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Title: Democracy is undemocratic Author: Anarcho Date: August 11, 2008 Language: en Topics: democracy, organization, self-management Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=124 Notes: A defence of anarchist organisation (i.e., self-management) against Leninist claims that it is “undemocratic.” It shows that the logical position of this so-called critique is centralised rule by one person.
One of the strangest arguments against anarchist ways of organising is
that it is “undemocratic.” This argument is usually associated with
Trotskyists. As it crops up with sadly regular frequency, it is
worthwhile to discuss this accusation in detail.
Anarchists are for federations of self-managed groups. This means that
the membership of such organisations decide policy directly at open
meetings. Anyone delegated from that group to do specified tasks or to
attend a federal meeting are given a strict and binding mandate. Failure
to implement that agreed mandate means that the delegate is instantly
replaced. In this way power remains in the hands of all and decisions
flow from the bottom up. Anyone placed into a position of responsibility
is held accountable to the membership and any attempt to usurp power
from the grassroots is stopped.
Such forms of organisation do not spring from the brains of a few
anarchists thinkers, independently of working class struggle. The idea
of strict and accountable mandates can be found in the works of Bakunin
and Proudhon after both became active in working class struggle.
Proudhon raised the idea during the 1848 revolution, while Bakunin
talked about it after becoming active in the struggles of the
International Workers’ Association in Switzerland. So these ideas were
developed within the class struggle itself, often spontaneously. For
example, both the Paris Commune and Russian Soviets implemented such a
system of imperative mandates.
Anarchists have long argued that we should organise in ways that
prefigure the kind of society we want. We often call this “building the
new world in the shell of the old.” Moreover, in anarchist theory, the
class struggle is the link between capitalism and any future libertarian
socialist society. We start to build the structures of the free society
when we fight against capitalism. In support of our arguments we point
to the unions, factory committees, workers’ councils, collectives,
community assemblies and other popular organisations which have been
created during numerous revolts and revolutions which have later become
the structural basis for post-revolutionary working class management of
society (before being undermined or destroyed by either the bourgeois or
so-called workers’ states).
This means that the way we organise today is important to anarchists. We
argue that only freedom can be the school for freedom. This means that
we only become capable of managing society if we make our own decisions
and directly manage our own struggles and organisations today. Which is
why we stress the need to organise in an open, directly democratic
fashion in our struggles against oppression and exploitation —
self-management today is the foundation for the self-managed socialist
society of tomorrow.
Others disagree. They say that anarchism (i.e. self-management) is
“undemocratic.” They argue that while anarchist groups are, in theory,
directly democratic, in practice a few leaders still call the shots
without being accountable for it and without their input being a
decision made by the whole group. It is still a leadership except it is
not democratically decided and would be made up by who has the most
time, charisma, experience etc. Because not all activists can attend all
activist meetings, it is argued, and so a lot of decisions are made at
meetings with low attendance’s.
A hierarchy exists, it is claimed, but is masked by fine-sounding
rhetoric. In fact it is worse because there is no structure to change
the leadership that exists under the surface. Would it not, ask the
critics, be far more democratic if some people were elected to regularly
meet and do essential work and then hold these elected people
accountable in general meeting that everyone can attend?
Anarchists are somewhat surprised by these arguments. If this proposed
“democratic” solution sounds familiar, it is because it is. It is
representative democracy, a basic principle of liberal bourgeois
ideology. It seems strange to anarchists that self-proclaimed socialists
should be seeking to reproduce one of the principles of capitalist
politics into anti-capitalist movements.
Moreover, the influence of those who have the most time, charisma,
experience, etc., will, at best, be the same as in a directly democratic
group as it would be in a representative democratic group. Why does this
render only the former “undemocratic”? And, in practice, this problem
will be far worse in representative groups. This is because the aim of
the group is to select a leader, not manage their own affairs. Therefore
would-be leaders would be applying all their skills and ability to get
elected, making use of their charisma, experience, resources and time to
sway voters to give them power. The key difference is that the voters
would not be in a position to question these “leaders” when the
decisions were actually being made. They would simply be left with a
fait accompli, being reduced to simply trying to find better leaders
next time.
For all the worry about people’s input not being a decision made by the
whole group, the proposed solution actually ensures that this is always
the case. The role of the group is, after all, reduced to merely picking
leaders who make decisions for them. In representative democracy any
decision is not make by the whole group, but rather by a few leaders who
may, or may not, have been elected by a majority. Look at the UK. Tony
Blair was elected by a quarter of the population. Currently he is
ignoring the clear wishes of the majority and planning to attack Iraq.
Is that really more “democratic” then self-management? Rather than
democracy, it sounds more like autocracy.
In response it will be argued that such a form of representative
democracy is not desired. Instead, leaders will be held accountable more
frequently to the group. But this “solution” raises more problems than
it solves.
