Civil Society and Democracy

Civil Society and Democracy

Mpume Sikhosana, Blade Nzimande

("African Communist" 1992. Reprinted in "The Marxist Review" no 12, Nov.1992)

The crisis in Eastern Europe, the failure of democracy in Africa, and in the shadow of the above two, the apparent “success” and “stability” of western bourgeois democracy have all led to extensive soul-searching and debate amongst socialists and Marxists on how national and socialist democracy can be brought about in the contemporary period. These debates in South Africa, in particular, have some underlying common assumptions. Some of these assumptions are:

1. An uncritical revival of and trust in the concept of “civil society” as the solution to establishing democratic regimes.

2. Related to the above„ the notion that the development of strong independent, non-sectarian social movements is a guarantee for democracy,

3. A tendency to simply abandon some of the fundamental concepts of Marxism-Leninism, without adequate theoretical explanation of why they are no longer applicable, e.g. “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “vanguardism”. Sometimes this is further accompanied by a very uncritical acceptance of some of the long discredited liberal notions of democracy.

4. An evolutionary conception of the transition to socialism, rather than a revolutionary one, which is a very fundamental departure from the Marxist paradigm. Underpinning this evolutionary transition to socialism is the notion that the vehicle for this will be democracy, largely conceived in terms of liberal democracy. It is in fact this conceptualization that has led to the emergence of the problematic notion of “democratic socialism”. In fact we would argue that the concept of “democratic socialism” is not merely used in a descriptive sense but embodies a certain set of assumptions about democracy and transition to socialism.

5. Underpinning most of these responses to the crisis of socialism is the stripping of democracy of its class content; and the tendency to talk about “democracy in general”.

6. In virtually all of the contributions looking into the question of socialism and the democratization of society is the absence of the analysis of the state, particularly the role of the state in bringing about democracy. This seems to be an out-come of an implicit, sometimes explicit, assumption that a vibrant civil society will act as a watchdog on the state to ensure that it acts democratically. In the development of the argument of “democratic socialism” and in some of its variants (e.g., associational socialism), there is a very glaring lack of the analysis of the role of the state in building democracy,

7. A rather strange assumption made in many of these contributions is the notion that “organs of civil society” will create democracy only if they distance themselves from political organizations, and consequently for them democracy means “civil society” distancing itself or disengaging from the state.

It is some of the above issues that this paper wants to engage, with a particular aim of highlighting in some detail the complexity of the issue of building democracy, both in the national democratic phase of our revolution as well as under socialism.

But first a few words about the use of the concept “civil society”  in some of the classics of Marxism. Many of those in South Africa who invoke this concept seek justification for this in the works of Marx, Engels and especially Gramsci. It is our view that the claim is based on a serious misreading of those works. It is only really in their early writings that Marx and Engels use the term “civil society”'. In these early writings the main thrust of their argument is the challenge of Hegel’s separation between political and civil society. They see this separation as essentially an abstraction born of bourgeois society, in which it is conceptualized falsely as an autonomous sphere in which people pursue their interests.

Gramsci’s use of the term "civil society" is not inconsistent with the critique of the early Marx and Engels. Gramsci, however, enriches the concept. Gramsci's primary concern is to underline how a dominant class exercises power throughout society--that is, by hegemonic domination, primarily via civil society, and by direct domination through state power. Gramsci's approach to civil society is best summed up in the following passage:

The ideas of the Free Trade movement are based on a theoretical error, whose practical origin is not hard to identify; they are based on a distinction between political society and civil society which is made into and presented as an organic one, whereas in fact it is merely methodological. Thus it is asserted that economic activity belongs to civil society, and the state must not intervene to regulate it. But since in actual reality civil society and the state are one and the same, it must be made clear that laissez faire too is a form of state "regulation", introduced and maintained by legislative and coercive means. It is a deliberate policy, conscious of its own ends, and not the spontaneous, automatic expression of economic facts.¹

In other wards, the early Marx and Engels as well as Gramsci are essentially emphasizing the continuities between so “called society” and political power, not the discontinuities.

A Liberal and one-sided Concept

For our purposes, the surveying of the meaning of the civil society in Marx and Gramsci's work leads to the following conclusions:

1. The distinction between “political” and “civil society” in Marx and Gramsci's works is a methodological (descriptive) and not a theoretical distinction. In other words, one cannot treat “civil society” without simultaneously addressing the question of the state and the entire social relations underpinning society.

