I. P. Trainin, About Democracy. January 1946
Original Source: Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo, No. 1 (1946), pp. 12-22.
Interest in the Soviet democracy has never before been as great as it is now after the victorious completion of the war against the German and Japanese aggressors. Now the world attentively follows the methods employed by the USSR in resolving and surmounting their postwar difficulties under the conditions of a socialist democracy. On the other hand, our people attentively follow the development of democracy abroad. This article aims to present briefly the peculiarities of both democracies.
The ideologists of the bourgeoisie quite frequently reduce the problem of democracy simply to the subordination of the minority to the majority. But, as stated by Lenin, “democracy is not identical to the subordination of the minority to the majority.” Democracy, i.e., the specific form of state, is a political authority, an instrument of dictatorship by the ruling class. This is true in the case of both a bourgeois and a socialist state. The crucial distinction is that the bourgeois state exercises dictatorship in the interests of the propertied minority, and the socialist state in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. Under conditions of socialism, even the concept of people has a different meaning. The term is interpreted to mean people devoid of exploiters, people consisting … of workers, peasants, and the Soviet intelligentsia.
Only those who aim at concealing the class nature of the state, with its attendant dictatorship of a given class, talk of a “pure democracy,” counterposing it to a dictatorship. By doing that, they obliterate the problems of the class content of bourgeois democracy.
Soviet socialist democracy has a number of characteristic features:
1. Soviet socialist democracy is the most universal democracy. It opened the way for participation in state government to the broadest mass of people. Indeed, without a truly popular democracy, the dictatorship of the working class would have been impossible. Equally impossible would have been the suppression of the workers’ enemies within the country … without involving the broadest mass of the people in the struggle. The strengthening of the union between the workers, the peasants, and the intelligentsia could not have been achieved without their direct and comprehensive participation in the government of the state. Finally, without the participation and initiative of the broad masses of people, the grandiose economic construction of socialism would have been unattainable. These are the peculiar characteristics of the Soviet democracy.
The organization of the socialist state is based on democratic centralism, which promotes the awakening and development of the broadest independent activity and initiative on the local level. Democratic centralism permits the local organs to have complete freedom to make use of the most suitable … means of fulfilling national tasks.
Soviet democracy is a genuine, most consistent democracy. The principle of electing governmental organs from the highest to the lowest levels, the responsibility of the governmental organs to the electorate, the electorate’s right to recall deputies who do not justify its confidence, the principle of accountability of the administrative organs to political authority, and, in general, the principle of a true people’s sovereignty and the identity of the interests of the governing and the governed are most consistently translated into reality in the Soviet state.
The ideologists of capitalism and reformism criticized Soviet democracy because it deprived the former of exploiting the minority of their electoral rights… But the earlier limitations imposed upon the electoral rights in Soviet society were temporary measures, applied only as long as the opposition of the exploiting classes was undefeated. These limitations were definitively removed with the introduction of Stalin’s constitution, which established universal, equal, and direct right of suffrage with secret voting for all citizens over eighteen years of age … Only insane persons and those rendered ineligible by a judicial decision are deprived of the right of suffrage.
2. The foundation of the socialist democracy is the social system in which the instruments of production belong to the working people, that is to say, to the state or to the social cooperative organizations. The economic system of the socialist democracy, which is developing ID conformity with the economic plan, precludes the possibility of an economic crisis, unemployment, etc. The significance of this system has been demonstrated quite convincingly during the victorious war for the preservation of our fatherland. Its tremendous import and superiority are being demonstrated at the present time in postwar period. In contrast to some great foreign powers, unemployment does not exist in the USSR With the introduction of the five-year plan and with the further development of the economy, not only has work been guaranteed to everyone, but in some branches of the economy the scarcity of manpower has been felt. In fact, the Soviet economic system was the only one that secured work for all the demobilized members of its armed forces commensurate with their ability and qualifications.
3. Socialist democracy does not merely proclaim the rights of citizens formally but guarantees their actual materialization through material means secured by legislation. The right to work, to rest, to obtain old-age material benefits, to obtain sickness and disability benefits, the right to obtain an education, the right of freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc., are not merely formal but real rights guaranteed by the state.
