Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 22:10:38 -0500
From: godenas-AT-mail.awi.net (Louis R. Godena)
Subject: Lenin & Socialist Democracy


Amen to my friend Olaechea's analysis of proletarian democracy vs. the type 
in use in bourgeois society, which, apparently, has infected substantial 
blocs of the anti-communist left.  I am reminded of Lenin during NEP when he 
pointed out the importance of struggling against the sclerotic trade union 
consciousness, itself a nefarious product of the western "enlightenment" 
liberal "democracy":

"Trade Unions are really effective only when they unite very broad strata of 
non-Party workers.  This inevitably gives rise--particularly in a country in 
which the peasantry largely predominates--to a relative stability, precisely 
among the trade unions, of all the political influences that serve as the 
superstructure of the remnants of capitalism and of small production.  The 
influence is petty-bourgeois, i.e., Socialist-Revolutionary and 
Menshivik...on the one hand, and anarchist on the other.  Only among these 
elements has any considerable number of persons remained who defend 
capitalism ideologically and not from selfish class motives, and continue to 
believe in the non-class nature of the "democracy," "equality," and 
"liberty," in general that they preach. (Role and Function of Trade Unions 
Under NEP, 1922)

We can readily see that this attitude persists among the modern western 
trade union movement.  Having lost the core of their creed, the movement has 
become suffused with the ideology of the bourgeoisie, with this very 
non-class nomenclature surrounding "democracy," "equality," and "freedom," 
which, in turn reduces the laborer class to the status of "minority," and 
"interest group."  This is fertile ground for Menshivism and its variants 
(soc-dems,
 rad-dems, trotskyism,etc); it is not, as far as I can see, otherwise very 
profitable.  Those at home with western-style "democracy" find it 
extraordinarily easy to believe in a "degenerated workers' state" and are 
led, logically, to defend their very own bourgeoisies against it.  What is 
needed, I believe, is a new proletarian definition of democracy for our time 
along that espoused by Marx and Lenin.  I applaud Mr. Olaechea's efforts in 
this regard, and look forward to discussing further an issue of the first 
importance for the working class movement.
                                             Louis Godena                    
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                                             
                                                          



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