2. The current conceptualization of separating the “state" and "civil society" in most of the contemporary debates in South Africa is a Hegelian one, and is rooted neither in Marx's nor Gramsci's use of the concept. However, this conceptualization is also a mechanical inversion of Hegel. If for Hegel the state was the incarnation of reason that had to mediate over the “selfish civil society”, for the “democratic socialist”

2. ”civil society" is the incarnation of reason that has to act as a watchdog to the state. 

2. In fact the current usage, as will be illustrated below, is a liberal usage, and misreading of Marx and Gramsci.

3. An argument of a "civil society" independent of state cannot be theoretically sustained because it obscures the fundamental role of the state in bringing about democracy.

Based on the above assessment it is therefore important to concretely illustrate how contemporary usage of this concept in South Africa is in fact a very narrow-minded and one-sided approach to the question of building democracy.

Democracy and Civil Society

           

The discourse on “civil society” has been used in a variety of ways both in the everyday language of the national liberation and mass democratic movements, as well as in some of the theoretical reflections on the crisis of the Eastern European socialism. However some of the more significant published debates have raised this question within the context of the broad umbrella of “democratic socialism”. From our survey of this literature there are a number of variants of democratic socialism, including Swilling’s notion of “association socialism”, Glazer’s “logic of democratic participation” and that variant found within the ranks of our own Party.

The intention of critically evaluating these is not an overall assessment of the totality of their arguments on various aspects of the crisis of Eastern European socialism. Nor is the aim to evaluate the concept of “democratic socialism”' as such. ² Our primary Concern here is to evaluate the usage of the concept of “civil society” as it relates to democracy. First a brief evaluation of Swilling and Glazer will be undertaken.

In order to illustrate some of the core ideas informing the Swilling and Glazer variant of “democratic socialism”, a few quotations will suffice. After criticizing what he calls naive visions of “civil society” as expounded by proponents of a free-market economy, Glazer presents his vision of the relationship between “civil society”' and democracy ;

This positive vision of civil society, goes beyond the call for individual freedoms, since it urges active use of otherwise formal “rights” to establish the richest possible array of the of voluntary activity, perhaps supported by the state. It is also distinct from the (also important) demand for “direct democracy” since it does not render individuals and voluntary organizations accountable to local majorities or spontaneous crowds . Freed of its naive free market connotation, the idea of an autonomous civil society is a crucial counter-weight to the ambitions of any state.³

Swilling also advances arguments that are similar to that of Glazer. It is important to quote him in full as well in order   to fully grasp the essence of his arguments about the role of “civil society” in building democracy and socialism.

Civil society has emerged as the codeword for the associational life of a society that exists somewhere between the individual actions of each person ( what some might call the “private realm”) and the organizations and institutions constituted by the state (or “public realm”). It is where everyday life is experienced, discussed, comprehended, contested and reproduced. This is where hegemony is built and contested. The New -Right, liberal intellectuals and even sections of the liberation movement are of the view that civil society should include the profit-driven shareholder-owned, industrial-commercial sector. This author is of the view that a true "civil society" is one whet ordinary everyday citizens, who do not control the levers a political and economic power, have access to locally constituted voluntary associations that have the capacity, know-how and resources to influence and even determine the structure of power and the allocation of material resources .⁴

It is our belief here that if we are to develop a correct approach to the question of building democracy both in the immediate phase of national democracy and in the period socialist reconstruction, we should spare no effort in exposing the weakness and distortions embodied in such views.

Role of the State

The first weakness in the above accounts and conception of civil society is the separation of civil society from the state What is more; there is a tendency, particularly with Glazer, to counter pose civil society to the state, and arguing that an independent vibrant civil society can act as a check against the state. This is a distortion of Marxism and its conception the state, whereby the state is the institutional political expression of relations in (“civil”) society. In fact we would argue that the theoretical strength of Marxism and perhaps its scientific character lies precisely in having exposed that the state in capitalist social formations is the political expression of relations in “civil society”. Marxism also exposed the fact that the separation between “civil society” and the state is largely an ideological one that hides the true character and source exploitation and oppression in capitalist social formations

The second weakness, related to the above is that of narrowly presenting the task of building democracy only in terms “civil society”. This is extremely one-sided, and the question of democratization cannot be separated from the question of contestation and seizure of state power. It is our argument here that unless the national liberation movement gets hold of state power the process of democratization of South Africa cannot even begin to be set in motion. The arguments of these variants of “democratic socialism” end up limiting the question of building democracy to the task of developing an autonomous civil society”, as if this on its own is adequate for purposes of building democracy, whether national or socialist.

