Lesson ¹ 3 (seminar – 6 hours)
Political parties and public organizations. Political consciousness and political culture
Plan.
1. The origin and essence of political parties.
2. Functions of political parties.
3. Types of political parties.
4. Party systems.
5. Political consciousness.
6. Political culture
1. The origin and essence of political parties.
Political life in the modern society in inseparable from parties. Parties give it dynamic character as they are the arena of competition of political courses, ideas that express interests of different social groups. It is the basis of development of that most acceptable social decisions regarding the essence of these problems and taking into consideration of interests of social groups. Parties are not only an important element of political system but also an important constituent part of civic society. The knowledge of parties as social institute, their place and role in social-political life of the society has not only theoretical but also practical importance.
First notes about political parties are met in the works of the ancient thinkers. Aristotle described the struggle between three parties in Attics in the 6l century B.C. There was a struggle between the parties of the nobility and villagers in the ancient Rome.
.Party tradition of Greece
During the Middle Ages political parties fulfilled the role of a temporary organizations. Their appearance was cased by the struggle of different social layers. For instance the struggle between the holly Roman Empire and papal power during the 12-15* centuries resulted into the struggle between the party of the representatives of artisans and tradesmen interests that were for secular power of the Pope and the party of those who protected interests of feudalists and supported the strong imperial power.
Prototypes of the modern political parties appeared during the period of early bourgeois revolutions, but finally they were formed during the times of the Great French Revolution. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century after the declaration of independence parties of federalists and anti-federalists appeared in the United States of America. Conservative party that supported interests of landowners and clergy of Anglican Church (founded in 1867) and liberal party that represented interests of nobility, trade and financial bourgeois (formed in the middle of the 19th century) were formed in Great Britain.
Political parties in the modern meaning were finally formed only in the middle of the 20th century simultaneously with the formation of the electoral right in the direction towards the general, direct and equal elections by secret ballot.
First scientific ideas about parties are related to such thinkers and politicians as Montesquieu, Rousseau, Washington, Madison, Tocqueville, Burke.
Followers of the theory proposed by Rousseau
viewed parties as a universal evil, as the means of division of society, as
a type of domination of the interests of small groups under the interests of the people. The
founders of the constitution of the United
States of America George Washington, O. Hamilton and the others had
approximately the same attitude to political parties. But they and their
followers understood that there always would be people with different
political views.
The term "party" originates from Latin word "partio" - (I) divide, and in the translation means as part of some big community.
Political party is an organized group of adherents that expresses interests of the part of the people, a class, classes, social layer, layers, tries to realize them as a result of coming to power or taking part in its realization.
According to the law of Ukraine about political parties a political party is defined as a freewill union of citizens registered according to the law that are adherents of a certain national program of social development that aims at the support of formation and expressing of political will of the citizens, takes part in elections and other political events.
There are the following basic factors that cause the creating of a party:
1. Specific interests of certain social groups that need creation of a party for their realization.
2. Different views at political system of society and other political questions.
3. Discontent of the part of society with its status and the presence of an urgent need to change it.
4. Inter-nation conflicts and inter-confessional discordance that cause parties to form on the basis of these national or religious conflicts.
For instance labor parties in England,
Australia, Canada and other countries were formed as the
result of trade unions' initiative that became collective members of these
parties and supported them with financial aid. Creation of parties as well as public movements takes place during conferences
or constituent assemblies. Oral statements about appearance of new
public-political organization are not recognized to be valid. 
The
first party in England, 1861
There is no common point of view concerning the notion of political party. It is caused by the difficulty and multifold character of a party as an object of investigation with different approaches to the solving of this problem and different traditions of national political schools. But it is possible to define common features that are characteristic of a party. Freewill union is one of the most important ones. Every party has its ideology, political platform, organizational structure, certain methods and means of activity, social basis, electorate. Reach of political power in state and realization of its program tasks - economical, political, ideological-theoretical, moral - with the help of legislative, executive and juridical branches of power is the basic aim of any political party activity, program aims are embodied in life by means of ideological-political, organizational, propagandizing, state (after reach of the state power) activity developing strategy and tactics of their behavior on different historical levels of their development and in different political conditions.
Structure of political party is composed of its core — administrating bodies of the higher and lower rank, party leaders, activists, ordinary members of the party and party sympathizers. Form the organizational point of view a party is divided into party apparatus and party mass, means of communication between the apparatus and this mass, between party and political environment, between party and society. It happens very often that party system covers created by the very party youth, women, military organizations that are the means of certain party policy introduction among certain groups of population. Parties are caused by objective needs of society; they are the center of crystallization of political interests, means of control the government activity, democracy and civic society development, formation of public opinion. History testifies that parties can appear on the basis of political movement or public union of a certain group of people transforming into an organization that reaches its aim by means of political activity.
Any party is characterized by:
1. The aim of the party - to reach the power separately or in coalition with the other party.
2. Character of party organization.
3. The content of party ideology.
4. The activity of the party aimed at the ensuring of the social basis, support from of the population.
According to the definition given by Weber
parties have survived tree stages of their
development: aristocratic group, political club, mass party. Frankly speaking these stages were covered only by two English
parties - liberal and conservative ones.
The majority of the parties were formed as mass ones. The first aristocratic stage presents us a party that is a clan
grouped around the ruling class. They included the chosen members of the
closest surrounding of the ruler. The stage of political club is related to the complication of the
structure of society, appearance of pluralism and competition in political sphere. Parties acquire more
distinct organization features and
ideologically-political structure. Many bourgeois parties appeared from the
club structures. In the second part of the 19th
century mass parties appeared in Europe that were characterized by the large amount of their members,
better organization and considerable
influence on the masses. Liberal society of electorate registration was the first mass party (formed in 1861).
It is possible to distinguish the following basic stages of party development:
1. Origin of new party in the depths of old state, legislative and political system as a respond for the aggravation of contradictions in society.
2. Struggle of the party for power: search of means, forms, methods, forces able to destabilize and discredit state form and ruling party; defeat or victory of all the social powers that support the program of the party.
3. Construction of new state and legislative mechanism: conduction of personnel policy that will answer the interests of the ruling party; determining g of its role in the state mechanism.
4. Formation of material-technical basis for party activity and financialsources of its existence.
5. Methodical development of the basic ways of party development with the simultaneous development of its organizational structure, forms, methods of work with the aim of prevention of aggregation of contradictions.
Modern political parties are characterized by complicated structure. The following elements can be detected in modern parties: party leaders,
The leader of the Finnish party
party apparatus, party ideologists, ordinary party members. Party electorate, sympathizers and sponsors also play a very important role.
To the features of political parties belong:
1. Certain duration in time.
2. Organization structure.
3. Striving for power.
4. Search of public support.
The discordant essence of present day parties is obvious more and more. Clemenceau said that parties present good and evil at the same time. Good - because they are public force in the struggle for progress, evil - because that acquire features of the church with its hierarchy and discipline, and some organizations can restrict possibilities of talented people that are forced to descent to the general average level. Mikhelson expressed the idea that a party being created as means of reaching of certain social aim very quickly acquire features of the aim: it starts to take care only of its welfare and success during the election campaign.
Under the modern conditions political parties become the basic element of democracy, motive power of processes of transformations. They are the basic power that forms institutions of political choice, defining democratic legality of the power. In democratic societies political parties play the role of a link between the electorate, its interests and state institutions. They perform function of channels of political interaction between different elements of civic society and lawful state. Political parties and social movements played great role in the process of the shift from authoritarian to post-communist society after 1989 in the countries of the central and Eastern Europe.
2. Functions of political parties.
Political parties have a considerable influence on the activity of the state power bodies, economics, social processes, relations between countries.
Margaret Thatcher was a member of the Conservative Party in England
They are the basic institutions of modern society that can not be separated from the idea of functioning of representative democracy that has a need in well-developed and organized parties. With the absence of such parties a threat of the appearance of authoritarian regime occurs. Democracy is secured by the active taking part ion elections as far as during the multiparty elections interests of social groups meet but not personal ambitions. Parties are inseparable part of the whole democratic system nowadays especially in parliamentary democracy as far as parliamentary activity is performed through the activity of the parties. Multiparty system is a guarantee against corruption, power speculations, means of state leaders control. Thanks to parties antagonism that is characteristic of relationships between society and the state is kept in safe measures that are necessary for social stability. Transforming the feeling of social discontent into positive political aims parties cause chaotic energy of this discontent to move along the way of constitutional struggle for the achievement of the aims by means of participation in the state governing.
