This letter is in response to Conquering Democracy, Abolishing Political Representation by the Cibcom Collective. I appreciated the comrades’ thought-provoking work and the opportunity to clarify my ideas in response. I have several peripheral agreements regarding the importance of democracy and the utility of workers’ councils, and one fundamental disagreement about the nature of the democratic republic. Read by: Will

Agreements

The authors are right to emphasize the place of democracy and the democratic forms of government in the thought of Marx and Engels. I agree that the article’s epigraph from the Communist Manifesto – “The first step of the workers’ revolution is the elevation of the proletariat to a ruling class, the conquest of democracy” – is an essential and overlooked line. Some translations present the line as “…to win the battle of democracy.” This idea – winning the battle of democracy – is the titular slogan of Marxist Unity Group’s resolution calling on the DSA to affirm that the United States is “no democracy at all” and to center the Constitution as the primary obstacle to realizing a democratic republic as the political rule of the working class: the crucial first step on the road to socializing the economy and international socialism.

The authors should also be commended for their willingness to question the practicality of a workers’ councils form of government. Lenin’s declaration that “The soviets of workers’ deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government” was a break with the ideas of Marx and Engels, who, along with the entirety of social democracy (including Kautsky in 1905¹  and Lenin up until 1917), recognized the democratic republic of the Paris Commune as the future workers’ state. Even in 1917, Lenin was ambiguous as to the form of workers’ state rule as seen in the conclusion of State and Revolution: “…to destroy bourgeois parliamentarism, for a democratic republic after the type of the Commune, or a republic of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”²

Lenin’s political life after 1917 was a tortuous search for a form of democracy superior to bourgeois parliamentarism. Eventually, he concluded that Soviet influence would have to be rolled back because the system was not suitable for the dystopian conditions of post-revolution and civil-war Russia.³ Given our ruling classes’ immense arsenal and proclivity for wonton violence, conditions in the United States would likely be as tough as those in Russia – if not worse.

As Engels wrote towards the end of his life, “Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseam that for us the democratic republic is the only, political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalized and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat.”⁴  The centrality of the demand for a democratic republic has been erased from the history of Marxism; because of that loss, the socialist movement has struggled to define democracy as anything other than “bourgeois” and inferior to socialism. 

Finally, I too desire a society where, in the words of C.L.R. James, every cook can govern.⁵ At some point in the distant future (the emphasis is explained below) society may reach the point at which the reduction of the working day to a bare minimum, combined with the universality of accessible high-quality education, means any person can do any job. It will be a wonderful day when, free from the threat of counterrevolutionary war and material scarcity, each person can take their time in learning the tricks of every (non-automated) trade. 

Disagreements 

I will leave aside for the moment any discussion about if a system of direct democracy is feasible in a future communist society (let’s just say that, like Kautsky,⁶ I’m skeptical). 

Rather, I want to discuss when it would be possible to even consider a system of direct democracy. That is, I want to consider when the working class would be able to leave behind a state form built around representative democracy. 

I suspect that the comrades in Cibcom Collective think communism will be realizable immediately after the working class takes state power – that a “post-capitalist future” comes immediately after the political revolution. As they think communism comes right after the revolution, they think the democratic republic exists in communism. As they think the democratic republic exists in communism, they conclude that the democratic republic is synonymous with direct democracy. It is not. 

The democratic republic is a representative democracy in which those in official positions are made accountable to the masses through universal, equal, and direct suffrage; a system of imperative mandates and legal accountability; set wages; and the right to recall. It’s worth noting that the imperative mandate was not an innovation of the Soviets but rather a longstanding radical republican demand included in many social democratic programs before 1917. Marx and Engels were radical republicans⁷ and democrats as much as they were communists (communism being an extension of democracy into the social sphere and a willingness to grab the sacred totem of private property).

