According to Geoff Hodgson, neither the "parliamentary" nor the 'insurrectlonary road to socialism has yet succeeded in any advanced capitalist country. Therefore we need what he calls a new "strategic synthesis" of parliamentary and extra-parlастату АоO0: 1aIs 15 W121 Hodgson has set out to chart in his new book Socialism and ParlJamentary Democracy.
He argues that revolutionaries, especially in Europe, must take account of what he calls the "legitimising" role of Parhament. Preciely because Parlanch! has legitimacy in the eyes of the masses, mcasures passed in Parhament will stimulate struggle. As Hodgson writes: "the flight of an idea is guided by the type of institution that is expounding that idea (p.63). Thus, if Tony Bean MP argues for workers occupations, the idea will be laken un more readiy than when ти полас 10 50 1л сси Day legislation has stimulated strikes for the enforcement of the principle and spitit of those Acts (p.57)
And in lils essay on Perry: Anderson, Hodgson quotes the remark of Ken Coates: 'If soviets were ever to emerge in Britain then it would be, in all likelihood, in defence of the rights and prerogatives of Parliament to implement key reforms, against the actions of, for example, the House of Lords, the Civil Service, or the armed forces.' (p.127)
POPULAR POWER However, there is a dividing line between insisting that socialists recognise that bourgeois parliaments do have a certain legitimacy in the eyes masses, and demanding that the working class and socialist mavement accept this legitimacy. Yet Hodgson's case is that, whatever may be the exact role of soviets in the "dialectic" of the revolutionary process, not only is a socialist majority in the bourgeois parliament essential, the soviets themselves must nor hold the power. (Theses 11 & 12)
Geoff Hodgson seeks to re-assure us on question. Yes, the socialist regime will have to protect itself by force, disarma counter revolution, nationalise key sectors of the economy, set up workers control, and build soviets to harness the energy of the masses. However the state Instrument necessary for building socialism will have to combine the soviets and the Parliament, with the soviets acting as a 'supplement"
"complement' SUASCIE Parliament. Oh, and one last thing...we should drop the phrase 'the dierasorship proletariat" as I sounds undemocratic.
This idea of combining soviets with parliament is also found among the views of Nicos Poulantzas, as expressed in a recent discussion with Henri Weber (International, Vol 4, No. 1. Autumn 1977), It is, in fact, the ballmark of those who are at present socking to find a third way between Eurocommunist on the one hand and traditional revolutionary Marxist on the other. The basic Idea is that only a parliament can act as a check on the threat to democratic rights which the soviets are alleged to contain.
LIMITATIONS For Poulantras, the sin of the soviets is that they would seek to mondare delegates a red herring, since mandating of delegates is typical only of federai structures, like the British TUC, not of soviet-type bodies. For Hodgion, the danger appears to lie in the width of the franchise of the soviets: "the soviet, while being an excellent body for mass action and agitation, has limitations as a universal representative body. We refer to the capacity of the soviet to claim the alicglance of all seciors of the working pogulation' (p.76). According to bin, housewives and the self-employed in particular would be under represented in such a state.
CONFUSION But Hodeson's claim lacks a serious foundation. He confuses fnctory soviets with soviets in general. In Ruasia, following the Ocloher revolution, at mistaken. sections of the working population (excluding exploiters, monks, and former officials of the Czarist police were represented in soviets. Not only housewives and self-employed but peasants too — not a stable ally of the Geographically based soviets (neighbourbood, city, district and work-place soviets factory, office, interlinked so as to cover all these layers. Nor was it a matter of principle to deprive the bourgeoisie itself of representation in the soviets, as Lenin pointed out. Naturally, the material weight of factory workers is always, by the very nature of economic development, greater than that ol other sections of the working population such as peasants housewives. But this need not imply that the various electoral colleges would be differentially weighted in the soviet system (in Russia, for specific reasons, the represented over the rural soviets etectsons to nasona. Podics!.