After all, how can the group hold these elected people accountable
unless they meet to evaluate their leaders decisions? And if they meet
to evaluate these decisions, then why are they unable to make those
decisions themselves and mandate instantly recallable delegates to
implement them? And why are people deemed incapable of directly making
their own decisions also deemed capable of evaluating the decisions of
their leaders and holding them “accountable”? Surely if they are able to
evaluate the decisions made for them, they are capable of making them
themselves? If they can pick their masters, then surely they are mature
enough to do without them and govern themselves? If a group is capable
of selecting a leader and evaluating their decisions then its members
are capable of making those decisions themselves.
And why should we assume that everyone can actually attend any such
“general meeting”? An infrequent “general meeting,” where all they do is
to elect leaders, will make people apathetic rather than active. The
example of the trade union movement, were members rarely turn up to
meetings, seems appropriate here. Why assume new hierarchical
organisations will not have the same problems as existing ones?
And, of course, between elections those who have the most time,
charisma, experience, etc., of those elected will be applying them
within the small minority of the group elected to any representative
committee. Why is this not labelled “undemocratic”? If self-management
is “undemocratic” when applied to the base of an organisation, why does
it become “democratic” at the top? There is no logical reason why it
should and so the leadership faces the exact same problem. To overcome
it in the leadership group there can be only one solution, namely to
concentrate all power into the hands of one person. Why this should be
considered as “far more democratic” than the mass participation of
self-management is hard to say.
In summary, therefore, we can say that the self-proclaimed democrats are
wrong. Rather than anarchism being undemocratic, it is democracy that is
so. Their “far more democratic” organisation simply empowers a few
leaders at the expense of the rest, whose job is simply to pick who will
tell them what to do until the next election. At best, the arguments
against direct democracy are applicable to representative democracy. At
worse, there are far more applicable to a hierarchical system rather
than a non-hierarchical one.
We should not forget that this is an old debate. During the American and
French revolutions, for example, self-managed popular assemblies were
created in many towns and cities. The wealthy were horrified by this
participation of the many in the affairs of society. They consistently
favoured representative democracy over direct democracy and delegates.
They did so to reduce participation and ensure minority class rule.
Today, in Argentina politicians are calling the popular assemblies
“undemocratic.”
It seems strange to see self-proclaimed socialists advocating a
structure explicitly designed to restrict mass working class
participation in social decision making. Indeed, they are using the same
rhetoric against it as bourgeois politicians. Is this a coincidence?
Perhaps not, as the aim of Trotskyism is, after all, for the party to
seize power on behalf of the masses. The idea that the working class
could actually run society itself is dismissed. To quote Lenin:
“the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an
organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist
countries ... the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so
corrupted in parts ... that an organisation taking in the whole
proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be
exercised only by a vanguard ... for the dictatorship of the proletariat
cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation.”
Trotsky held this Bolshevik truism (“the Leninist principle, inviolable
for every Bolshevik, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is and can
be realised only through the dictatorship of the party,” to quote the
Platform of the Opposition) until his death. He repeatedly argued in
favour of party dictatorship over the working class. “The very same
masses,” he argued in 1939, “are at different times inspired by
different moods and objectives. It is just for this reason that a
centralised organisation of the vanguard is indispensable. Only a party,
wielding the authority it has won, is capable of overcoming the
vacillation of the masses themselves.” Two years previously, he put it
even more bluntly. The “revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian
party” was “an objective necessity,” he asserted. This “dictatorship of
a party” was essential and “we can not jump over this chapter” of human
history. He stressed that the “revolutionary party (vanguard) which
renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the
counter-revolution.”
And yet they call anarchism “undemocratic” for advocating and
implementing participatory decision making in the revolutionary
struggle! These opinions, needless to say, have not stopped his
followers claiming that Trotsky or his ideas were democratic.
If working class people are deemed incapable of running the future
socialist society directly, then why expect Trotskyists to support
self-management in the struggle today? Or, for that matter, within their
own parties?
With regards to whether the referendum could be used as a means of
setting policy within the party, Trotsky argued that it was “not
possible to answer this question except in the negative.” He goes on to
argue that “whoever is in favour of a referendum must be in favour of
imperative mandates,” which meant “that every local has the right to
compel its representative ... to vote in a definite manner.” This meant
that a “party decision is simply an arithmetical total of local
decisions.” While allowing the right for locals to vote on “every
question,” he considered it right that the representatives could ignore
that decision as they had “the right to weigh all the arguments” made at
the party conference. The party members only had the right to
“subsequently deprive him of its political confidence” while
implementing the decisions they had no part in determining, either at
conference or subsequently.
Compare this to Marx. He praised the Communards of 1871 for implementing
the “imperative mandate.” Needless to say, Marx failed to note that
Proudhon and Bakunin had advocated this measure years before it was
applied in Paris. However, it seems strange that his modern followers
pay lip service to that idea while, in practice, dismissing it as
“undemocratic.”
Now, why would Trotskyists oppose a form of decision making praised by
Marx? Could it be because they, just like the bourgeois politicians, are
aware that it stops, to quote Engels, the “transformation of the state
and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of
society”?
Why should self-proclaimed socialists be so against self-management that
they would, in the face of all logic and evidence, call it
“undemocratic” while, at the same time, subscribing to a organisation
structure which places power into the hands of a few? The answer seems
all too plain.