The influence of political parties at the masses and reach of the power as the result of such an influence is determined by the following factors:
1.Attracting ideologies that determine aims of the development and reflect masses interests.
2. Organizational structure, mobile organization of structures that are able to fulfill given tasks.
3. Level of competence, authority of party leaders.
4. Mass character of the party and high activity of the ordinary party members Ability of practical party activity organization in the concrete historical situation.
5. Ability to reflect inevitable social problems in the slogans that are easily understood by the masses.
6. Availability of enough funds for the support of the activity of ideological- propagandizing and cultural centers of the party, for reflection of its policy by means of the mass media.
American politologist Merkle points out such basic functions of political parties:
1. Selection of party and state leaders.
2. Recruiting and socialization of new party members.
3. Development of the means of party influence on social institutions and society.
4. Settlement of inner party contradictions that occur in the process of political activity and any other inner problems.
There are four functions of political party differentiated:
1. Definition of the aim
2. Accumulation and expression of social interests.
3. Mobilization and socialization of the population in the boundaries of the system, especially during elections.
4. Recruiting of elite and government formation.
Some politologists give more features of political parties. We can point out the following:
1. Organization of the study of public opinion on certain questions that reflect interests of the nation.
2. Mobilization of the electorate around the candidates during election campaign.
3. Development of public opinion.
4. Provision of constant political relationships between parliament and the country.
5. Formation of mechanism of state and public government.
6. Creation the most favorable conditions for a consequent change of the bodies of the government in the conditions of two-party or multi-party system, etc.
We should define the functions that characterize party relationships with the class, social group, society; functions related to political system of society and certain institutions; functions related to inner problems, problems of organization and conduction the inner life of a party.
Function of representation of interests belongs to the first two groups. It concludes in providing the victory during the election campaign. Parties have to accumulate general class, common to mankind and specific interests of different fractions with the aim of strengthening of social basis and stability of political system and realization of mentioned interests by using the power of state bodies and public organizations by inspective bodies.
Function of social integrity (introduction into political system, conciliation with the existing rule, social conformity of a separate personality, conciliation of the interests of conflicting classes or social groups) is rather important one. The basic task of this function is to settle social contradictions, do not let conflicts to develop to the point of exposure of the whole social system.
Ideas Shevchenko of an independent state on united Ukrainian society
Function of political socialization reflects the relation between a party and social unions. Party activity in political socialization is a constituent part of a wider ideological activity of the party. That's why the function of political socialization is often viewed in the context of ideological function.
Modern western partology gives us no ideological function of the party. It is grounded by that fact that western political parties are very far from ideology. It is proved by the fact that they do not have any program and political dogmas, they have no statute with any demands to the party members or duties. It is necessary to vote for a party candidate to be a member of a party in some countries. But even with no ideological program concrete political activity of a party has ideological character because a party acts as initiator and creator of a row of theoretical concepts and doctrines that are later followed by the state bodies, presidents, governments.
Doctrines of general welfare, social and political pluralism, concept of common market, neo-conservatism, etc. were created in different countries in different times. Ideological activity of parties is distinctly seen in propagandizing activity: in speeches of party leaders, development and spread of different party documents, manifests, declarations, etc.
The function of the reach of the power is the aim of activity of the majority of the parties. It is practically realized winning the elections and in formation of the government.
Function of political recruiting is also of great importance. It includes selection nomination of staff for the party and for other organizations that form political system. It also includes nomination of the candidates to representative bodies and executive branch of power.
Function of the development of policy and fulfillment of political course. The efficiency of this function depends on the place of a certain party in political system. There are also functions of informing the citizens of the affairs of different fields of social life, function of achievement of political concordance, etc. Taking into consideration characteristics of party functions we can define the subject of their activity. Basic types of party activity are:
1. Study of the mechanisms of appearance and settlement of discordance of social relationships.
2. Development of the system of collective argumentation, discussion and adoption of resolutions.
3. Development of the system of selection and preparing the future party members, their instruction.
4. Creation of national informational net and national informational data bank about existing problems and methods of their settlement.
3. Types of political parties.
Political parties are different from each other by the origin, place and role in political system, social base, ideology, program, etc. according to V. Shpylyuk there are eight parameters that create party paradigm. They are:
1. Institualisation, i.e. the range of penetration of the party into political system. It is determined by many factors, for instance by the duration of its existence, change of its name, violation of organizational continuity.
2. Status in the government. This parameter deals with the management or participation in the government. National aspect s of great importance because the level of regional representation influences its government status and affects the support of the people during elections.
3. Social support. It is important for the party to be supported by social
classes, groups, religious movements, ethnical
and religious communities, city and country
population, separate citizens.
Public reception party
4. Political orientations of the party, for instance concerning productive means property, role of state in planning economy, division of social values, social insurance of citizens, secularization of society, participation in different blocks, national integration, attitude towards elective, civil rights, etc.
5. Aim orientation reveals whether the rivalry of the parties is open or closed, whether the party activity is aimed at termination of existing system or its modernization.
6. Structural independence. In other words the level of autonomy, supplies, sources of party leaders and party members, relations with other parties including foreign parties.
7. Inner organization, in other words the level of structure, intensity of certain relationships, regional representation of party organizations, frequency of meetings, intensity of propaganda, level of control of inner party groups, power centralization.
8. Solidarity of party fractions, activity of party members, exactingness towards its members, devotion to the party doctrine, personal devotion to the party.
French politologist Duverger points out parties of parliamentary and non-parliamentary origin. The reach of a place in political ensembles is a sense of life for parliamentary parties. Non-parliamentary parties, first of all such as social-democratic and communist parties, are characterized by centralism, doctrine-program unity and to Duverger's mind they do not pay proper attention to parliamentary form of state government.
American politologist Mardikis divides parties into authoritarian and democratic, integrative and representative, ideological and pragmatic, national and regional, religious and secular, mass and elite, democratic and oligarchic.
Duverger in his work "Political Parties" proposed the division of parties into staff and mass ones. Mass parties unite a great amount of members that are organized in primary structures. There is a constant contact between them. Membership fees are the basic source of finances. The basic aim of these parties has ideological or educational character. They take an active part in elections. Professional politicians are managing such parties.
Staff parties are not numerous. They are characterized by amorphous membership, they have no procedure of joining the party, no definite status of party members. Staff parties base their activity on professional politicians. They act mainly during election campaigns and not through the mass of their members but through the group of professional and social activists, adherents, sponsors. They are characterized by organizational fragility. Such parties revive during and before the elections. Government of a staff party is done by few professional politicians.
According to Duverger, a staff party is a group of famous people that prepare elections, hold campaigns, keep contacts with candidates. Finances of such parties consist of donations of big monopolies and separate persons. M. Duverger considers democratic and republican party in USA to be staff parties and communistic party a mass one.At the end of the 60's one more party was added by American politologists to the typology proposed by Duverger, the party of electorate. This parties aim first of all to gain electorate. They want to group the largest quantity of electorate of different social groups to secure their victory during election campaign.
The other typology of parties divides parties into representative and mobilizing. Representative part ó reflects point of view of its adherents. With the change of their points of view changes the policy of the party mobilizing party aims at transformation of the consciousness of population. Basic stress of their activity is made on propaganda. Mobilizing parties are believed to be less democratic then representative ones.
Parties can also be divided into democratic and totalitarian. There is a strict regulation of membership relationships in totalitarian parties. Democratic parties do not have a strict procedure of joining them and there are no membership relationships. There is a strict discipline, no fractions, no majority and minority division in totalitarian parties. Democratic parties suppose fractions, fraction struggle, majority and minority division, different points of view on debatable questions.
Ideological factor is rather important in the activity of totalitarian parties, but it has secondary importance in the activity of democratic parties. Democratic parties are characterized as constitutional and totalitarian as anti-constitutional. Democratic party makes a constitution to serve the people and totalitarian subordinates the state.
The right to vote characteristic of democratic ideology
Democratic parties are called pluralistic, because they compete with the other parties and totalitarian are called monopolistic ones, because they want to eliminate other parties. When they come to power they try to subordinate all the classes and layers of society.