The source of all these errors lie in a failure to understand the essential difference between the soviet system and the parliamentary system. It does not lie, but as Hodgson and Poulantzas believe, ou the tecrain of representation. It lies in the fact that the soviets are not exclusively electorai bodies This, by precisely the limitation of a parliamentary constituency. In the soviet system, in audition to forming the primary clectoral unit in the state, the mass assemblies which clected council members (some of whom would then be elected in turn to the national congress) also execuzive power. This is why Marx and Lenin called this type of state the self-government of the producers.
And that is why it is not simply different from, but superior parliamentary system, In the parliamentary system, for the very reason that workers" parties may from time to time wal a majority, the existence of a permanent professional burenucracy capable of acting independenry of parliament, accountable not to the masses or the electorate but to the hanks. Thus a parliament is designed to exclade the masses from the work af administering the state. The soviet system does exactly the reverse — it draws the masses into the work of administration. In fact it is premised on the break-up of the power of the professionn] bureaucracy and rests instead on the administrative initiative of the masses.
It is this aspect of the matter tbat is torally absent from Hodgson's book. He even brushes it aside. Speaking of Marx's comments on the Paris Commune, Hodgson states: We cannot agree, bowever, (with Marx), that, in general, all burcaucracies have to be amashed. But, we cant certainly agree that, in general, the means of reactionary military repression have to be smashed'. (p.28) In other words, the revolution is allowed to defend itself by force. That is "Tegitimate'. But it must not turn over the administration of sociery to the producers themselves. But for Marxists, this is the nub of tbe whole question. For that is what is meant by the seizure of power.
The soviet system has the advantage. that as well as fancionine as a broad system of representation, it places actual power in the hands of the masses. We can understand berefore, why Lenio and Trotsky never set themseives the aim of 'smashing parliament". As the prolerariao resolution extended and deepened the soviet system, the superioricy of this reinforce the illusion that the masses exercise complete self-determination through a bourgeois parliament. In his new book Geoff Hodgson tends to accept that this illusion is a reality. DAVE BAILEY explains why he is profoundly persons, limit the had sovies. parlianient, as imagine village) were Left SR majority. disproportionately in contrast, is reality, a La bourgeois parliament, possesses to, the bourgeoisic ensures mentary Democracy.
HOLD OF Tabsification of history committed 1135CDI.
system would become so widely self-evident, that a purely representative body like parliament would simply fall into dis-use. It is therefore quite utopian to suggest that the masses will voluntarily soviets lo being grassropts bodies alongside a sovereign Hodgson seems to The forcible suppression of the Constituent Assembly (parliament) in Russia after the October revolution arose out of the more or less aocidental circumstance that the lists presented to the electorate at the time of the election did not reflect the true state of the political parties. For in the mcantime, the October rising had split the Social-Revolutionary Party into two. If the Assembly had been truly representative, however. i would bave yielded the same result as che clections in the soviets: a BolsbevikIn the event, the reactionaries seized on this artificial discrepancy and launched a civil war in the name of the "democratic Assembly In the West, writers like Karl Kautsky with Lenin, Hodgson believes should be re-assessed). nounced the Bolsheviks as a minority dictatorship and helped spread the myth that the essence of Leninism was the forcible suppression of Parliament.
properly representative Constituent Assembly in Russia would of itself have yielded sovereignty to the soviets, for that was the wish of a majority of the Russian people. As with the bourgeois family, you cannot destroy you have to replace it with something • betiet The view that parliament and not the soviets should he sovereign (not that parliament right continue for a brief time under a workers state) leads logically to a denial of the socialist revolution For denies sovereigoty to those bodies which alone are suited to calising the •self-government of the producers. It leads to a denial of the need to seize state power. forces, Nor do we have to await Hodgaon's next book to prove this, It is alreads amply demonstrated in Socialisms and Partic In his book, Hodgson offers us an the Clerinan revolution of 1918-19, which is supposed to illustrate his views, He writes: Once the Kaiser had been overthrown they (the workers) naturally saw the next step as the creation of'a liberal and egalitarian parliamentary republic. Due to social and political traditions in stark contrast to Russia, the German working class inelined towards parliamentarianism and rejected insurrection." (p.41-2) This is a complete What are the facts? In November 1918, a seriers of risings and mutinies against [be Kaiser broke our all over Germany. In the course of chese, councils of workers, sailors and soldiers were set up all over the country. In many places, these armed councils became, for a brief while, the de Jacio public power. The Kaiser abdicated, and the Social-Democratic Government of Scheidemon was formed in Berlin, formally based on the councils, and to ending the war, In December 1918, a Nationn] Congress of these workers and soldiers councils met in Berlio. The delegates were overwhemingly right wing social democrats who voted for the Goverument proposal that the councils give way to a National whar became the Weimar parliament. The elections to the Assembly were to be held in January 1919 For Hodgson, this proves that the main line of advance for the Spartacists should nothing.