The absurdity of these arguments is sharply revealed when Swilling suggests what should be included and excluded in civil society. It is as if institutions of capital and its reproductive organs can be easily removed from civil society as one wishes. The end result of these arguments is not different to those of liberals. In the same way as liberals want a private sphere free of state intervention; these “democratic socialists” also want a civil society free of state interference.

The third area of weakness of these arguments is that there is an underlying assumption that the state has no role at all to play in the process of democratization. The state is presented as, by its very nature, incapable of playing a role in the democratization process. This is simply incorrect. However, even more serious is that this assumption prevents us from exploring the question of the nature of the national democratic and socialist states that should be constructed in order to deepen democracy.

           

There is also a related argument that “civil society” will act           as a watchdog against the state. The net outcome of such an approach is in fact the opposite of what it claims to be fighting for, i.e., abandoning the terrain of the state to the whims of state bureaucrats and capitalist institutions. Thus an important issue is obscured: How can, what these “democratic socialists” call “organs of civil society”, play a role both

inside and outside the sphere of the state? In other words, for them, the state ceases to be an arena of contestation, but only requires pressure groups from outside it to act as a check against its inherently undemocratic and bureaucratic character.

If the state is inherently unable to contribute to a process of democracy (whether it be a national democratic or socialist one) we might as well forget about struggling for the capture or seizure of state power. The fact that socialist states of Eastern Europe became bureaucratic and oppressive toward the very same classes they claimed to be standing for does not mean that a socialist state is inherently undemocratic.

The fourth and very serious omission in these arguments is their disturbing silence on the role of political parties and organizations in the process of building democracy. No matter how much one can engage in the wishful thinking of the building of democracy as the task of an independent and vibrant “civil society”, political parties do play a very significant role in this process. Political parties, whether they be bourgeois, petty bourgeois or socialist, do not only play a role in the process of democratization of society but they should play a role in this process. Bourgeois and petty bourgeois political parties always intervene to shape “civil society” in manner that will reproduce the type of society these parties stand for. It is also incumbent, upon and perhaps the most important function of a political party of the working class -  like our Party - to unashamedly struggle for the hegemony of the working class and the socialist agenda throughout all levels of society. To suggest that the building of democracy is a task for “civil society” and its organs is plain naivete of the nature of political struggle. In fact, it is such a conceptualization that has led to the problematic practice that is beginning to emerge within the national liberation movement and the mass democratic movement that, for instance, issues of services and development in townships are for civic organizations, and that “Political issues” are for “political organizations and Parties”.⁵

Class Struggle

To develop the above point further it is also important to point out that political parties are class parties, i. e., they represent the interests of particular classes in society, whether it be the bourgeoisie, the petty 'bourgeoisie or the proletariat.⁶

In fact, this is the essence of the class struggle, in that the class struggle throws up political parties that stand for the interests of this or that class or coalition or fractions of classes. Even in colonial societies the national liberation movements that spring up contain within them a number of classes who are always vying within those movements for political hegemony and supremacy. Political parties and national liberation movements always strive to shape society in a manner consistent with their own class interests. It is therefore inadequate to tackle the question of democracy without relating this to the question of class straggle and the role of political parties or movements thrown up by that class struggle. The notion of development of democracy primarily, and sometimes exclusively, through the building of a “vibrant civil society” without taking into account the type of a movement or political party that should be the political vanguard of this process is idealistic. This argument can be harmful by disarming the liberation movement or our Party, by encouraging them to desist from building mass organizations or intervening in so-called “civil society”.

The fifth and perhaps obvious weakness of the argument that the development of “organs of civil society” within an independent sphere of civil society is a guarantee for democracy, is that oppressive and capitalist institutions are also independent organs of civil society. In fact the coincidence between this argument and that of the ideologists of free market is particularly striking. Furthermore even the apartheid regime's program of privatization can be regarded as an attempt to relegate political and economic power without state interference. By so doing the regime is hoping to reproduce apartheid through “an independent and vibrant civil society”.

What the above critical review of the usages of the concept of civil society clearly shows is, that an assessment of the crisis of Eastern European socialism that is purely based on the notion that the source of the crisis was largely due to the suppression of the development of a vibrant civil society is not useful at all. Our assessment should be based on an historical analysis of the development of those societies in their totality, namely the nature of social formations, the nature and role of the state, as well as the nature and role ( the communist parties that were in power and the imperialism onslaught on socialist countries. It is only then that we can learn proper lessons out of those countries for the future of national democracy and socialism in South Africa.