According to functional criteria parties can be divided into parties of individual representation and parties of social integration. Party of individual representation is characteristic of the society with limited political sphere and limited form of participation. Activity of its members is restricted by voting. Party organization doesn't act in the between election period. Its basic function is to select representatives that enjoy free mandate and are responsible only to their consciousness. Parties of social integration do not suppose constant membership with membership fees and pretend to influence all the spheres of everyday life of individuals. Parties are divided by inner organization into open and closed. Closed parties have strict conditions of membership.
Confessional parties and movements occupy special place in party typology. They ground on religious-political doctrines of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. there are also political groups and organizations that follow different versions of anarchists ideology or ideas of monarchy.
4. Party systems.
There are several classifications of political parties that are done on the basis of different features.
1. According to the class belonging - bourgeois, peasant, labor (including communist), socialistic and social-democratic parties. Certain layers of intelligentsia belong to the certain type.
2. According to the attitude towards social progress - radical (including revolutionary), reformist, conservative, reactionary, counter-revolutionary parties.
3. According to the attitude towards the power - ruling, opposition, neutral or centrist parties (relatively, because there are actually no parties that follow neutral position towards the power).
4. According to the forms and methods of rule - liberal, democratic, dictator parties.
5. According to the principles of organization and membership – staff and mass parties.
6. According to the place in the system of power - legal and illegal parties.
7. According to the ideological bias — communistic, socialistic, fascist, neo-fascist, liberal-democratic, nationalistic, anarchic, etc. parties.
8. According to the denomination - Christian, Muslim, etc. parties. Political parties in Ukraine can be differentiated according to the following
features: attitude towards the state sovereignty, social-economical priorities, ideological-political haracteristics, etc. According to the ideological-political feature there can be singled out national-radical, national-democratic, general democratic, socialistically directed, parties of national minorities. There are different party system in the modern world. Their formation is determined by certain factors. Every party system reflects class structure of society. Every country has its own party system. American politologist L. Etstein names multiparty system with one dominating party, modified one-party system, system "two plus one party", extreme multiparty system and stable multiparty system. To his mind Mexico is characterized by multiparty system with one dominating party, modified one-party system exists in the USA, "two plus one" system exists in Great Britain, Canada, Austria. Extreme multiparty system is a characteristic feature of political life of France. Italian politologist Sartori points out seven types of party system sin the modern world:
1. One-party system (former Soviet Union, Albania, Cuba, Mongol, Zaire, Togo).
2. With hegemon party (Mexico).
3. With dominating party (India,
Japan).
4. Two-party system (USA, Great Britain, Canada).
5. Party system of reasonable pluralism (Belgium, Germany).
6. Of ultra-pluralism (Italy, Netherlands, Finland).
7. Atomized (Malaysia).
One-party system is characteristic of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, when all the governing is done by one party. It is also characterized by constitutional ratification of its dominant position, extending of party and state apparatus, ban on other parties.
Party system with the hegemon party is characterized by inert status of one party in conditions of absence of real party competition.. Other parties enjoy organizational autonomy but recognize the dominant role of the governing party.
Party system with dominating party supposes existence of several parties, one of which constantly wins elections for a considerable period of time and forms government.
Two-party system is characterized by domination of two powerful parties. One of them is at the power and the other in opposition. Classical examples of this party system are republican and democratic parties in the USA, conservative and labor parties in Great Britain.
Party system of reasonable pluralism is the most widely spread party system. It is characterized by the existence of tree or five parties none of which can form coalition independently and are to compromise to form government according to the quantity of mandates.
Polarized party system is a rather spread one. More than six parties struggle for power. As a rule they create blocks or coalitions during the election campaign.
Atomized party system is characterized by a large quantity of parties with a low level of influence and membership. This system exists mainly in societies that are on their way to democracy. Government, as a rule, is formed on proportional basis. In the conditions of stabilization of democracy it has a tendency to transform into consolidated and powerful system of reasonable pluralism.
It is necessary to mention that elective system influences the formation of party system in any country. French scientist Duverger formulated "three sociological laws" that are related to this problem.
1. Proportional elective system leads to the party system with a large quantity of parties that have strict inner structure and are independent from one another.
2. Majority two-tour elective system causes the appearance of party system with several parties that have flexible positions and long for reciprocal contacts and compromises.
3. Majority one-tour elective system inevitably causes party system that is characterized by the struggle of two parties.
Political parties play a rather important part in the elections to the higher and local state bodies. As usual candidates are the representatives of political parties. Parties that gained deputy mandates during elections have a considerable influence on the formation of central and local state bodies. The range of real participation of the parties in the state affairs depends on the party system that exists in the country -multiparty, two-party or one-party.
The level of political party representation in the legislative body of the state power is a criterion of recognition of its political authority in the society.
Parliamentary struggle of political parties reflects the ratio of political forces in it. Efficiency of the parliamentary mechanism activity increases as the result of union of deputies into parliamentary party groups, clubs, fractions, etc.
Political party shall be a registered according to the law voluntary association of citizens – supporters of some state program of public development – that aims at promotion of formation and expression of political will of citizens and participates in elections and other political measures.
Only political parties that have all-Ukrainian status shall be established and operate in Ukraine. Political parties are equal before law.
The electorate
Interference of bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government or their officials in establishment and internal activity of political parties and their local branches shall be prohibited, except for cases envisaged by this Law.
Nobody shall be forced to enter a political party or be limited in the right to withdraw from it. Affiliation or non-affiliation shall not be the reason for limitation of rights and freedoms or for granting any preferences and privileges. Limitations of membership in political parties shall be set exclusively by the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine.
Political parties shall not have military formations. Activity of political party may be prohibited only by the decision of court. In the first instance the case on prohibition of political party shall be considered by the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
A citizen of Ukraine may be a member of only one political party. A member of political party may be only the citizen of Ukraine who according to the Constitution of Ukraine has the right to vote at elections.
Members of political parties shall not be:
1) judges
;
2) personnel of prosecutor’s office;
3) personnel of bodies of internal affairs;
4) personnel of the Security Service of Ukraine;
5) military men
:
6) officials of the state tax service.
While holding the above posts or doing service members of political party shall stop their membership in it.
The form of political party membership fixing shall be defined by the statute of political party. Political parties shall have the program. The program of political party shall state its goals and tasks, as well as ways of their achievement.
The name of political party, its symbols shall not coincide with the name or symbols of other (registered) political party. Political party shall not literally reproduce state symbols of Ukraine, or use symbols of foreign states in its own symbols.
Decision about establishment of a political party shall be adopted at its constituent congress (conference, meeting). This decision shall be supported by the signatures of not less than ten thousand of the Ukrainian citizens collected in not less than two thirds of districts of not less than two thirds of oblasts of Ukraine, cities Kyiv and Sevastopol and in not less than two thirds of districts of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Political party shall carry out it activity only after its registration. Activity of non-registered political parties shall not be permitted. Political parties shall be registered by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
Political parties shall be entitled to:
1) freely carry out their activity within the limits envisaged by the Constitution of Ukraine, this Law and other laws of Ukraine;
2) participate in elections of the President of Ukraine, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, other bodies of state power, bodies of local self-government and their officials according to the procedure set by the respective laws of Ukraine;
3) use state mass media, as well as establish own mass media as envisaged by the respective laws of Ukraine;
4) maintain international relations with political parties, public organizations of other states, international and interstate organizations, establish (enter) international unions adhering to requirements of this Law;
5) ideologically, organizationally and materially support youth, women and other civic associations, assist to their establishment.
Political parties shall be non-profit organizations. In order to perform their statutory tasks political parties shall be entitled to have their own real estate and movable property, money, equipment, transport, other devices which are not prohibited by the laws of Ukraine. Political parties may rent necessary movable property and real estate.
Political parties shall not be financed by:
1) bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government, except for the cases stipulated by law;
2) state and communal enterprises, institutions and organizations, as well as enterprises, institutions and organizations which have state, communal, or non-resident-owned shares (pais) in their property;
3) foreign states and their citizens, enterprises, institutions and organizations;
4) charity and religious associations and organizations;
5) anonymous entities or under the pseudonym;
6) political parties which do not compose election bloc of political parties.
The bank establishment shall inform the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine about receipt to the account of a political party of money prohibited by the present Law.
