Commemorating 50 years of Vanguard
First
published in September 1963, Vanguard
celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Over the next
6 months we will publish an occasional series of articles from some of our
earlier editions.
They will
deal with those issues which confront us today, such as parliamentarism, trade
union politics, and the Labor Party.
They are
issues which will no doubt confront our successors 50 years from now.
Notes will be
appended to explain some historical references.
The highlighted passages are as they appeared in the original article.
………………..
PEOPLE MUST
RID THEMSELVES OF DELUSION OF PARLIAMENTARY “DEMOCRACY”
(From Vanguard Vol 3 No 47 December 1966)
The Federal election[1]
will cause every advanced worker to think over the whole nature and purpose of
parliament and parliamentary elections.
There can be
no doubt that there are very deep-seated illusions about parliament. These illusions take the form of belief that
parliament is really the place where
Australia’s destiny is determined. It is
very important to analyse this.
In all the so-called democracies, the
capitalist class has succeeded in deluding many people into the belief that
parliament is really a democratic institution.
It has deluded people into thinking that by voting in a parliamentary
election they have a stake in the government of the country. They have deluded people into believing that
parliament is responsible to the people, and that cabinet is responsible to
parliament and thereby to the people.
All this is
carefully fostered and developed. It has
a very long tradition. It is part of the
ideology of capitalism.
The result is
that parliament is largely considered as the boundary of politics. Put in another way, the capitalists have placed
a ring of parliamentary politics around the people. It has nurtured and developed the illusion
that outside that ring there are no politics.
Accordingly
the capitalists centre all their comments on parliament and its doings. They comment on the parliamentary
personalities. They analyse the
cabinet. They analyse the opposition.
They broadcast parliamentary debates.
They create a sea of parliamentarism.
In election times they give immense
publicity to the campaigns of the parliamentary parties. Day in and day out the picture is painted of
the fate of the nation being decided.
The
government leaders seek a “mandate” for this and that. The opposition makes all sorts of promises to
the electors. They too seek a “mandate”.
The revisionist group[2] joins in this witch’s
brew.
All this
helps to concentrate attention on parliament.
It all helps to perpetuate the illusion that it really is parliament
that it important.
At election
time the electors are wooed. They are said to be the important people. It is they who are making the choice, so it
is said. They are deciding on the
government.
When one
party wins it is said that it has secured a mandate from the people for its policies.
The other side says the people have spoken. The revisionists set out to campaign
for the next election. The labor party says it will go on campaigning.
Then the
comments turn on who will be the next leader of the labor party of what changes
will be made in the cabinet. The legislative programme is talked about. It is
said that there must be an effective opposition. Or that the Liberal
Party-Country Party alliance must be preserved.
All of it is concentrated on
parliament. All of it is carefully
designed to rivet the attention of the people on parliament. It is designed to
create the illusion that only through parliament can anything be done. If this
is successful then the people do not step beyond the “safe” confines of
parliamentary politics.
People must
ask themselves a critically important question.
Is this business about parliament the reality of Australia? Does parliament really occupy this position?
The answer is
that reality is quite different.
Parliament is a capitalist institution. If we look beyond the surface
this is clear. Monopoly capitalism
remains. Exploitation remains. Profit remains.
Everything is really determined by this.
The decisive
issue before Australian people today is the Australian-US alliance and all its
implications including Australia’s participation in aggression against
Vietnam. The Australian monopolists are
tied body and soul to US monopolists. On
this matter no single parliamentary candidate or party had any view but support
for the US alliance. Part of parliamentary
politics is to create the illusion of two different parties and even differing
views within the parties. This is democracy, so they say. Hard reality is that on this really central
and critical question there was and is no difference.
Those who are
disappointed in the labor party’s performance will tend to say if Whitlam had not
been guilty of treachery,[3] the result might have been
different. The “left” will say we must
get rid of the right. The “right” will
say we must get rid of the left. But all
this is really subordinated to and part of parliamentary politics. It is part
of the illusion. It is part of the deception of the people. It will solve
nothing. The centre of the matter is still the US alliance. It is from Australian capitalism’s satellite
position to US imperialism that everything else follows. Reality is that Holt, McEwen, Calwell,
Whitlam, Cairns, without a single exception (but with a few verbal differences)
all support Australia’s satellite position to US imperialism. The revisionist group supports the ALP.
Whatever question is taken,
parliament’s position remains an illusion of people’s power and democracy.
Reality is that it is nothing of the sort. Reality is that real power in
Australia rests with the Australian-US-British monopoly capitalists. They use
parliament.
US
imperialism has only to crack the whip and the Australian ruling class
follows. As soon as Australia became
tied to the US war chariot (as it has been by liberal and labor alike), it had
to go where the US war chariot went.