Revival of Liberalism

All that the “democratic socialism” being reviewed above has done is merely to use the crisis of Eastern European socialism as a license to revive liberalism in the name of socialist and Marxism. Proof of this is the argument that has become very fashionable among some sections of “democratic socialists” nowadays that it was a mistake for Marxists and communist to simply dismiss liberal freedoms as “bourgeois freedom”. That Eastern European socialism is in crisis does not change the fact that the basic liberal political freedoms are bourgeois freedoms, freedom for the bourgeoisie to dominate in capitalist social formations! In fact what these arguments do is to search for socialist democracy in bourgeois democracy. This amounts to nothing else than the subjection of the class struggle to bourgeois democratic institutions. This is in fact what social democracy is about. And social democracy has failed to bring about socialism!  Some of the outcomes of this approach to democracy are classically illustrated by what is advocated by Glazer thus: “a logic of democratic preparation allows for going backward too. It would sanction a democratic counter ‘revolution’.” (!!)⁷

The above quotation is a classic illustration of the extent t which so-called socialists have become so confused about democracy. Any ‘ABC’ of Marxism would tell you that there is n such thing as a democratic counter-revolution! Counter revolutions are brutal, undemocratic, and most often bloody phenomena. The violence that is sweeping our country and has led to the brutal killing of so many thousands of our people is

counter-revolution. Even theoretically, anyone who pretends to be a socialist and knows a bit of Marxism should know that counter-revolutions are products of revolutions. It is unthinkable for any people struggling for a revolutionary transformation of society to become so “democratic” as to sanction counterrevolution against their own revolution! Any beginner in Marxism also knows that the bourgeoisie and imperialists will never allow any socialist or national democratic revolution to succeed. The logical end of these arguments is the end of class struggle and that is what the bourgeoisie always dream about. This dream is being brought closer to reality by such conceptualizations and approaches-socialists in the service of counterrevolution in the name of democracy and Marxism

The greatest disservice that “democratic socialism” is doing is to Marxism itself. It wipes out by a stroke of a pen the entire Marxist critique of liberal and bourgeois democracy. It is as if Marxist theory has not undertaken more than a century of the critique of capitalism and its political institutions. All of a sudden, without much reference to these debates, we are told that the mistake of Marxism was to throw away the baby with the bath water (i.e. throwing away capitalism together with its liberal freedoms), as if socialism is simply an incremental building upon liberal bourgeois freedoms.

Democratic socialism and our party

Although the concept of democratic socialism was firmly rejected at our Party's 8th Congress and rightly so, it is important to evaluate this trend against the background of the issue under discussion. This is important for two main reasons: Firstly, the rejection of the concept of “democratic socialism” by our Congress does not mean the end of the "democratic socialism" tendency inside our Party. Secondly, the basis on which the concept of -democratic socialism" was rejected at our Congress is not adequate. It is not enough to reject this concept purely on the basis that socialism is inherently democratic and needs no further qualifications. While we would agree with this reasoning, it is not enough to stop here because it sounds as if we are merely rejecting a label without closely examining the content of “democratic socialism” as found inside our party.

Although a thorough critic of this concept is urgently required, this task is outside the brief we have set ourselves in this paper.  All that will be engaged here is how the variant of “democratic socialism” as found in inside the ranks of our party shares some of the weaknesses highlighted above on the conception of democracy and “civil society”.  However it is important to ground this review in some of the fundamental propositions of “democratic socialism” inside our party.

The first articulation of the approach of "democratic socialists" inside the Party towards the question of socialism and democracy is to be found in Slovo's assessment of the crisis in Eastern Europe. This intervention is largely premised on the observation that the key to the crisis in Eastern Europe was the separation of democracy and socialism. However there are a few disturbing features about this assessment, which are worth highlighting. It is the case with which "democratic socialism'' has simply abandoned some of the concepts and approaches that have come to form the basis of Marxism Leninism, both in its theory and revolutionary practice. The first of these concepts is that of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DOP)." This term has been abandoned not on the basis of any argued theoretical propositions but simply because it has been applied wrongly in Eastern Europe. Slovo says of DOP:

“The abandonment of the term by most Communist Parties including ours, does not, in all cases, imply a rejection of the historical validity of its essential content. But, the way the term came to be abused bore little resemblance to Lenin's original concept. It was progressively denuded of its intrinsic democratic content and came to signify, in practice, a dictatorship of a party bureaucracy. For Lenin the repressive aspect of the concept had impending relevance in relation to the need for the revolution to defend itself against counter-revolutionary terror in the immediate post-revolution period. He was defending, against the utopianism of the anarchists, the limited retention of repressive apparatus."⁸