The state control over activity of political parties shall be performed by:
1) the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine – over adherence by apolitical party to the requirements of the Constitution and the Laws of Ukraine, as well as to its statute;
2) the Central Election Commission and district election commissions – over observation by a political party of the procedure for participation in the election process.
THE LAW OF UKRAINE ON PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS
The right of citizens on freedom of
association is an inalienable human right, set forth in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and is guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of
Ukraine. The State assists in the development of political and public
involvement, creative initiative of citizens and provides equal opportunities
for their associations` activity.
Founder
of the women's movement in Ukraine Kobrynska
CHAPTER I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
ARTICLE 1. Public AssociationsA public association is a voluntary public amalgamation, formed on the basis of unity of interests with the purpose of realization by citizens of their mutual rights and freedoms.A public association, regardless of its title (movement, congress, association, foundation, union etc.), is recognized by this Law as a political party or public organization.This Law does not extend its force over religious, cooperative organizations, profit public associations, commercial foundations, bodies of local and regional self-government (including councils and committees of micro-rayons, house, street, block, village, settlement committees), bodies of public self-organization (people`s militia, comrades` courts etc.,), other public associations, whose procedure of establishment and activity is determined by the appropriate laws.Peculiarities of legal regulation of trade unions` activity are determined by the Law of Ukraine on Trade Unions.
ARTICLE 2. A Political PartyA political party is a public association of citizens who support a certain all-national program of public development, consider participation in development of state policy, forming of bodies of power, local and regional self-government and representation in their membership as their main goal.
ARTICLE 3. A Public OrganizationA public organization is a public association of citizens established with the purpose of satisfaction and protection of their legal social, economic, creative, age, national and cultural, sport and other mutual interests.
ARTICLE 4. Restrictions regarding establishment and activity of public associationsPublic associations whose goals are:
· changing of the constitutional system by violence and of the territorial integrity of the state by any illegal means;
· undermining of the state security in the form of activity to the advantage of foreign states;
· propaganda of war, violence or brutality, fascism and neo-faschism;
· initiation of national or religious intolerance;
· creation of illegal military units;
· restriction of generally acknowledged human rights may not be subject of legalization, and activity of such legalized public associations must be judicially banned.Establishment and activity of political parties, of which leading bodies or structural branches are situated outside Ukraine, as well as any structural branches of political parties in bodies of executive and judicial power, Armed Forces, National Guard and Frontier Troops, within state enterprises, state institutions and organizations, state education institutions is prohibited.
ARTICLE5.LegislationRegardingPublic AssociationsLegislation on Public Associations consists of the Constitution of Ukraine, this Law and other legislative acts, adopted in accordance with this Law.
CHAPTER II. PRINCIPLES OF ACTIVITY AND STATUS OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS
ARTICLE 6. Principles of Establishment and Activity of Public AssociationsPublic associations are established and act on a voluntary basis and on the principles of its members` (participants`) equality, self-government, legality and openness. They are free in the choice of their activity`s directions.Restrictions regarding activity of public associations may be established only by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.All main issues of public associations` activity have to be resolved at all its members` or members representatives` meetings.A public association is required to regularly publish its main documents, membership of its leading body, information about sources of funding and expenditures.
ARTICLE 7. Prohibition of Restriction of Human Rights and Freedoms with Regard to Their Membership or Non-Membership in Public AssociationsNo one may be forced to join any public association. Membership or non-membership in a public association may not be a reason for restriction of human rights and freedoms or for privileges or advantages provided by the State.Requirements regarding notification in official documents of membership (participation) in one or another public association is not permitted.Refusal to grant membership or expulsion from a political party due to gender or nationality is prohibited. Restrictions regarding membership in political parties for certain categories of citizens shall be set forth in the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.Staff members of public associations enjoy provisions of legislation on labor, social security and social insurance.
ARTICLE 8. The State and Public AssociationsThe State respects the rights and legal interests of public associations legalized in the order set forth in this Law.Interference of state bodies and officials in the activity of public associations, as well as interference of public associations in the activity of state bodies, officials, and other public associations is not permitted except for those cases stipulated by law.The Verkhovna Rada shall establish privileges regarding taxation of certain types of economic or other commercial activity of public associations, institutions and organizations formed by them, enterprises established by them; maximum amounts of particular and common annual contributions in support of political parties; approve the lists of public organizations, which shall enjoy state material support.
ARTICLE 9. Status of Public AssociationsPublic associations shall be established and act having either all-Ukrainian, local or international status.An association is considered to be an all-Ukrainian association if its activity is extended throughout the entire territory of Ukraine and if it has local branches in majority of oblasts of Ukraine.An association is considered to be a local association if its activity is extended over the territory of the appropriate administrative-territorial unit or region. A public association should establish the territory of its activity independently.A public organization is considered to be international if its activity is extended over the territory of Ukraine and of at least one other state.Political parties in Ukraine shall be established and act having only all-Ukrainian status.
ARTICLE 10. Public Associations` UnionsPublic associations have the right to establish or conclude unions (associations etc.), form blocs and coalitions, enter into agreements regarding cooperation and mutual assistance on a voluntary basis.Establishment and legalization of public associations` unions, order of their activity and liquidation shall be performed according to this Law.
CHAPTER III. THE ORDER OF ESTABLISHMENT AND TERMINATION OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS` ACTIVITY
ARTICLE 11. Founders of Public AssociationsPolitical parties shall be established upon the initiative of Ukrainian citizens no less than 18 years of age, who are not restricted in their legal competency and are not being held in a jail.Citizens of Ukraine, citizens of other countries, people without citizenship at least 18 years of age may be founders of public associations; people at least 15 years of age may be founders of youth and children associations.A decision on establishment of a public association shall be adopted by a Constituent Congress (Conference) or by a General Meeting.Public associations shall be founders of unions of public associations.
ARTICLE 12. Membership in Public Associations Citizens
of Ukraine at least 18 years of age may be members of political parties 
.
People at least 14 years of age may be members of all public organizations except for youth and children organizations. Sufficient age of members of youth and children organization shall be determined in their statutes.Public organizations may not have a fixed membership of individuals.Collective members may take part in activity of public organizations in events, foreseen by their statutes.
ARTICLE 13. Statute (Regulations) of Public AssociationsA public association shall act on a basis of its statute.The Statute of a public association should include the following:1) original title of the public association, its status and legal address;2) goal and task of the public association;3) conditions and order of granting membership in the public association and retirement;4) rights and duties of members (participants) of the public association;5) order of establishment and activity of statute bodies of the public association, local branches and their powers;6) sources and procedure of usage of funds and other property of the public association, the procedure of reporting, control, performing of economic and other commercial activity, necessary for fulfillment of goals prescribed in the statute;7) procedure of amending and changing of the public association`s statute;8) procedure of termination of the public association`s activity and resolving the property issues appearing due to its liquidation.Other provisions which may concern peculiarities of establishment and activity of the public association may be stipulated in the statute.A public association`s statute may not contradict the laws of Ukraine
ARTICLE 14. Registration of Public AssociationsRegistration (official recognition) of public associations shall be made by means of their registration or report regarding its establishment.In the event of registration, the public association obtains the status of a legal entity.Political parties and international public associations are subjects of obligatory registration by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.Registration of a public association shall be made respectively by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, local bodies of the state executive power, executive committees of village, settlement and city radas of people`s deputies.In the event activity of a local public association extends on the territory of two or more administrative-territorial units, its registration shall be made by the appropriate higher body whose territory of authority encompasses the sphere of activity of the public association.Local branches of registered all-Ukrainian and international public associations are the subject of obligatory registration by the local bodies of the state executive power, executive committee of village, settlement, city rada of people`s deputies, if such registration is stipulated in the statute documents of these associations.
ARTICLE 15. Registration Procedures of Public AssociationsIn order to register a public association its founders shall submit an application. The application on registration of a public association must be supported by signatures of no less than one thousand Ukrainian citizens who have the right to vote.The following documents should be attached to the application: statute (regulations), minutes of the Constituent Congress (Conference) or General Meeting, information about personnel of the leading bodies determined in the statute, information about local branches, documents confirming the payment of a registration fee. A political party should also attach their program documents.An application on registration is to be considered within two months from the date of the receipt of the appropriate documents. If necessary, a body which is supposed to conduct registration shall check the information included into the submitted documents. The applicant shall be informed in written form about the decision on registration or refusal to register within 10 days.Representatives of a public association may be present during the consideration of the issue of registration.A public association shall inform the registering body about changes in the statutory documents within 5 days.Re-registration of a public association shall be made according to this Law.Bodies, which perform registration of public associations shall keep and properly update the list of registered public associations.The amount of the registration fee shall be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
ARTICLE 16. Refusal to RegisterIf the statutory documents of a public association or other documents submitted for registration contradict Ukrainian law, such public association may be denied registration.A decision to deny registration must include the basis for such refusal. This decision may be appealed to the courts.
