Editorial: Socialist face of democracy (1985)

Editorial from the October 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is more — or perhaps we should say less — to the annual conferences of the capitalist political parties than is dreamed of in the razzamatazz of their speeches, orations. voting, receptions and banquets. More — or less — than is to be found in the toadying reports of the media, which insist that what goes on in those seaside halls has some special significance for the working class.

One function of the conferences is to be exercises in public relations (although they have been known to backfire on this score) with speeches timed and measured so as to get maximum coverage in the newspapers and on television. Sometimes the exercise is helped along by a stroke of luck, like Labour's in 1963 when the blatant Tory infighting over the succession to the ailing and battered Macmillan was followed by their own conference posture as the party too busy planning a great future for the British people to immerse themselves in such petty squabbling. Last year, the Tories had the luck when the Brighton bomb, intended to wipe out much of the Cabinet, actually helped revive the government's flagging popularity.

So what are these conferences about? The Tories offer no illusions: their gatherings have only an advisory role and whatever resolutions they carry, the leadership which at present, of course, is the British government — do not need to take any account of them. Naturally, the leadership is happier if the conference avoids embarrassing them and if the impression is given of a warm unity but in any case they rarely have much difficulty in snuffing out any glimmers of dissent. Conservatives seem happy with this, for each year they travel to their conferences in full expectation of participating in numerous standing ovations, for even the most commonplace of speeches, as if prolonged applause is a duty they owe the party. The conferences are also used for publicity-catching statements of policy, or bold defiance of the realities of capitalism. Thatcher's speeches, with their newsworthy slogans, are one example of this-, another was Leon Brittan's promise in 1983 to effectively lengthen the sentences of prisoners who have been convicted of certain types of offences. This speech was rapturously received by the party's hangers and floggers, who left the hall positively flushed with the excitement of an assuaged punishment-lust.

The Labour Party have to pretend that their conferences are different. Many of their members may actually believe (if we are to judge from the excitement they evince at the results of their votes) that their decisions carry some weight and are able to change things. To give just one recent example: a conference vote in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament convinces the delegates that a Labour government will throw away the British bomb. There is no evidence to support this notion. Even the constitutional changes the Labour Party made a few years ago did not alter the fact that a Labour government of the future will have to act just like those in the past — they will run British capitalism in the interests of its ruling class and. therefore, to the despair of many members of the Labour Party.

The reasons for this are plain. Members of the capitalist parties are not socialists. Some in the Labour Party may describe themselves as socialist but under the thinnest of political skins they are in fact supporters of capitalism. Faced with the socialist proposition of a moneyless society of common ownership in the means of production, of free access to wealth and equal social standing, they may agree that this is a desirable object — but only in the very, very long term. Meanwhile, they must devote their efforts to the futile task of reforming capitalism — which includes passing seductive, meaningless resolutions at their conference.

The membership of the capitalist parties are firmly in support of the leadership principle; they believe their party must be run by a group of people who have a privileged access to information which is concealed from the majority and who hand down decisions and policies for the rest to carry out. Devotion to reformism means support for expediency, of opportunistic response to day-by-day events.

In contrast, the socialist movement presents a comprehensively valid analysis of society. Socialist parties are different because, most importantly, they consist exclusively of workers who have seen exposed, and who have rejected, the futility of reformism and the leadership principle. A socialist party is made up of conscious socialists, who understand capitalism and how socialism will remove the problems of present-day society. They know that nothing less than a democratic socialist revolution will do. Such political consciousness is the death-knell of leadership, for leaders are redundant in the presence of workers who are politically alive.

This gives the conferences of socialist parties an unusual character. First of all, they are fully democratic; from the earliest call for items to be discussed to the final vote the conferences express the wishes of the party membership. The business of our conferences is carried out by members who are strictly mandated by the branches and whose work is subjected to a rigorous vigilance. Unlike the other parties who claim to be socialist, there is no confusion among us about the nature of socialism, nor about the urgent need for an immediate revolution. These facts give our conferences a distinct flavour; they are not occasions for a dominating clique of leaders, or a dictatorial platform. Any worker who doubts these facts can come to a socialist conference to see for themselves.

Which brings us to our final point, our final distinction. All socialist conferences, and all our meetings of whatever kind, are completely open to anyone who wants to attend. We do not know the practice of withdrawing into a secret session to discuss some issue which we are afraid to let see the light of day. We know that an organisation which has secrets, which reserves some of its information to an exclusive élite , cannot be democratic and cannot therefore be socialist.

So any worker who is concerned about the perilous condition of human society and who is weary and disillusioned with the remedies offered by the capitalist parties should consider the alternative of the socialist movement. We are free and democratic and our members stand as equals because that is how it will be in the socialist society which we are organised to bring into being