There are a few important issues that need to be highlighted here. It seems as if here the concept itself has no problem in terms of its meaning and intention, but just because it has been misused then, it should be abandoned. This approach to eliminating concepts is very problematic. One wonders how far we should take such a practice, because taken to its logical conclusion, we should also abandon the idea of a Communist Party or even Socialism itself because what Eastern Europe has done to the image of communist parties and socialism is exactly what Slovo says of DOP. Similarly “democratic socialism" within our Party argues for a mass party, largely for the same reason that "vanguardism" was imposed on the peoples of Eastern Europe. Similarly as Cronin points out our retaining concepts just because they form part of the classics of Marxism Leninism is dogmatic. This is true. But what we take issue with here is that the theoretical basis on which these concepts are being dropped is very unclear, and according to Cronin again, dropping of concepts just because they are politically embarrassing is opportunism.⁹

The problem of dropping concepts without any sound theoretical basis is further reflected in Slovo's arguments as to what Lenin meant by the DOP. In fact it is simply not true to say that by DOP Lenin merely referred to dealing with counterrevolutionary terror and was arguing against anarchists on the retention of state power. The concept is one of the key concepts in Marxism itself. Actually the substance of the concept from Lenin's point of view was positive and aimed at smashing the bourgeoisie and its state machine and consolidating the class rule of the proletariat as a goal in itself. That DOP had to be specifically applied in the context of the White terror and the attack by anarchists on the maintenance of the state was secondary to this overall objective of the DOP. In other words DOP took the form-of dealing with White Terror, but was not the substance of DOP as such. In fact Lenin points this out emphatically when he says “The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of bourgeois state machine and the substitution for it of a new one.”^1O This was the main task of the DOP! In fact Lenin always firmly situated DOP within the context of the Communist Manifesto and the experiences of the Paris Commune the broader tasks of guaranteeing that initial transition from capitalism to Socialism. There is no clear illustration of this than Lenin's State and Revolution.

The danger of abandoning concepts without any adequate theoretical explanation goes beyond just the opportunism of such a practice but leaves certain crucial questions and gaps in our approach to revolutionary transformation. For example what does the abandonment of DOP mean for the transition towards socialism? Is transition towards socialism ever possible when one treats the defeated bourgeoisie with kid gloves? How are the victorious socialist forces going to smash the capitalist state machine? Does this mean that we are for an evolutionary transition towards socialism rather than a revolutionary break with the capitalist past? Can attempts at evolution transition to socialism ever go beyond social democracy? Even if revolutionary transition to socialism is a possibility, what is the reason for restricting our strategies at this stage to a  particular path of transition? These are some of the question that will have to be answered with the abandonment of the concept of DOP.

The above was by way of illustration of the key foundations and tendencies of “democratic socialism" inside our Party which forms the background against which to assess the question of the treatment of democracy and civil society.

Although it might be regarded as unfair to criticize Slove for things he does not say, after all his paper could by its  nature not encompass everything, it is important to interrogate some of the concepts that he uses unproblematically, like the concept of a  “socialist”, "civil society".  Slovo argues:

Lenin envisaged that working class power would be based on the kind of democracy of the Commune, but he did not address, in any detail, the nature of established socialist civil society, including fundamental questions such as the relationship between the Party, state, people's elected representatives, social organizations, etc.¹¹

We believe that by his use of the terms "socialist civil society" without any theoretical clarification is a serious omission on the part of Slovo. In fact by so doing Slovo is committing a similar mistake to that of the other "democratic socialists" as highlighted above, i. e., seeing the development of "civil society'' as one of the key elements in democracy, without demonstrating how. Since Slovo uses specifically the concept of "socialist civil society" it is important, in the light of what Marx, Engels and Gramsci said, to assess the theoretical validity of this concept. The use of this begs one very fundamental question. If the "separation" between civil society and the state is, as Marx pointed out, an abstract dualism and a product of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, can we then theoretically sustain a notion of a socialist civil society? From our understanding of the use of the concept by Marx, the separation is a product of the evolution of bourgeois society and one of the key tasks of socialism is to bridge this separation. In fact this separation, we would argue is an institutional expression of the alienation of "man" in capitalist societies; the separation of the "social" from the "political". The separation is reflection of the relegation of human social needs to the private sphere of “civil society”. Marx specifically points out that one of the tasks of socialist transformation is that “man must recognize his own forces as social, organize them, and thus no longer separate social forces from himself in the form of political forces”.