ARTICLE 17. A Report on EstablishmentPublic associations and their unions may legalize their establishment by means of a written report to, respectively, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, local bodies of state executive power, executive committees of village, settlement, city radas of people`s deputies.ARTICLE 18. Symbols of Public AssociationsPublic associations may use their own symbols.Symbols of a public association shall be approved according to its statute.Symbols of a public association must not resemble state or religious symbols.Symbols of a public association are the subject of state registration in the order, determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
ARTICLE 19. Termination of a Public Association`s ActivityTermination of a public association`s activity may be executed my means of its reorganization or liquidation (self-dissolution, forced dissolution).Reorganization of a public association shall be executed according to its statute. Registration of a new public association shall be conducted in the order established by this Law.Liquidation of a public association shall be performed on the basis of the statute or a court decision.
CHAPTER IV. RIGHTS OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS, ECONOMIC AND OTHER COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY
ARTICLE 20. Rights of Registered Public AssociationsTo accomplish goals and tasks determined in statutory documents, public associations enjoy the following rights:
· to take part in civil legal relations, acquire property and non-property rights;
· to represent and protect its legal interests and legal interests of its members (participants) in state and public bodies;
· to take part in the political activity, conduct public measures (meetings, gatherings, demonstration etc.);
The
meeting of party members
· ideologically, organizationally and materially support other public associations, provide assistant in their establishment;
· to establish institutions and organizations;
· to receive from bodies of state power and administration, as well as from bodies of local self-government, information which is necessary for achievement of their goals and tasks;
· to submit proposals to state bodies of power and administration;
· to spread information and propagandize its ideas and goals;
· to establish means of mass media. Public associations have the right to establish enterprises, necessary for accomplishment of statutory goals.In addition, in the order determined by law, political parties have the following rights:
· to participate in the development of state policy;
· to participate in the formation of bodies of power, representation therein;
· to access to the state mass-media during electoral campaigns. Public associations enjoy other rights set forth by law of Ukraine.
ARTICLE 21. Property of Public AssociationsA public association may hold in ownership funds and other properties necessary for fulfillment of its statutory activity.A public association obtains the right of ownership of funds and other property transmitted to it by its founders, members (participants) or the State, received through internship and member fees, contributions by citizens, enterprises, institutions and organizations as well as the property acquired at the expense of its own funds or on other bases which are not prohibited by law.Political parties also have rights acquired as the result of selling public and political literature, other materials of agitation and propaganda, articles with their own symbols, the conduct of festivals, holidays, exhibitions, lectures and other political measures.Public organizations have also the right to property and funds, acquired as the result of economic and other commercial activity of institutions and organizations created on a self-supporting basis, enterprises established by them.Funds and other property of public associations, including those which are being liquidated, may not be distributed among their members and shall be used only for the purposes of fulfillment of the statutory tasks or for the purposes of charity; in events foreseen by legislative acts, they shall be transferred to the state benefit by a court decision.
ARTICLE 22. Restrictions Regarding Receiving of Funds and Other Property by Political Parties, Their Institutions and OrganizationsPolitical parties, their institutions and organizations may not receive funds or other property, either directly or indirectly, from:
· foreign states and organizations, international organizations, foreign citizens and persons without citizenship;
· state bodies, state enterprises, institutions and organizations except for cases determined in the law of Ukraine;
· enterprises, established on the basis of mixed form of property, if the state`s or a foreign participants` share exceeds 20 per cent;
· non-registered public associations;
· anonymous contributors. Political parties do not have the right to receive revenues from shares and other stocks, and may not have accounts in foreign banks and keep valuables in them. Political parties are required to publish their budgets on an annual basis for public review.
ARTICLE 23. Exercising Property RightsProperty rights of public associations shall be exercised by their highest bodies of administration (general meetings, conferences, congresses, etc.) in the order stipulated by the laws of Ukraine and statutory documents.Certain functions regarding the administration of property may be placed by the highest statutory bodies of administration on bodies or local branches established by them, or may be transferred to unions of public associations.
ARTICLE 24. Economic and Other Commercial ActivityWith the aim to approach statutory tasks and goals, registered public associations may perform appropriate economic and other commercial activity by means of establishment of institutions and organizations on a self-supporting basis having the status of legal entities, establishment of enterprises in the order determined by law.Political parties, institutions and organizations established by them do not have the right to establish enterprises except for mass-media, and perform economic and other commercial activity except for selling public and political literature, other materials of agitation and propaganda, articles with their own symbols, the conduct of festivals, holidays, exhibitions, lectures and other public and political measures.Public associations, institutions and organizations established by them are required to perform current calculations and accounting, statistical reporting, undergo registration in the institutions of the state tax inspection and pay budget contributions in the order and amount stipulated by law.
CHAPTER V. OVERSIGHT AND CONTROL OVER THE ACTIVIT YOF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR VIOLATING THE LAW
ARTICLE 25. State Oversight and Control over the Activity of Public AssociationsState control over the activity of public associations shall be performed by state bodies in the order set forth by the laws of Ukraine.Bodies which conduct registration of public associations shall perform control over their adherence to the statutory provisions. Representatives of these organizations have the right to be present at measures conducted by public associations, require necessary documents, receive proper explanations.Oversight of fulfillment of and adherence to legal requirements by public associations shall be performed by the bodies of the Prosecutor`s office.Control over sources and the amount of contributions to, and tax payment by public associations shall be performed by the appropriate financial bodies and bodies of the state tax inspection.
ARTICLE 26. The Order of Performing Financial ControlPublic associations shall submit to financial bodies declarations regarding their contributions and expenditures in the determined order.Lists of entities whose contributions to political parties exceed the amount determined by the Verkhovna Rada shall be published in the newspaper "Holos Ukrayiny" (The Voice of Ukraine) on an annual basis and on the basis of financial declarations.A special commission of the Verkhovna Rada, which consists of deputies - representatives of all political parties having representation in the Verkhovna Rada, shall consider their financial activity during the last year and shall report on its findings at a plenary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.In the event of violation of the financial restrictions, a political party shall be held accountable in accordance with the law. Illegal contributions shall be withdrawn and transferred to the State Budget; this action may not be appealed.
Constitution
of Ukraine
ARTICLE 27. Accountability for Violating the LawOfficials of the bodies which perform legalization of public associations as well as citizens hold disciplinary, civil, administrative or criminal accountability for violating the Law on Public Associations.Public associations are held accountable for the provisions set forth in this Law and in other legal acts of Ukraine.ARTICLE 28. Types of PenaltiesFor violating the law, a public association may be penalized as follows:· a notice; · a fine;
· temporary prohibition (termination) of certain types of activity;
· temporary prohibition (termination) of activity;
· forced dismissal (liquidation).
ARTICLE 29. A NoticeIn the event of committing an offense by a public association, which does not lead to inevitable usage of other kinds of penalties foreseen by this Law, the appropriate legal body shall issue a written notice.
ARTICLE 30. A FineIn the event of serious or systematic commission of offenses, upon submission by an appropriate legal body or by a procurator, a public association may be fined in accordance with a court order.
ARTICLE 31. Temporary Prohibition (Termination) of Certain Types of Activity or of Activity in its EntiretyDue to illegal activity of a public association, upon submission by an appropriate legal body or by a procurator, a court may temporarily ban certain types of activity or temporarily ban the entire activity of a public association for a term of three months.Temporary bans of certain types of a public association`s activity may be performed by prohibition to conduct public measures (meetings, gatherings, demonstrations etc.) executing of publishing activity, conduct of bank transfers, operations with material values etc.Upon submission of a legal body which has appealed to a court regarding the temporary ban of certain types of the entire activity of a public association, a court may extend this term. The entire term of a ban must not exceed six months.Upon elimination of circumstances which were reasons for a temporary ban, upon application of a public association, its activity may be restored entirely by a court.