4. Soviet democracy is an active democracy. “In the activity of our numerous labor unions, our industrial, cultural, sporting, and other working organizations, in the creation of the collective farms that unite many millions of the Soviet peasantry throughout the entire vast territory of the Soviet Union, in the steadfast growth of socialist competition in factories and plants, in collective and state farms, in mines and railroads, we see the blossoming of a true people’s democracy, which was unknown to us in the old times and which cannot exist in any other state.” (Quoted from V. M. Molotov’s speech delivered on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.) …
5. Equality, which is the most significant slogan of democracy, IS materializing under socialist conditions in a most consistent way. This slogan means, first, the equality of all members of socialist society in relationship to the means and the instruments of production and, second, freedom from exploitation. Backed by the entire wealth of the Soviet people, socialist democracy guarantees to its citizens an equal and real right to work, to rest, to receive an education, and to obtain anything that secures and elevates human dignity. It secures the equal rights of women and men, the equal rights for all to receive an income in conformity with the quantity and quality of their work.
6. Socialist democracy is based on the friendship of its peoples. This friendship is the foundation of the political structure multinational Soviet state, namely, the foundation of the federal structure to which the Union republics are subordinated on the basis of equal rights and which, in turn, unite the people of the autonomous Soviet republics, the autonomous regions, and the national districts. The equality and the friendship of its people have furnished the Soviet democracy, the socialist state, with an indestructible power, so clearly demonstrated in the struggle against the German and Japanese aggressors.
7. Socialist democracy also comprises a socialist patriotism, which is distinct from a nationalistic patriotism (“blustering patriotism”). Socialist patriotism expresses the pride of the multinational Soviet people; it thoroughly combines the love of one’s people with the respect for other people’s rights: this is the principle that constitutes the firm base for the foreign policy of Soviet democracy.
In summarizing these basic features of Soviet democracy, one may conclude that under Soviet conditions “democracy” means the unlimited sovereignty of the Soviet people…
We shall now turn to the peculiarities of bourgeois democracy in the contemporary epoch. Leaving aside the well-known concepts of democracy which came into being during the classical bourgeois revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century, we shall note merely that “democracy” signified the people’s sovereignty but, in fact, was the sovereignty of the bourgeoisie, which identified its own class interests with those of the whole people. It was a formal democracy that imposed restrictions upon the political rights of the workers and that failed to secure for them the most essential “individual freedom.” The worker, who was “sovereign” at the ballot box, was in actuality merely a hired laborer in the capitalist factory without any guarantees or security in his job: ” … what ‘individual freedom’ can an unemployed worker have if he is hungry and “unable to find work?” (Stalin).
Precisely the same is true of another significant principle of democracy, namely, equality…
With the growth of imperialism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, loud voices resounded on the crisis of the bourgeois democracy. Especially after the First World War, talk on this crisis gained popularity, despite the fact that in the early postwar period quite a number of democratic constitutions came into being, which Proved, however, to be short-lived. The class struggle was constantly growing and becoming increasingly intensified; consequently, the bourgeoisie relinquished the old democratic institutions and resorted to an open terror as well as to the fascist method of suppressing the workers. Fascism-which as early as 1923 became established in Italy and was coming into being in Poland, Yugoslavia, and other.’ countries-took a menacing stand against democracy, thus emphasizing its crisis.
Attempts were made to “cure” democracy with capitalistic prescriptions but without consideration of the fact that it was exactly capitalism itself that had caused the ailment of the bourgeois democracy. New theories of democracy were advocated, and in this connection the reformists demonstrated a special zeal.
In contrast to socialist democracy, which became consolidated in the USSR, the reformists have advanced the idea of “economic democracy.” They assumed that, in addition to political democracy which manifests itself in elections to the parliament and in the parliament itself-private economic interests would be subordinated to social and state interests and that workers would participate in the management of the economy on an equal footing with the industry owners. Indeed, such an illusion (meant for the consumption of simple and credulous workers) found its expression in Germany in the Weimar constitution.
Among the diverse “prescriptions” for the cure of bourgeois democracy in France, the idea of “authoritarian democracy,” intensively propagated by Tardieu, became the most important. The decipherment of the meaning of this “democracy” indicates that its essential contents are the following: ( I ) the elimination of the dependence of executive organs on the legislative, i.e., the strengthening of the~ privileged role of government (the council of ministers) and the head of government;’ (2) the right of the head of government to demand the dissolution of parliament if a majority expresses its lack of confidence in it; (3) the bureaucratization of the state apparatus and, the deprivation of public officials of their right to join professional unions.
This “authoritarian democracy” aimed at preventing the workers from utilizing democratic institutions, parliament in particular, in struggle for their interests. It strengthened the reaction in all spheres of social life and became the steppingstone to the fascist state apparatus.