Socialist Civil Society

No doubt "democratic socialists" will throw their hands up in horror at what might seem to be a collapse of political and social life into one and therefore the subjection of “civil

Society” to political life, Actually this issue is the crux of the issue on the question of socialist democracy. It is in this area that “democratic socialists”, in the way they pose the question of democracy, obscure the very real socialist imperative of overcoming the contradiction between “civil society” and the state. By arguing for the development of an autonomous civil society, they do not address this Issue at all, instead they fall into the very same mould of the separation of civil society and the state under capitalism. This obscures the need for the creation of organs of (proletarian) state power that are simultaneously organs of state power as well as autonomous mass social formations able to act independent of the state. In fact this is what the Soviets were originally, and they were intended to incorporate both these qualities in them as the only concrete political path for bridging social and political life as the highest form of human emancipation. It was not because they were organs of state power that the soviets failed, rather it was because their autonomous character as mass social formations was progressively stifled by the party through the mechanism of a bureaucratic state. That this happened in Eastern Europe does not mean that this is bound to happen, and that there can be no simultaneous organs of state power that are simultaneously mass-based and autonomous. It was not, we would argue, because of the inherently bureaucratic character of the state that they merely became conduits of the Party and the state bureaucracy, but it was because of the particular state form that developed in the Soviet Union which stifled them - tight control by the Party, merging of Party with state apparatuses, and more important contextual problems of imperialism and its assault on the Soviet Union, outlawing of the opposition and undermining the heterogeneous character of, and debates within, the Soviets, etc.

Let us however explore a bit further how organs of state power can be simultaneously part of the state and at the same time be autonomous mass social formations. One of the issues that we should attempt to closely examine on this question is the debate between Kautsky and Lenin on whether Soviet should be transformed into state organizations or not. This is one of the most crucial areas of socialist theory and revolutionary practice that has hardly been given the attention it requires. It is therefore important to quote liberally in order to engage thins issue.

Kautsky in his pamphlet The Dictatorship of the Proletariate vehemently criticizes the Bolsheviks in power for, amongst other things, converting the Soviet into organs of proletarian state power. He argued that:

“the Soviet form of organization is one of the most important phenomena of our time. It promises to acquire decisive importance in the great decisive battles between capital and labour towards which we are marching... But are we entitled to demand more of the Soviets? The Bolsheviks, after the November Revolution, 1917, secured in conjunction with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries a majority in the Russian Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, and after the dispersion of the Constituent Assembly, they set out to transform the Soviets from a combat organization of one class, as they had been up to then, into a state organization. They destroyed the democracy which the Russian people had won in the March Revolution. ¹²

Kautsky's argument here is basically that for democracy to flourish in socialist Russia at the time, the Soviets should not have been transformed into state organizations. Obviously this argument would today find favour amongst many of the 'democratic socialists," as they should have been left, in their language to be organs of "civil society” independent from the state. We could further state that perhaps this argument, taken to its logical conclusion in the present debates in South Africa, the Soviets would have constituted part of the "socialist civil society" separate from the organs of the proletarian state. Indeed it is largely because of the hindsight of what happened to the Soviets later that there is now talk of a "socialist civil society,”

How did Lenin respond to Kautsky in this regard?

“Thus, the oppressed class [according to Kautsky-BN & MS], the vanguard of all the working and exploited people in modern society, must strive towards the decisive battles between capital and labour,” but must not touch the machine by means of which capital suppresses labour. It must not break up that machine! - It must not make use of its all embracing organization for suppressing the exploiters!  Excellent, Mr. Kautsky ; magnificent!  We recognize the class struggle - in the same way as all liberals recognize it, i. e., without the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.¹³

Lenin argues further that

“Whoever sincerely shared the Marxist view that the state is nothing but for the suppression of one class by another, and who has at all reflected upon this truth, could never have reached the absurd conclusion that the proletarian organizations capable of defeating finance capital must not transform themselves into state organizations”.¹⁴

To say to the Soviets: fight, but don't take all the state power into your hands, don't become state organization - is tantamount to preaching class collaboration and "social peace" between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.¹⁵

According to Glazer this reply by Lenin would be an example of statist thinking. However the question that essentially posed by Lenin in this reply to Kautsky, and which should be a key question preoccupying all socialists at this poit in time as this: After the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and its institutions, what type of proletarian  organs of state power should be put into place? Marx had earlier givn this answer by saying in the Communist Manifesto that the bourgeois state machine should be replaced by the proletarian organized as the ruling class. In all the criticisms and reflects on the failure of Eastern European socialism this question has hardly been engaged. In fact we would argue that it is the very same organs of the working class that overthrew the bourgeoisie that should become the new organs of proletarian state power, and in the case of Russia in 1917 the Soviets. Otherwise what institution and organs should have become the organs of the new proletarian state power?  With the Soviets having become the new organs of the proletarian state, there is no necessary connection between this transformation and the bureaucratization that took place later. In fact the Soviets as organs of state power in the proletarian state should have subjected the state to the popular will of the working people instead of the other way round. By so doing the Soviets would have been autonomous mass social formations that wield state power at the same time.

