The state is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. – Friedrich Engels
The idea of democracy is frequently distorted by social scientists. They do this to maintain a status-quo in society and to keep people engaged in defending whatever freedom they are given. Democracy and freedom must then be understood together. What is glaringly missing from these discussions is their connection with one’s socio-economic position. The economically powerful class has been the politically dominant class historically, controlling democracy fully through the state. Conversely, the exploited classes have had their freedom restricted in order for that control to exist. One must ask then, is universal democracy possible in a class-divided society?
Emergence of the Democratic Republic:
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. – Karl Marx
The modern day bourgeois democratic republics that offer popular representation through a parliament, can be directly traced to the win of capitalism over feudalism. The chains that bound the population under the feudal lords who owned everything, were broken through a series of violent uprisings, termed as bourgeois democratic revolutions (BDR henceforth). These took place first in Europe, under the leadership of the erstwhile ‘middle class’, predecessors of the present-day bourgeoisie*. This class needed free movement and free trade for their growth. Feudal laws made these impossible. Since most people were working as agricultural labourers, tied to both land and lord, their recruitment into workshops owned by the ‘middle class’ was restricted. The rising bourgeoisie had to politically defeat the feudal class to gain control over land and labour through BDRs.
Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. – VI Lenin
How did a revolution led by a minority class win? The broad masses of peasants and small section of workers, trapped under feudal bondage, were led by the rising bourgeoisie. Slogans of liberty, equality, and fraternity became clarion calls for rallying these broad masses as the main force of the revolution. Under feudalism, birth in a noble family decided one’s fortunes. In the initial days of free trade, anyone with capital could establish a factory and go up the bourgeois ladder. With this fundamental change at the economic base, changes in the superstructure followed in the form of establishment of a democratic republic. Despite raising slogans of equality, even formal equality for the working class and women was won through long struggle. However, real economic and political power remained with the bourgeoisie.
As part of establishing capitalism, peasants were uprooted from villages to fill the huge demand for workers in the factories coming up in cities. To win basic wage hikes, leaves, social security, 8-hrs working day, etc., they had to wage bloody battles against the state machinery. The democracy available to the great majority under capitalism remained the freedom to choose their employer (exploiter). The rallying cries turned to naught.
Democracy for the Majority:
It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. – Joseph Stalin
The minority class that controls all the wealth will always be free to exploit others in a class-divided society. As long as classes exist, there cannot be universal democracy. The majority labouring classes of workers-peasants can acquire democracy only in a transitory socialist phase when private property will be gradually abolished. This democracy for the majority can be extended universally only in a classless communist society.
The world saw two socialist experiments happen through the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the 1949 new democratic revolution in China. The vast masses of workers and peasants gained control over natural resources and their own labour. They were running factories and farms, exercising political democracy through deciding and becoming representatives in the councils (with the right to recall), getting universal education / healthcare / employment / transport / vacations, and achieving cultural equality breaking barriers of gender, religion, race, nationality, etc.
In both these countries, the masses have now lost collective control over resources; capitalism has been restored. The people are again reduced to labouring agents that make profit for the capitalists. Freedom exercised by the majority has given way to democracy for a minority.
Whither Democracy?
Temporary setbacks have never deterred communists world over from moving forward with the dream of a classless society free from all forms of exploitation. The fight for universal democracy is part and parcel of that struggle. It has to be wrested from the hands of the rich minority to build a society where the majority can exercise economic and political control till true democracy becomes possible after the withering away of classes. In a nutshell, it is only the communists who will fight for democracy till its logical end.
*The term originated in medieval France, where it denoted an inhabitant of a walled town or a citizen of a borough