With the growth of the economic crisis in the USA after the World War, ideas of technocracy were circulated. According to these ideas, parliamentary representation, in its contemporary form came obsolete. Life became complicated, and development was determined by technology. But parliaments are in the hands of professional politicians and lawyers, who have little competence in the technical field. The outbursts of mass dissatisfaction-strikes and revolutions-constitute proof that the existing government does not recognize the significance of technology and is not capable of utilizing its technological achievements for the solution of human problems. The ideologists of “technocracy” thought that they could make the present mode of peacetime life similar to the military life. Who, they argued, would permit idle talk in an army at war? The decisive word would belong to professional militarists and strategists. Similarly, in civilian life the “ship” of state should be in the hands of technicians…
The experience of the socialist democracy confirms the fact that technology is a mighty instrument in raising the welfare of the people; however, only when the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist form of appropriation of produced goods has been eliminated will these goods be utilized solely in the interests of the workers.
The idea of democracy has been prostituted in the most insolent way by the Fascists. They attempted to “prove” that the popular masses “rejected” the principle of democracy as the form of the state. Thus, Napoleon I and the “small” Napoleon Ill contended that they came to power by means of a “democratic” plebiscite. Likewise, Hitler boasted that the leadership of the state fell into his hands as the result of “democratic elections.” In his delirious book, Mein Kampf, he spoke of “German democracy,” which discarded the old democratic concept of “man” and his “individual, inalienable rights” and instead eulogized the principle of the “superman” (Fuhrer), who was the living executor of the will of the most reactionary and piratical Cliques, and for whom the people were merely a blind, following mass (Gefolgschaft). Mussolini, in his turn, “taught” that in contrast to the old democracy, which is based on “arithmetic” (number of votes), a plausible development would be an “accentuated democracy” whose spokesman is the “duce.”
The war against brutal fascism was conducted under the banner of democracy. In the process of war, some outstanding statesmen of foreign countries attempted to reformulate the principles of democracy … in order to make them adaptable to the new conditions. Outstanding among the various formulations are the principles of democracy advanced by Roosevelt, the deceased President of the United States.
Roosevelt’s opponents denounced him as a proponent of “socialism,” though obviously he was not implicated in it. On the contrary they should have been grateful to Roosevelt for his successful guidance of the capitalist boat (the USA) through the stormy waters 0 the great economic crisis and through almost the entire Second World War. Being a sensible politician, he knew that, in order to save capitalism under existing conditions, it was necessary to make some con cessions to the workers in terms of wages, to demonstrate a greater compliance to the labor unions, and to render help to the farmers. By doing this, he aimed at preventing a revolution as a means of solving the brewing social problems.
In contrast to the shortsighted “isolationists,” Roosevelt knew that fascist ambitions toward world hegemony were threatening the fundamental interests of the United States. He also thought that one should not adhere to the old, worn out phrases about “freedom” and that the concept of “freedom” should be adapted to the psychology of the “average American,” on whom the contemporary social and political system of the United States tends to lean.
But what is freedom? The fathers of the American Constitution who in their strange “obliviousness” had not included the Bill of Rights in the basic law but supplemented it later with various amendments-had stated earlier in their “Declaration” of 1776 that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All men were viewed as “equal” and “free”: the worker was free to sell his labor or to starve to death; the entrepreneur was free to buy or not to buy his labor; this was the freedom of bargaining and the freedom of contract. Freedom meant: “steal as much as you can.” Reactionary American politicians (Hoover and others) have interpreted freedom as “the freedom to accumulate private property,” i.e., they overtly advocated the exploitation of workers.
Such a mode of interpreting bourgeois freedom became unsuitable under the conditions of the economic crisis prior to the war, and especially during the war. Roosevelt believed that it was indispensable that the concept of “freedom” be drawn closer to the psychology Of an “average” American who is opposed to fascism. At the beginning of the war Roosevelt advanced his “four freedoms,” which, in his opinion, should become the basic principles of American democracy.
The first two are individual freedoms, namely, the freedoms of religion and thought. Psychologically, Roosevelt was equal to an 4’aver age man” who traditionally associates his American industriousness with an evangelical sermon. Hitler strangled religion because the thought that it was disgraceful for a German to have the same god as people of “lower races.” On the other hand, the old puritanism, exported by the first immigrants from England, has defended the “freedom of religion” from absolutism and the Roman popes. This religious principle has also always been advanced as a political principle, and this time it was directed against Hitler. On June 7, 1944, Roosevelt read a prayer on radio for victory over Hitlerism and asked his audience to repeat the words of the prayer; however, as he invoked God’s “assistance,” he knew that the real victory over Hitler’s Germany necessitated a strong army and a large navy. He was deeply engaged in the creation of these, and it was these… not the prayers, which were decisive in victory.