The democratic republic is the subordination of the entire state to society through the enactment of the minimum program, including a single legislative assembly elected by proportional representation; the abolition of the independent presidency and the Supreme Court’s right of judicial review; the election of judges and other state officials; the expansion of jury trials and state-funded legal services; the unrestricted right of free speech; the abolition of copyright laws and monopolies of knowledge; and the abolition of police and standing army in favor of a people’s militia characterized by universal training and service, with democratic rights for its members. The process could begin with organizing a nationwide election via direct, universal, and equal suffrage for an assembly tasked with writing a new Constitution for popular consideration. 

Marx did not imagine the democratic republic as part of a post-capitalist society. Communism is a post-capitalist society, and no type of state would exist once private property is socialized and classes disappear. The democratic republic is the state form of the political rule of the working class, in which the masses are in a position to finally win the battle for complete democracy by using the state to strengthen its position in the continuing class struggle and incrementally socialize property. The project of realizing a post-capitalist society would require economic planning under the democratic republic, but the post-capitalist society itself is not the democratic republic.

Left in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the state will mobilize its armed forces against any significant working-class action. No factory occupations, cooperative structures, or autonomous zones are secure so long as private property is enshrined in the Constitution and protected by the brute force of raw, organized violence.

Survive, then thrive

A transition period stands between the revolution (the working class taking political power by realizing the democratic republic and writing a new constitution) and communism (the complete socialization of property). For the Cibcom Collective, no transition period will exist because post-revolutionary society is immediately communist.

As stated earlier, deprofessionalization is compatible with Marxism. But sortition is a possibility for the distant future. If the experience of the Russian Revolution is any indication of what we in the United States can expect during a revolution, then a government based on sortition appears immensely naive. As I said above, given our ruling classes’ immense arsenal and proclivity for wonton violence, conditions in the United States would likely be as rough as those in Russia – if not more so.

The primary goal of the working-class government during the revolution is to keep society as cohesive and functional as possible.⁸ We need to survive, then thrive. A secondary goal is to begin solving society’s most pressing issues. When it comes to solving climate change, for example, I’d prefer a system in which experts are elected to decision-making positions instead of selection by sortition. The democratic republic would ensure the impossibility of a privileged bureaucracy rising above society based on technical skills and knowledge. The absence of direct democracy does not lead to arbitrary authority, and there is nothing inherently undemocratic or enervating about elections. 

Color me an aspiring commissar, but I am profoundly skeptical that referendums and sortitions are adequate for making the decisions necessary during a revolutionary situation. This does not mean direct democracy has no role in a communist society. But the distinction between advisable and inadvisable times for direct democracy is obscured by Cibcom Collective’s erasure of the transitional period in the phrase “post-capitalist society.”

Our task is not the immediate replacement of every bureaucrat and intellectual with a worker. Instead, we must use the democratic republic – the state form of democracy par excellence according to Marx and Engels –  to keep any necessary bureaucrats accountable as we expand democracy to the realm of property and transition toward a communist future. During this transition period, I hope there would be an increase in experiments in direct democracy and local decision-making as is feasible. But we shouldn’t merge the democratic republic with communism and, in so doing, confuse what Marx and Engels meant by the democratic republic: not a system of direct democracy, but a way to smash the state by disbanding the army and keeping electeds accountable. 

-Luke Pickrell

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1. Kautsky, Karl. The Republic and Social Democracy in France. 1905. Translated by Ben Lewis (2020).
2. Lenin, V.I. “The State and Revolution,” marxist.org, 1917, Chapter 6. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch06.htm#s3
3. Douds, Lara. Inside Lenin’s Government. London: Bloomsburg Press, 2018.
4. Engels, Friedrich. “Reply to the Honourable Giovanni Bovio,” marxist.org, 1892, https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1892/02/critica-sociale.htm
5. James, C.L.R. “Every Cook Can Govern,” marxist.org, 1956, https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm
6. Kautsky, Karl. Parliamentarian and Democracy. 1892. Translated by Ben Lewis (2020).
7. Leipold, Bruno. “Citizen Marx: The Relationship Between Karl Marx and Republicanism.” Ph.D. diss. St. Cross College, 2017. p. 20
8. From Paris to Petrograd, Cosmopod, podcast audio, February 15, 2021, https://cosmonautmag.com/2022/06/from-paris-to-petrograd-state-and-revolution-in-practice/