The illusions
in parliament go very very deep. In the best Marxist-Leninists pangs of
disappointment and frustration occurred when the labor party was defeated. While professing their lack of illusions in
parliament and the labor party, still they suffer disappointment. This is a tribute
to the capacity for deception of the capitalist class.
Our task must
be to cast away all these long-cherished illusions. They must be cast aside altogether. Only in
that way can a correct tactical approach to parliament be worked out.
Parliament is
important precisely because it deludes people; indeed, only because it deludes
people.
The problem
is how to dispel these illusions. They
cannot be dispelled overnight. It is a
relatively long term operation. Basically, people’s own experiences will be the
only way by which they will shed their illusions. Already a healthy cynicism exists about
parliamentary politicians. We must draw correct conclusions at every stage of
political struggle. Genuine politics
extend far beyond parliament. It is but an incident in real politics. Politics
have to do with the struggle of the workers and working people against the
capitalists, Australia’s place in the world, US imperialism, war and peace. The
people must take things into their own hands.
What is
decisive is the people’s struggle. This
has been said many times. But it is a
matter far beyond mere words. It goes on
and will go on irrespective of parliament.
It is an anti-US imperialist struggle in line with the mainstream of
world development.
Australian
people will develop it irrespective of parliament, parliamentary politics and
politicians.
The ruling class is already alarmed
about this. It is fearful that Holt’s
majority is so large it will make parliament a mockery. It is fearful that the
labor party is destroyed as an “effective” opposition. Melbourne Herald on
November 28 ran a main feature article headed “For the sake of
parliament…Danger in big poll win”. In the text it said in heavy type: “The
danger is that Parliament’s authority could slip further”. Side by side with
this it speaks about suppressing demonstrations, controlling electoral
meetings, the “rabble” and so on. Thus the ruling class is quite conscious of
the danger of the decline of parliament on the one hand and the rise of mass
struggle on the other.
The
justification for Communists participating in an election campaign is to expose
this hard reality about parliament. The slightest concession to the validity of
parliamentary politics as decisive must nurture people’s illusions in
parliament. Participation in elections to dispel illusions and use of
parliament itself for this, are perfectly legitimate. At the present stage, it
is not possible to elect Communists to parliament. The revisionists by their parliamentary
policy, their programme, their method of participation in elections and their
peaceful transition to socialism[4] develop illusions. They do so in the name of Communism. But this sort of thing has nothing in common
with Communism.
The
Communists participate fully in the struggles of the people in every shape and
form. They must tirelessly demonstrate the reality of parliament in actual
struggle and experience. Acting thus they
will help the people to overcome illusions about parliament.
So long as
the parliamentary ring exists about politics the ruling class can contain and
restrict struggle.
In modern
times the people are taking matters into their own hands.
Australians
will repudiate in action suggestions of Holt’s “mandate” to go ahead with more
troops and more conscripts for Vietnam. They will repudiate the US alliance.
No one need
feel frustrated or disappointed. The way of struggle is the only way. This is
so, be there parliament or no parliament, Holt or Calwell, Liberal or Labor
Party.
[1]
The Federal election of November 26, 1966 was a landslide victory for the
Liberal and Country coalition under Harold Holt. The Liberal Party won 61 seats in the House
of Representatives and the Country Party won 21 for a total of 82 seats for the
coalition. The ALP under Arthur Calwell
suffered a 9% swing and won only 42 seats.
It was the largest majority for an Australian government to that time.
[2]
The revisionist group refers to the leadership of the Communist Party of
Australia. Under Sharkey and Dixon, the
CPA had embraced the Soviet revisionist betrayal of Communism; however, a new
revisionist group around Laurie Aarons pushed Sharkey and Dixon aside and set
the party on the path of complete liquidation, culminating in the formal
dissolution of the CPA in 1991. Prior to
the 1966 election, Aarons proposed a formal coalition of the CPA and the ALP
“left”. The Aarons clique, in its
rejection of Communist politics, upheld bourgeois parliamentarism and fed illusions
about parliament in the working class movement.
[3]
For some time prior to the 1966 election, the ALP deputy leader Gough Whitlam
had suggested that the ageing Calwell was unsuited to the task of defeating the
younger Harold Holt. Whitlam and his
supporters wanted Calwell to relinquish his position and for Whitlam to lead
the party.
[4]
The so-called theory of the “peaceful transition to socialism” was one of the
cornerstones of the revision of Marxism propounded by Khrushchev. Instead of
preparing the working class for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist state
power, it encouraged the illusion that the capitalists would peacefully
surrender their power through the electoral process.
No comments:
Post a Comment