Freedom of thought, as well as other freedoms, is contradictory to American reality, where freedom of thought that is in conflict with the interests of the monopolistic cliques is subject to persecution. It is well known that freedom of thought is limited in the United States; these limitations are as follows:
1. Publishing houses and the press are in the hands of concerns that furnish the people with information that is conducive to their interests; in this respect the best examples are the Hearst and other enterprises, which conduct pro-fascist propaganda, to the detriment of the United States’ national interest.
2. The big meeting halls are in the hands of entrepreneurs and reactionary organizations; for example, in 1939 Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution to protest their refusal to permit the singer Marian Anderson to use their hall because she is a Negro. Such examples are many, and, needless to say, labor organizations encounter the same difficulties in procuring meeting space,
3. Deviation from traditional dogmas is subject to persecution in the United States; the best example of this was the “Scopes trial” in the state of Tennessee, during which the proponents of Darwinism were tried for expressing the view that man originates from the ape.
4. The proponents of proletarian internationalism are subject to persecution because their activity is presumably “anti-American.”
In Roosevelt’s opinion, the first two freedoms cannot exist without economic security. Consequently, they entail additional freedoms. Roosevelt argued that “men at home as well as at the front, both males and females, are concerned with a third freedom, namely, the freedom from misery. This freedom means, as far as they are concerned, that after demobilization, when industry is diverted to peaceful pursuits, they will want the right to obtain jobs for themselves as will all able-bodied men and women in America who desire to work.” 2
Finally, Roosevelt has described the fourth freedom in the following manner: “Hitlerism, like any other form of crime or disaster, can grow from any seed of evil, from economic evil or from military feudalism … This entails a struggle for the broadening of man’s security here and in the whole world, and in the final analysis it means a struggle for the fourth freedom, freedom from fear.
The German aggressor has been destroyed. But there are reactionary cliques in the United States who attempted to prevent the destruction of fascism and who, at the present time, aim at preventing collective efforts from securing peace. These reactionary forces glorify the atomic bomb as an aggressive weapon against people…
The forces of fascism have not been absolutely liquidated yet. They receive support from reactionary cliques in the USA and England. Consequently, neither “freedom from fear” nor “freedom from misery” exists…
Some leading English statesmen have formulated a concept of democracy in connection with the establishment of democracy in southeastern European countries that had been liberated by the Red Army. Thus, speaking in the House of Commons in August, 1945, Labor Minister Bevin indicated that the conditions which came into being in some countries of southeastern Europe “do not correspond to our meaning of the frequently used term ‘democracy.’ ”
What, then, do they understand by democracy? The answer has been given by the Laborite Prime Minister Atlee, during the Congress of British Trade Unions in September, 1945: “Democracy,” Atlee argued, “is not a simple rule of the majority but the rule of a majority that has a proper respect for the rights of the minority.”‘
The nations of southeastern Europe, in particular Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, have, by bitter experience during the German occupation of their territory, become acquainted with the nature of fascism and pro-fascism. They established democratic governments in their countries; but the struggle with fascist elements and traitors, who either collaborated with the Germans or were their agents, continues. The new democratic governments liquidate feudal institutions, introduce land reforms, and distribute land to the landless peasants. This democratic policy is being opposed by a numerically insignificant minority…
… The reactionary foreign press seeks to depict the courageous democratic reforms in the countries of southeastern Europe as being primarily the result of the growing influence of the Soviet Union. But, as pointed out by V. M. Molotov, “Such arguments are groundless, since it is well known to everyone that such problems were also resolved successfully in the progressive European countries much earlier.” This is especially true of the liquidation of the feudal remnants in land property.
To Marxists, democracy is not a formal, abstract principle, valid for all time. Approaching the problem of democracy, Marxists take into account the concrete historical conditions (primarily economic conditions) as well as the relationship of class forces in each country under these conditions and at each historical stage. Marxists always account for the source and the direction of development in any given society.
In view of historical development, Marxists acknowledge the progressive role of bourgeois democracy in comparison with the regimes existing in the epoch of absolutism and serfdom. Throughout the entire history of class struggle, the working class has … been vitally interested in broadening democracy. Without the minimum of democratic rights and freedoms, the working class would have been incapable of preparing itself for the assumption of its historical task, namely, to become a “class in itself,” to create its own political party, opposed to all bourgeois parties, and to struggle for the conquest of the government.
In the present historical stage the working class defends all the achievements of bourgeois democracy when the latter is threatened by fascism …
Source: Michael Jaworskyj, ed., Soviet Political Thought; an anthology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), pp. 342-351.