ARTICLE 32. Forced Dismissal (Liquidation) of a Public AssociationUpon submission by a legal body or by a procurator, a public association shall be forcibly dismissed (liquidated) by a court decision in the following events:1. Commission of actions stipulated in Article 4 of this Law.2. Systematic or serious violation of the requirements of Article 22 of this Law.3. Continuation of illegal activity after penalty in accordance with this Law.4. Decrease in the membership of a public association to the extent where it may not be considered as such.A decision on forced dismissal of all-Ukrainian and international public associations on the territory of Ukraine shall be adopted by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
CHAPTER VI. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS. INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS
ARTICLE 33. International Relations of Public AssociationsPublic organizations and their unions in accordance with their statutes may establish or join international public (non-governmental) organizations, form international unions of public associations, hold direct international contacts and relations, enter into the appropriate agreements as well as take part in undertaking measures which do not contradict the international commitments of Ukraine.Political parties have the right to establish or join international unions, whose statutes provide only for establishment of consultative or coordinative central bodies.
ARTICLE 34. International Public Organizations. Branches of International Public OrganizationsInternational public organizations, branches, affiliations, representations, other structural branches of public (non-governmental) organizations of foreign states on the territory of Ukraine shall act in accordance with this Law and other legislative acts of Ukraine.A legalized public organization, which is a founder or member of an international organization or otherwise extended its activity over the territory of a foreign state, is required to submit the appropriate documents for re-registration in the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine as an international organization within a one-month term.The order of registration of affiliates and other structural branches of public organizations shall be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
5. What does a person from the United States have to say of value to colleagues in Pakistan about political consciousness? I am not entirely sure. But let me try by starting with my own initial struggles with consciousness and move to some of the lessons and questions gathered from friends and colleagues around the world.
I first got into a fight with political consciousness as a summer student in Mexico - not really understanding what it was, but feeling its consequences like an earthquake shake me to the core. For me at that time, the United States was a paragon of democracy, equality and human rights -- principles I passionately affirmed. So when my Mexican history professor told us that the US had backed a coup against Guatemala's democracy in 1954, I stood up in class and told him he was wrong. Profoundly disturbed, when I returned to my university, I spent weeks researching the case, only to find out he was right and I was wrong. That discovery led me to a life of constant questions and a career dedicated to advocacy and education on issues of peace, social justice and development.
On Consciousness and Collectivity
It is usual among Marxists to make a distinction between a consciousness which
reflects or corresponds to reality and one which does not, termed an ideology,
seen therefore as a false consciousness. In other words, it is argued that
humankind hides reality from itself. However, it takes a class form, in that
the dominant ideology is that of the ruling class, which does not want to
understand the real relationships in society, as opposed to manipulating them
in its own interest. Class consciousness for the working class is therefore the
real understanding of its position as the class which supplies the necessary
and surplus labour in the society. It therefore leads to its comprehension of
its position as the universal class that is in capitalism but not of capitalism
and so the emancipator of all society. I am defining workers as all those who
sell their labour power, unless, like managers, they also control labour power,
in which case they are in an ambiguous position. Stalinists often seemed to
argue that only those engaged in productive labour are workers but there is no
justification within Marxism for this viewpoint.
The term class, here, refers to a collectivity. Workers are not automatically a class just because they sell their labour power. The latter is the Stalinist position which simply argues that the structural position in relation to the means of production determines everything. Stalinism adopted a bastardized form of Bogdanov's proletcult so that it professed to worship the worker as working in production, while in reality subjecting workers to draconian rules and controls in their name. Marx1 makes it very clear that workers only constitute a class when they are a collectivity. The collectivity has to come into existence objectively, and the subjective consciousness of the worker itself forms and is formed by that collectivity.2 A worker will only be politically consciousness when that worker has understood the universal nature of the class mission to go beyond nation and class and emancipate all of humankind.
Transparency and Ideology: Contrast
with Feudalism and Stalinism
In earlier times, religion provided an explanation of both society and nature.
A religion which justified the status quo on the grounds that the future world
was better—'render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's' and 'it will be easier
for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel get through an eye of a needle'
had three useful features. The first was that it was eternal and apparently
beyond control, the second was that it could, none the less be altered to suit
those controlling the religion, as the status quo changed, and the third was
that those who were exploited could be rendered quiescent by the rewards to
come and the implicit contempt of the rich.
Under feudalism people project their lack of control over nature and their exploitation onto a mythical world. They reject the world in which they live in favour of a Utopian after life. Under conditions of direct dependency, physical isolation and lack of knowledge buttressed by uncertainty and change—albeit slow change—religion provides a secure point from which to understand the world. This is made all the easier by the existence of a religious bureaucracy which supports the hierarchical feudal relations of direct dependency. Social relations are religious relations. Ideology is crucial in maintaining the system.
The problem with the religious form is that it is open to anyone to understand that it is an ideology or false consciousness. Putting it another way, anyone with knowledge could understand its essential falsity, particularly as non-feudal religions remained. That is why other religions were proscribed. The 'totalitarian nature' of feudal religion was essential, as it prescribed a mode of life from above. The domination of landowners and bureaucrats needs more than a religious form, although such a religious form cements that exploitation and so helps turn that domination into a mode of production. Religion could only operate hand in hand with direct force in feudalism. Such a form required inquisitions, proscriptions, witch hunts and ghettos, particularly when it was embryonic and in dissolution. Censorship, enforcement of dogmatic ideas and limitations on relations with unbelievers were all forms of force which were essential to the maintenance of the feudal ideology. Equally, the fact that the world was changing, the means of production were developing and knowledge had gone far beyond the old ideology falsified the old religious picture.
In other words, the fact that the ideology was either manufactured or interpreted by a particular group in the society was a clear weakness in that it conflicted with the message that the doctrine was divine and eternal. The close identity of the religious bureaucracy with the feudal landlords tended to break the religious veil. Hence force had to be omnipresent to supplement religion as a means of control over the serfs.
It is noteworthy that when feudalism was in decline, a new variant of religion played a crucial role in maintaining control, even as the old religion was losing its potency. Anti-semitism, the Inquisition, the crusades and the rise of Protestantism are all testament to its decline and to its supersession.
In contrast, capitalism is unique in having a form—commodity fetishism—which directly provides the ideology for the control of the working class. Force remains in the background, used only when commodity fetishism has broken down. In other words, capitalism is not transparent, unlike feudalism. Capitalism as Marx puts it, is a system of apparent independence.3 The worker is atomised, competing to sell commodity labour power, and capital appears as an alien independent force which hires the worker's labour power for a money wage. Labour has formal equality with capital: the worker needs money to survive and gets the money by selling labour power, just as capital supplies the money to get the job done. Under feudalism and under Stalinism it is all apparently personal but under capitalism it does not appear personal. The indirectness of the dependency, the existence of the money relation, gives the worker a formal equality and a degree of real independence of the employer, impossible under feudalism or slavery.
Stalinism is another contrast in that it was transparent and hence force was absolutely critical to its stability. The absence of real money, as opposed to formal money, meant that the system returned to one of direct dependence. The atomisation was not induced by the money relation but through the system of all-pervading control.4 While not a mode of production it was an unviable system of its own kind, in which the suffocating all-embracing role of the state, and the unprecedented and unique form of atomisation, was essential to its survival. While the worker had no choice but to perceive the system of direct dependency and so the hierarchical and unequal social relations, the entire activity of the state was directed at preventing the formation of a class and class consciousness. Only as the state began to break down could workers begin to act as workers. Then, however, the Stalinists employed their one trump card: their destruction of the theory of the working class. Marxism appeared as a failed totalitarian ideology, which even if it were correct could only lead to war, famine, permanent economic shortage and general destruction. After 60 years of 'education' in so-called Marxism-Leninism, few, if any, could distinguish between Marxism, the theory of the self-emancipation of the working class, and Stalinism, the doctrine of a ruling group controlling and exploiting workers in an economy based on nationalised industry, administered by that ruling group.
Ideology under capitalism automatically flows from an immediate reading of reality. Equality before the law seems to guarantee real equality in life. Workers can only get a level of wages which allows the firm to be competitive. For that it must make an average rate of profit or more.
