Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial DemocracySpargo, John
History
Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Spargo, John
Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
Democracy in government and in industry must characterize any system of
society which can be justly called Socialist. Thirteen years ago I wrote,
"Socialism without democracy is as impossible as a shadow without
light."[60] That seemed to me then, as it seems to-day, axiomatic. And so
the greatest Socialist thinkers and leaders always regarded it. "We have
perceived that Socialism and democracy are inseparable," declared William
Liebknecht, the well-beloved, in 1899.[61] Thirty years earlier, in 1869,
he had given lucid expression to the same conviction in these words:
"Socialism and democracy are not the same, but they are only different
expressions of the same fundamental idea. They belong to each other, round
out each other, and can never stand in contradiction to each other.
Socialism without democracy is pseudo-Socialism, just as democracy without
Socialism is pseudo-democracy."[62] Democracy in industry is, as I have
insisted in my writing with unfailing consistency, as inseparable from
Socialism as democracy in government.[63] Unless industry is brought within
the control of democracy and made responsive to the common will, Socialism
is not attained.
Everywhere the organized working class aspires to attain that industrial
democracy which is the counterpart of political democracy. Syndicalism,
with all its vagaries, its crude reversal to outworn ideas and methods, is,
nevertheless, fundamentally an expression of that yearning. It is the same
passion that lies back of the Shop Stewards' movement in England, and that
inspires the much more patiently and carefully developed theories and plans
of the advocates of "Guild Socialism." Motived by the same desire, our
American labor-unions are demanding, and steadily gaining, an increasing
share in the actual direction of industry. Joint control by boards composed
of representatives of employers, employees, and the general public is, to
an ever-increasing extent, determining the conditions of employment, wage
standards, work standards, hours of labor, choice and conduct of foremen,
and many other matters of vital importance to the wage-earners. That we
are still a long way from anything like industrial democracy is all too
painfully true and obvious, but it is equally obvious that we are
struggling toward the goal, and that there is a serious purpose and
intention to realize the ideal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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