The Struggle for Democracy: A Discussion

'Bill of Rights socialism' is an unhelpful phrase

By Mark Almberg

People's Weekly World

www.pww.org

The first time I heard the expression "Bill of Rights socialism" I was uncomfortable with its use. The expression is for all intents and purposes a synonym for "democratic socialism," the stock phrase of reformist socialist democracy.

Historically, this phrase, "democratic socialism," has been used by reformists to distance themselves from "Communist dictatorships" like Cuba, China, the former Soviet Union, etc. By implication, it gives credence to the claim that socialism is inherently undemocratic or anti-democratic. It panders to anti-communism; it suggests that the anti-communists were right all along.

While it's important to acknowledge the very serious violations of socialist democracy in the former USSR, for example, particularly during the Stalin era, and to explain to others the historical context of those violations, it's quite another thing to give credence to the slander that the socialist revolutions to date have given rise to inherently undemocratic societies.

Such assertions are a monumental put-down of the effort by millions of workers and peasants to build a new, socialist society, where mass public education, labor rights, the rights of oppressed national minorities, women and the winning of economic security made (and make) those societies much more democratic than the even the most advanced capitalist democracies.

As Lenin observed in his book, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Soviet society, by putting the best meeting halls and stocks of paper in the hands of the working class, and by empowering the working masses in scores of other ways, gave real substance to the concept of freedom of speech.

The expression "Bill of Rights socialism" fosters an atmosphere of national insularity, of national superiority. And this at a time when - in the context of "globalization," the latest euphemism for imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism - there is a greater need for international working-class cooperation and solidarity than ever before.

In the past, there was a Eurocommunist trend of national insularity and of making concessions to capitalist ideology about the nature of the state. I fear that "Bill of Rights socialism" fits into this mold. It emphasizes national peculiarities in such a way that it could well be offensive to others in the world Communist movement and to working people in other countries generally.

What if every other Communist Party followed suit? And yet ours is an international movement, and we are but one contingent of that movement, one constituent part of it.

Further, we can learn lessons and benefit from the experiences of every socialist revolution, of every socialist country, including about the practice of real working-class, socialist democracy. We can learn from the experiences of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and others.

It's become fashionable to say that there are "no models." Yes, there's no universal blueprint, but there are many uniformities and common features of real socialist societies that we must learn from and embrace. We have insufficiently studied these experiences; we should encourage such study.

I think the phrase "Bill of Rights socialism" also indirectly prettifies and obscures the class nature of capitalist democracy. It contributes to the perpetuation of the myth that the U.S. is the paragon of democracy. This indirectly covers up or plays down class, racial, and gender oppression in the U.S. historically and as it exists today.

After all, any worker knows that when you walk into the factory, you hang up your democratic rights by the door. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply there, particularly in a non-union shop.

And take a look at the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans in the most recent round of elections - not just in Florida, but nationwide - in our system of bourgeois democracy. These indicate some of the limits of capitalist democracy as represented by the Bill of Rights.

Should we fight to defend the Bill of Rights? Yes! Are they important achievements of the working class and working people's struggles in the U.S.? Absolutely! Our party has historically been among the most militant advocate of these and other democratic rights, and we should continue to fight to preserve and extend them.

At the same time, we should not obscure the real limitations of the Bill of Rights, as important as they are, nor try to artificially fasten them to the much more profound, democratic concept of socialism.

However, I think that the most basic problem with the use of "Bill of Rights socialism" is that it breeds constitutionalist illusions about the nature of the state in U.S. capitalist society, about the road to workingclass power, and about the need to suppress the exploiters upon the attainment of socialist revolution.

So let's refrain from trumpeting about "Bill of Rights socialism." Let's leave this unhelpful phrase at our convention door. A "U.S. road to socialism?" Yes. But as for describing the new society, "socialism" will do just fine!