To sum up, only under capitalism are workers apparently free. Under feudalism and Stalinism force was open and apparent, while the former relied on ignorance and despair leading to religion, the latter used atomisation and an unprecedented and an unrepeatable degree of force, combined with the apparent destruction of an alternative. Marxists have often made this point in different ways, though they have often been shy of dealing with Stalinism. There can be no question but that workers, by hand and by brain, are freer in every sense in capitalism when compared with Stalinism, let alone feudalism. As the contemporary scene still has Stalinist-type countries—even though they are evolving—and much of the Third World has feudal legacies—even if they are capitalist—the point has particular force today.
Consciousness Under Capitalism
This difference is absolutely crucial in understanding consciousness under
capitalism. The law of value is the fundamental law of motion of capitalism.
Value transforms itself through money into self-expanding value or capital
which then becomes the overarching imperative of capitalism. The phenomenal
form of value is the commodity. Value controls, value dominates and value
possesses through the commodity. Labour power becomes a commodity and so is
subsumed into the overall value process. Labour becomes abstract labour—labour
which is subject to an inexorable process of homogenisation. The worker is
proletarianised. The ideology of commodity fetishism is the subjective side of
the objectivisation of labour. Because the workers are controlled through the
dynamic of capital accumulation, which is self-activating, they perceive the
process itself as necessary, natural and eternal.
Marx argued that ruling class ideology was dominant at any particular time, except at the time of revolution. Since the 19th century, however, we no longer have a simple ruling class ideology. The ideology of mature capitalism is commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism, however, has been sufficiently penetrated and exposed to require considerable supplements both materially and ideologically. These patches on the commodity fetishism quilt are limited and well known: nationalism, ethnic prejudice including racism and anti-semitism, and sexism. Whereas these aspects of modern ideology were crucial in destroying the 2nd International and permitting the First World War, Stalinism, in association with nationalism was critical in preventing any profound understanding of the capitalist, let alone the Stalinist, world. Commodity fetishism atomises the worker before 'eternally dominant' capital. Racism, nationalism, sexism are modes of division of workers into warring groups divided by ethnic group, region, country, gender, level of skill or other invented concept.
Until the Russian Revolution, Marxists took it for granted that the changes in objective circumstances would gradually and then ultimately trigger a change in consciousness. The socialisation of production would lead to a socialist consciousness and the process of class struggle would be crucial in that development. There might be ups and downs but the direction was clear. The very formation of value producing abstract labour meant the homogenisation and interdependence of the workers and the formation of a potential collectivity or class. The potential, however, had to become actual and this needed a change or break in the system.
This seemed to imply that the system had to break down or at least perform so badly that the workers revolted. Of course, no Marxist, who was a Marxist and not an anarchist, ever accepted the Bakuninist doctrine of the worse the better, even though illiterate anti-Marxists have often made such accusations. It is true, of course, that a catastrophist viewpoint sometimes underlies the doctrines of some simplistic left wing groups who are desperate to end the period in which they have been waiting for the working class to act, but that does not make it Marxist.
There is, in fact, a gap in the Marxist literature at this point. No one has discussed in any detail under what circumstances the workers become a class and take power. Marx argues only that all aspects of the worker must unite, public and private, in production and in consumption, at work and at home, men and women. In other words, there has to be a real objective unity combined with a subjective unity. The subjectivity of the potential class is expected to follow its objective situation, even though its consciousness would interact with its objective position helping to move one way or another. Trotsky talked first of the working class acting after a downturn followed by an upturn, as in the French Revolution. Later he changed the argument and took the view that the working class acts after several episodes of this kind, where their material position got better and then worse. He does not explain how or why they would then act.
The replacement of the capitalist class by the working class cannot take place as a simple result of a particular failure of the capitalist system, whether through war or through a depression, because socialism is a new world system and the working class must be aware of the nature of the change, and not just be disgruntled or desperate. There has to be a widespread acceptance of the concept of socialism itself both in theory and in practice. The latter implies that the population must be in the process of destroying the old forms of rule, by establishing ways of controlling the system from below. The former requires a widespread education in the nature of the capitalist system and its successor socialism.
These conditions require both that capitalism be seen as inferior to and replaceable by socialism as a result of experience over time and that the ideas of Marxism be widely understood and accepted. In turn, workers need sufficient self-confidence and hope, acquired also over a period of time, for them to see an alternative as real. Without intellectuals counteracting the dominant ideology, demolishing the excuses for the real failures of capitalism and providing a theory for change, the necessary education in the natures of capitalism and socialism will be absent.
It is crystal clear that such conditions
are totally absent at the present time. The question is why.
Why?
Marx and the earlier Marxists were correct in their view that being determines consciousness and, therefore, that while ideology is a false consciousness it is based on a distorted reality not just a distortion of that reality. Lenin argued that it was imperialism which formed 'the aristocracy of labour' and that view came to be more generally accepted as a reason why the working class in Europe became nationalist. Others went further than Lenin and pointed out that in the USA and the UK a wedge was driven between economic and political consciousness, precisely because of the imperial role of the working class of those countries. The legacy of imperialism clearly remains, even if colonialism is no longer what it was. However, the working class situation has changed rapidly over the last century given the wars, revolutions, migrations, depressions and repressions, which have made these objective influences both complex and specific to countries and regions.
The classic argument, then, is that imperialism changes the nature of the working class situation in the imperial countries in three ways. In the first instance it divides skilled workers from the rest; in the second place, material concessions strung out over time lead to the successful emergence of trade unions which help to foster an economic and apolitical consciousness; thirdly the improved more general circumstances, weaker downturns and longer upturns strengthen the economic and nationalist consciousness of the whole population.
These influences are still at work but in a new form with counter-influences. The end of colonialism and the consequent reduction of the flow of super profits from the colonies has clearly limited this form of incorporation of workers in Europe. At the same time, the flow is quite clearly continuing. The fact that some 500 billion dollars is sent illegally alone from the underdeveloped and transition countries to the developed countries each year by the local bourgeoisie and 'middle class' give some idea of part of the flow.5 Yet, even when one adds in the relatively higher payments for technology and machinery compared to raw materials etc. and other legal flows, these figures are more limited than the flow of some 10% of GDP flowing into the UK before 1914. The argument applies most strongly to the overall imperialist power—the United States—and is brought out by the well-known fact that the United States receives more for its investment overseas than investors get for their investments in the United States.6 This is allowing the United States to run its huge balance of payments deficit for longer than would otherwise have been possible.
None the less, the events in New Orleans brought out starkly (more so than even Barbara Ehrenreich's book on female working class poverty in the United Sates) that a considerable number of people in the United States live at third world levels.7 When one notes first that the number of hours worked in the United States is well above those worked in Europe; secondly, that there are considerable problems with pensions and health provision; and, thirdly, that the minimum wage is absurdly low, it is hard to speak of the whole population being better off through imperialism. Instead, observers have noted the importance of racism and layers of immigrants as well as the depressed conditions of immigrants, particularly the millions of illegal immigrants. Mutatis mutandis the same argument applies to the western European countries.
It is, however, the absence of any real class consciousness among the long-term employed workers that is the real question. In the UK there has been a long history of a national economic class consciousness and the US trade unions also reflect that aspect, however dimly. While one can argue that in the period down to 1973 or so, imperial tribute played an important role in the economy, that is less true today, as argued above and hence it is not a sufficient explanation, although it is certainly part of any such argument.
Propaganda and Divisions in the
Working Class
The usual argument for workers' absence of political commitment rests on four
points: the control of the media and education, the nature of
parliamentary-type democracy and the use of money to advertise political
parties or political candidates, consumerism and divisions among workers
themselves.
While no one can deny the importance of the first three forces, they are insufficient to explain the relative quiescence of workers today. After all, education and the media were controlled by the ruling group in the USSR and no other viewpoint was allowed. Yet, very few supported the system as became very apparent when the Soviet Union ended. Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism were all regarded with absolute contempt. When everyday life conflicts with propaganda, the latter ceases to convince. That is true of a modern capitalism in which exploitation is much less opaque than it was.
The whole nature of a two party system in which the two parties differ little and compete with one another to propose populist solutions, which inevitably turn out to be anti-worker solutions, breeds contempt for the operation with the system, while at the same time fostering despair with the alternative, usually portrayed and understood as anti-democratic and so worse. This throws the argument back to the nature of the alternative.
