolator under conditions of underdevelopment (an Shirley Williams of the 1920s and 1930s, from Ebert-Noske to MacDonald and Leor 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 contortions of the 'Euro-Communist' parties before pronouncing themselves forthrightly and without reticence against the principle and practice of the single party and against any form o the monopolisation of the exercise political and economic power after the abolition of capitalism.
To present the socialist revolution as a Who made the decisions that led to this tragic situation? The masses of citizens and voters? Take a look at the DEU gramme on the basis of which the present Labour majority 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 employment. It may be said that these decisions were imposed on them by the "gnomes of Zurich and the City', to paraphrase the 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 socialisanon or une means or producaon, as stated in the well-known Clause Four of the official Labour programme) or cise yield to the dictates of big capital - they deliberately optea for une second paun This proves beyond doubt that under the acmocranic representative saramchary system combined with the capitalist system, both the mixed economy and the distribu tion of power' are mere myths. The real powers commanded by ministers and elec ted deputies are quite minor. Real power is entire left within the Labour Party. This campaign is itself the extension of a similar campaign launched a few years ago against the most combative layer of rank-and-file militants in the unions. major leaders of social democracy refused to commit themselves resolutely to this defence — 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 defence 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 Algerai by the government of the social democrat Guy Mollet, the fierce repression introduced in Malaya and Kenya by the Auce social democranc government at une end of the 1940s, the ban on the employment oe radicass in ine ouble sector introduced in West Germany by the social democrat Helmut Schmidt). The practica balance-sheet of the attitude of the Trotskydefence 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 clearer than that of the social democratic right.
project to establish "total power" in the hands of a small clique is absurd. The whole history of proletarian revolution, from the JOHN STUBROCK Paris Commune to the Portuguese revolution, confirms that the revolutionary process is accompanied by enormous evension ane not any reducion oran activity and political power of the broad masses. mals. a sinDulon and nola concentration of real power. The programme of the which integrates all the lessons of the revolutions of the twentieth century in this regard (both positive and negative), aims above all at the institutionalisation of this distribution of power through the creation of a society in which direct democracy, the democracy of workers councils, neighbourhood coun cils and consumer councils, will seize the essential reins of power now held by the hyper-centralised state. The point is, in other words, to prevent a counter-revolution 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 just as vigorous a role in these counter-revolutions as nave ine •tallnists latter has an interest in allowing the 'elected representatives of the people' to command of power so long as conditions permit. But when economic and Imprecol social tensions became too acute, appearances vanish and realities emerge. Wilsons, Callaghans and Williamses make speeches, mislead the workers, and slander the Trotskyists. The gnomes of Zurich and the City' govern and impose decisions. 030,8.75,30 fortnightly, m0.54 94jue 1976 international press g30, 875, 2 THE ITALIAN FAK LETT
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by Ernes inprece