It would have been the strengthening of this character of the Soviets that would have deepened socialist democracy in the Soviet Union. In fact this is what would have laid the basis for the withering away of the state, i.e., organs of people's power subjecting the proletarian state to their will, while essentially remaining autonomous organizations of the working class and the Russian people as a whole. This is in fact what Soviets operated as initially. That Soviet democracy was later reversed, should not merely be sought in the assumed (inherent) bureaucratic character of the state, but on how the Party conducted itself in its wielding of state power.

By posing the question of building Socialist democracy (instead of democratic socialism) in this way, we will then be able to transcend the liberal bourgeois and narrow notion of a vibrant and autonomous “civil society".

Building Democracy

There are three very important premises from which we should move from if we are tackling the question of building democracy. Firstly, the relationship between the state and "organs of civil society" is not a dichotomous one but a dialectical one. Secondly, the building of democracy cannot be abstracted from the conditions under which this task must be tackled. For instance in South Africa our immediate goal is the establishment of national democracy in the context of colonialism of a special type, and that national democracy should lay the foundations for a rapid transition to socialism. This question is important in that we can give content to concepts we deploy in our analysis. Thirdly, the process of building democracy is in the last instance a political process, whose realization is ultimately dependent on political leadership of a particular type. If then building democracy is a political process, it cannot exclude the very central issue of state power.

Given the above conceptualization it is therefore not appropriate to talk about “organs of civil society" but such organs should be organs of people's power as the only organs that will ultimately guarantee democracy, both in the phase of national democracy as well as in the building of socialism. A brief definition of our understanding of organs of people's power and particularly the differences between them and social movements is necessary at this state. For us social movements are movements that bring together a "number of social forces and even classes around a particular issue. Social movements are therefore issue-based and can either be political, in the strictest sense of the word, or non-political. Social movements do not necessarily aim at fundamental transformation of society, but can be reformist or aimed at changing particular aspects of policy on the issue around which they are organized. Because of this social movements are subject to extreme fluctuations in their strengths and weaknesses, and usually emerge as fast as they can disappear.

Organs of people's power on the other hand are organs that may or may not develop out of social movements. Organs of people's power are primarily about fundamental and revolutionary transformation of society. They are therefore about the transfer of power to the people and are directly concerned with the wielding of state power. However their social base can be the same as that of social movements in that they are the organs that should form the direct link between the state and the people in a national democracy and under socialism. In fact organs of people's power are the form under which the people should exercise state power. This is the essence of participatory democracy.

The conceptualization of civic organizations, street committees, and people's courts merely as social movements is problematic in two ways: Firstly, it is a historical understanding of the origins and intentions of these organs in the mid 1980ies. These organs were not merely social movements but were specifically organs of people's power aimed at a revolutionary transformation of South African society and establishment of people's power. To simply refer to them as social movements is both a theoretical retreat and a reformist understanding of their role even during this phase of negotiations.

Secondly, the notion of social movements as used in some sections of the “Left” is problematic in that it is an historical and abstract implantation of the notion of social movements as developed in advanced capitalist countries. The nature of social movements that develop in countries under the yoke of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism are fundamentally different from, for instance, the Green movement in Europe or the Civil Rights movement in the U. S. The former takes the character of organs of people's power and the latter tend to be pressure groups. There is a radical distinction here. We should however make it clear here that our argument should not be read as meaning that all social movements should be organs of people's power. But the essential point we are making is that the only guarantee for building both national democracy as opposed to bourgeois democracy and socialist democracy is the building of organs of people's power. And that civic organizations and trade unions are not simply social movements. To want to convert these organs to just being social movements is a liberal reformist project that merely wants to reverse history and make these organs mere pressure groups in so-called "civil society,"

