School Scope: Socialism and Democracy

School Scope:  Socialism and Democracy

By Norm Scott

Going back to its roots in the mid 1800s, the many brands of “socialism” kept dividing as new tendencies and interpretations arose. Those divisions continue through today and sorting it all out can be daunting. Which is why I am using this space to explore the depths and limits of my own knowledge. What motivates me is the current mainstream media talk which so often demonstrates a lack of understanding about socialism. The earliest roots of socialism was tied to the rise of unions in the most highly industrialized nations with growing working classes. And  my own union, the UFT, was founded by people who considered themselves socialists.

We’ve heard Bernie Sanders get challenged and respond he is not talking about Soviet or Chinese style communism (both of which differed significantly from each other – the Soviet system came down after 70 years while the Chinese version seems to be flourishing after 70 years), but the Scandinavian brand of social democracy, a very different situation. The Russian/Chinese models  abolished capitalism by nationalizing, or “socializing” the means of production and remade society in the process. A one party system - the communist party – was in control. Theoretically, the party internally was democratic but the reality was that one strongman took control. Don’t forget that both Russia and China were poor nations with large peasant populations and in crisis as an outcome of WWI in Russia and WWII in China and communism was not the worst alternative. Democracy, which hadn’t existed anyway, was not the highest priority.

The Western European model of socialism – you will find a democrat socialist party in almost every nation today - maintains a multi-party electoral system and puts capitalism under a high level of governmental control. Part and parcel of that control is an electoral process that controls campaign contributions to keep the influences limited. But don’t forget, these nations were highly industrialized and had already  moved toward democratic systems, though fragile as we saw in Germany and Italy in the 1930s. (It is no accident that both Germany and Italy had only come together as a nation in the mid- 19^th century.)

In previous columns I raised the issue of the relative popularity of socialism in this country until 1912 and pointed to the Russian Revolution of 1917 as the big event that for the first time brought a socialist revolution into reality. I neglected to mention that is was the outcomes of World War I itself (1914-18) that created so many changes and situations around the world that still affect us today – the fall of the Turkish empire in middle east is the most obvious. The War also created and exaggerated the many divisions that already existed within the socialist movement worldwide. My knowledge is limited and what I present should be subject to alternate interpretations and fact checking, if “facts” still exist.

One of the key ideas behind Marxism was “class struggle”, that a working class would unite in ways that crossed national boundaries and battle the capitalist class. And when WWI was on the horizon, many socialist parties in Europe and the Socialist Party here in the states took anti-war positions. But to the surprise and dismay of many, many socialist parties, even some of the most radical, supported the war in their own countries. And it was that act that broke many socialist parties and provoked splits. One of the keys to winning power for the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 was the slogan “Peace, Land and Bread” advocated by Vladimir Lenin in a nation ravaged by the war. And true to his promise, Lenin, resisting many of his won comrades who wanted to continue the war, pulled the new nation out of the war after signing a very bad treaty with Germany, which ended up losing the war anyway after Woodrow Wilson pulled our nation into the war.

And to tie things together, the major socialist party here in the states, led by Eugene Debs, a union organizer, strongly opposed the war. Debs had received 6% of the vote as the socialist candidate for president in the 1912 elections. For his opposition to the war, he was sent to prison for a 10 year term but was pardoned in 1921. He died not soon after from prison related illnesses. So much for democracy here and there.

Norm still slogs and blogs every day at ednotesonline.com. Read his detailed analyses of UFT election outcomes.

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