Assembly) for parliamentary legitimarion and support for armed workers' councils". (p.43, emphasis in original) The Isolation of the Spartacist rising, it is suggested, austrates that the German workers at the time saw only a liberal and egalitarian parliamentary republic as the boxE step, not rule by the councils.
"However. Hodgson only shows, his ignorance of the Gerinan revolution, His Account ends where in reality the rising DE the Germany proletariat only begins. For berween Janwary and March 1919 every major proletarian centre in Germany jaunched on armed insurrection aimed ar re-asserting the sovereignty of the workers councils/ The North Sea ports, the Ruhr, Saxony, all rose. The second great rising io Berlin itself in March was only pur down with the aid of aircraft and artillery.
Over 2,000 revolutionists were killed in Berlin alone. Finally, in April there was the famous Munich rising.
ARMED STRUGGLE In Hodgson's accouns, this strugele, nothing short of a civil war, is not ever mentionedl In other words, at precisely the time that the Nationn! Assembly was opening ur Weimar, when, on Hodgson's account, you would expect all working eyes to be looking to the Assembly in hopeful anticipation that their cause would be Yegitimized, what were the workers actually doing? Launching armed bids for power all over Germany, despite and against this very sanie National Assembly, against the Government that had berrayed their councils, and against the Freikorps who were defending both The failure of the German revolution did not result from the refusal of the Spartacists to confront the alleged jusions of the German workers through the National Assembly. As Trotsky justly remarked at the time: No one takes note creative labours Scheidemannist Constituent Assembly. no one in the world is interested in it.' No the German revolution was crushed by the Freikorps, and failed because there was no party able to coordinate the risings (All of which is not to say that the Spartacists should not bave been present In the Assembly, as Luxemburg argued.)
Germany illustrates the inevitable fate or bourgeois parliaments in a revolution, Germany. the workers tound attractions in a Conscituent Assembly because real power lay with the armed councils, a higher form of democracy than the parliament, In Portugal in 1975 the workers showed licle interest in a future Constituent Assembly, for they could see that the actual social content of any institutional form would depend in practice oo who controlled the armed that is who beld the power That is why the MFA couscil was at the centre of everybody's concern.
ESSENTIAL FLAW In revolution it is generally the reaction thar raises che slogan of a bourgeois precisely in order to counterpose this inferior form of democracy to the newly emerging superior form. For Hodgson, however, because Parliament must be sovereign, even after the seizure of power, the workers must agree to confine their councils to the "grass roots! and fight for a socialist majority' in the parliament which the reaction trying to convene!
The essential flaw in Hodgson's views is to fail to see that the legitimacy of parliament is reiative and not absolute. This is true even in non-revolutionary situations, when all classes in socicty fight against acts of parliament which don't coincide with their immediate interests — strikes apainst the Industrial Relations Act by the workers. sabotage nationalisation legislation by the bosses. spring immediately to mind. In time of crisis however — war, growth of fascism, onser of workers" TE TELET the powerlessness of parliament, which flows from is very nature, becomes starkly obvious to all classes, and it is either shunted aside or used as nothing more than a ruse de guerre by one side or the other. The very representativeness of parliameat, in which Hodgson finds its virtue, speaks against it, for in such crises everyone knows that bere voting settles
party BOCIALIST CHALLENGE U December 1977 pape 14