Let us briefly then situate the argument of the development of organs of people's power as the key to the securing and strengthening of national and socialist democracy. Struggles for democracy in colonial countries should always be located within the nature of colonialism. National oppression and colonialism tend to collapse what "democratic socialists" would call "civil society" and “political life" in those social formations. Because of this civic struggles tend to take on a political character, and political struggles are rooted in civic issues. This is particularly so where social and political life of people is rigidly controlled by a highly centralized state where political and social opportunities are based primarily on racial consideration. This is more so in Southern Africa, where its particular form of colonialism (white settler colonialism was characterized by racial criteria prescribing the place of different racial groups in the political, economic and social life of the country. Such a situation can be summed up in term of the early works of Marx and Engels and the incomplete separation between “civil society" and the state, as is the situation in bourgeois democracies of the advanced capitalist countries. That is why national liberation movements in all Third World countries, and even more so in Southern Africa, incorporate within them aspects of social movements, and social movements take on a political form. It is this dialectical interpenetration that tends to throw up organs of people's power and the closer working relationship between national liberation movements and such organs.

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The conceptualization of organs of people's power separates bourgeois from socialist democracy. This conception an approach to building democracy also cuts across the rather problematic divide between “civil society" and the state. Here, we are, to use the phrase of some of our "democratic socialists", defining the nature and content of the types of “organ of civil society" that should be developed, i.e., at the root of it we are talking about building people's power.

The concept of "people's power" is rooted in our perspective of a national democratic revolution, where the people are not just an amorphous mass but area people united for the bringing about of a national democracy. This is where the significance of the process of building democracy as a political task, that should have organs of people's power as its agency, lies. It is also only organs of people's power that are capable of practically bridging and laying the basis for a longer term transition to socialism.

In concluding this paper it is important to point out that our major concern is the concepts that one uses have direct political implications. For instance the shift away from developing our understanding of organs of people's power and the new post February 2, 1990 vocabulary ("organs of civil society", "an autonomous and vibrant civil society" etc.), is not merely a change of concepts but perhaps a dangerous shift away from the perspective of a national democratic revolution to that of bourgeois democracy.

Although the concept of people's power still needs further elaboration, for the purposes of this paper it is adequate for us to enter the debate from a different angle, which for us contains the revolutionary perspective that should characterize our Party in particular. Perhaps even more important for us is to begin to point the way towards which a revolutionary socialist perspective should be directed. For the strengthening of working class leadership and the socialist perspective lie in the development of organs of people's power. In other words organs of power should serve both as instruments for securing and deepening national democracy as well as the organs for the transition towards socialism. Of course in the process the nature and role of such organs will change as conditions determine but they are the only structures that will ensure participatory democracy and counter any tendency towards a bourgeois-democratic settlement that might be found within the ranks of the national liberation movement. This is the route towards national and socialist democracy which "democratic socialism" fails to grasp,

The perspective outlined above should guide us in our struggles around CODESA, the nature of an interim government, in the struggle for a Constituent Assembly and the type of democracy we are struggling for, whose constitutional basis should be secured in this Constituent Assembly.

References

1. Hoare, Q and Smith, GN ( 1971 ) (eds) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, London, Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 159-160

2. Important as it is to critically examine the notion of "democratic socialism", this issue is a subject on its own that requires a separate intervention.

3. Glaser, D (1990 ), "Putting Democracy back into Democratic Socialism," Work in Progress, 75, April 1990, p. 30.

4. Swilling, M (1991), “Socialism, Democracy and Civil Society. The Case for Associational Socialism", Work in Progress, 75 July/ August 1991, pp. 21-2

5, See Nzimande. B and Sikhosana, M (1991), “Civics are Part of the National Democratic Revolution", Mayibuye, June, 1991,

6. Embodied in the notion of political parties as class parties is the fact that political parties can and also do represent a coalition of classes or fractions of classes.

 7. Glaser, 1990, p. 57.

8. Slovo, J, (1990), "Has Socialism Failed?" The African Communist, no. 121, 2nd quarter, 1990, Slovo has in fact developed his critique of the concept in “Socialist aspirations and socialist realities". The African Communist, no. 124, 1st quarter,. 1991.

9. Cronin correctly points out in this regard that “The unprincipled abandonment of basic concepts, not because they have proved to be wrong, but because they are tactically embarrassing, is opportunism. But the freezing of Marxism-Leninism into a closed and unchanging doctrine, a blue-print that simply requires application in any given situation, is dogmatism, "Lenin in not a statue", The African Communist,' no. 127, p. 12.

10. Lenin, VI (1976), On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Moscow, Progress Publishers, p. 138.

11. Ibid., p. 36.

12. Quoted in Ibid, pp. 157, emphasis in Kautsky's original pamphlet.

13. Lenin, Ibid, pp. 158-9.

14. Ibid., p. 159.

15. 1b id., p. 161.