It will not be argued that these approaches are so much wrong as looking at a secondary aspect of reality. They play a role but only because there are forces even more powerful as implied above. Commodities govern our lives and the commoditisation of labour power inevitably permits an ideology which contrasts that commoditisation with the pursuit of a commoditised leisure. Whereas Marx counterposed a society in which work becomes humankind's prime want, modern welfare capitalism poses the question of unlimited leisure time in which shopping, holidays, sport and the beach beckon. Social democratic parties prefer to accept the demands implicit in such a consciousness and so join with their slightly more conservative political opponents. Given that this is the governing viewpoint, it may not be surprising that modern west European young workers should turn to hedonism as the only realism.
There are two questions posed by this hedonistic, or consumerist, attitude. One is how to deal with it on a simple everyday basis. The other is to explain its nature, and its limits. Works like that of Naomi Klein do a good job in exposing the subjection of ordinary people to the superficiality of everyday capitalism.8 The upsurge in activity around globalisation, Third World debt and global control through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank shows how the suffering of the majority of the people of the world necessarily preys on the conscience of those who are themselves hedonistic. The immediate pleasure of the one stands starkly opposed to the urgent distress of the other. There are obvious and inherent limits of this stage of modern consciousness, but they have yet to be theorised.
The question, however, is when this social conscience will go beyond demonstrations to the realisation that the struggle for a new society is long and hard and indeed the only real solution. When will the demonstrators listen to those of their number who argue that it is only the strength, power and dynamic of the working class that can change society? However, the demonstrations themselves and the more general societal disapproval of hedonism show that the shift to consumerism, mass drug taking etc. is itself something that young workers, youth in general and the bored 'middle class' adopt through lack of any alternative. Parents, the supposedly older and wiser stalwarts of society are cynical and contemptuous of all political and economic institutions, even as they uphold them. In earlier times, a century ago, students, peasants and workers turned to the left as a whole in not a few countries. In the 1970s, there was a similar rise in youth militancy, but it was not as extensive as earlier. In reality, the hedonistic attitudes are the obverse side of a real despair in the whole of modern society. And it is the despair that has to be explained.
This links to a more general question on the formation of the class itself, of which class consciousness is a part, raised earlier. The objective conditions for that collectivity have also to exist. It is the lack of these that have also furnished reasons for the absence of a working class political consciousness today. Today, however, we may point to five major economic forms of division. There is the difference between the positions of workers in the imperialist countries and the Third World, that between skilled and unskilled workers, between white collar workers and blue collar workers, between one sector and another, between the employed and unemployed and finally between the exploited and superexploited workers, usually on the basis of racism. There are, of course, many other differences, such as those based on ethnic and gender divisions, but they have usually coincided, at least partially, with economic divisions such as sectoral differences, where for instance women have worse conditions and are worse paid. Historically, various socialists and anti-socialists have stressed one or more of these divisions to downplay the role of the workers as a class. Eduard Bernstein pointed to the growth of a 'middle class', who are essentially white collar workers, feminists have argued for a separate women's struggle, anarchists have supported the marginalised and unemployed, etc. No one can deny that these divisions have played an important role in preventing the class coming into existence, most particularly when these divisions were made to coincide with ethnic or religious divisions.
Nevertheless, it is in the nature of capital itself that it needs a homogeneous and flexible workforce and such divisions are costly and inefficient. As a result they are only allowed to play a role, for any length of time, when capitalism itself is threatened. At other times, the process of the formation of abstract labour continues its inexorable process. Today the particular contemporary form of that process is given terms such as globalisation and neo-liberalism. A particular example in that process is shown by the present way in which the whole work force in the universities in the UK are being put into one giant scale from janitor through professors to the administrators. Professionals, such as lawyers, teachers, academics, doctors, are all being subjected to a process of proletarianisation.
In other words, far from the working class being at an end, it has never been so all-embracing as today. To the extent that these divisions are lessening, so too the formation of the class becomes easier.
None the less, there is no question that nationalism and various other ethnic 'isms' have been crucial in preventing class solidarity or class action in the past two decades.
The preceding discussion outlines the reasons why workers are in a position to form a class. In short, the dominant ideology—commodity fetishism—is permeable and socialisation and so proletarianisation is continuing. There has to be another force or forces that prevent the class coming into being and reference has already been made to the real despair which, in the author's view, is felt the world over.
Present-day Reality: Reasons for
Being Non-political
In the first place, the bourgeoisie has learned how to make real concessions,
even if they were often temporary, but secondly also to slander and libel their
opponents. Bourgeois political parties routinely lie, using euphemisms for
their Machiavellian practices. The whole educational and intellectual apparatus
of the bourgeois state uses every trick in the book to avoid telling the truth
about the past and present. At a time when the US government is openly using
torture, university authors continue to churn out books berating Lenin and
Trotsky for actions they either never committed or never condoned. The fact
that they and the Bolsheviks were people who had selflessly devoted their lives
to changing society for the better, without reward but much suffering, is
turned into its opposite. (The question of Stalinism is discussed below, and is
fundamental but not the issue here.) The point made here is that any attempt at
overthrowing or even protesting against capitalism is so distorted that the
working class cannot know its own history.
There is also a major problem arising out of the social democratic concessions made by the system to the workers. Instead of conceding real power to workers, the ruling class gave, inter alia, a limited degree of control to trade unions. This included for a time some control over the workplace, as well as the right to be consulted over hiring and firing. Nationalised industries tended to protect workers. The effect in social democracy was to dichotomise workers between their lives as producers and their lives as consumers, as goods were then generally more expensive, scarcer and sometimes faulty. The market necessarily malfunctions when the law of value is not allowed to operate in its essential form.
When the social democratic state came under attack, much of the left defended the indefensible. Poor quality production cannot be defended Even worse was the closed shop, where only those accepted by the union could be employed, and in a number of well-known cases it was openly nationalist and racist. The anti-immigrant and racist attitudes taken by sections of the working class are the price of the acceptance of social democratic reformism. Each social democratic state adopted a variant of 'social democracy in one country', providing welfare benefits only for its citizens and not for the millions of workers and peasants in its empire. Unfortunately, the left then tended to eternalise these forms rather than rejecting them. Instead they demanded that they be retained, so falling into the trap not only of defending social democracy, with all its concessions to reactionary populism, but also supporting a form which had outlasted its life within capitalism. The fact is that nationalised industries are contradictory entities within capitalism, but they have to operate within the market with all its consequences. The same applies to the operation of trade unions.
The result is an unholy muddle among workers and within the left. The optimism of the victories, using short-termist demands, when supporting workers in struggle have been eclipsed by a longer-term despair as these struggles have eventually led only to a stalemate at best, if not to actual, if partial, defeats. As the left has found socialist education and socialist slogans incomprehensible or despised, it has preferred a reformist tactic and strategy, comforting itself that this is the first step to socialist change. In reality, they have only reinforced an acceptance of capitalism. Over 100 years ago, Lenin, in What is to be done, vituperatively opposed the idea of trade union, or economic struggles, leading to socialism. At that time, in the Russian Empire, trade unions played a minor role among workers, but that is not the case in most countries today.
The failure of the left was understandable in that the period of Stalinist dominance effectively doomed any genuinely socialist struggle.
Given this context, the inevitable and frequent mistakes of the left and the argument that the established political parties are realists, the working class has often preferred the easier choice of immediate concessions. The fact that these concessions have often turned out to be very different from their initial prospectus has made people cynical of all politicians but it has not turned the mass of the working class to the left yet and that has also to be explained. This phenomenon is global, applying both to the developed and underdeveloped world.
Thirdly, in some countries, the choice has been far more agonising. Given the potential terror of the bourgeoisie, shown many times over from the time of the Paris Commune down to the mass killings of the Argentinian Generals, workers have preferred to survive or at least have a quiet if hard life. The threat of an authoritarian state in the wings remains real. Even now the rise and rise of semi-Fascist parties such as those of Le Pen and Haider, in Europe, causes a shudder to run through the left. This aspect cannot be underestimated. The situation of ordinary people is often desperate and a revolution can often make that situation worse because the ruling class wreaks vengeance on its foes. It launches wars, trade boycotts, investment withdrawal or the destruction of assets and the assassination of socialist leaders. The consequent destruction of the flower of the working class and the death and defection of many pro-socialist intellectuals make the transition period a nightmare. The revolutionary government has to explain why an already desperate situation has become monstrous and without its best cadres, who have been eliminated. In other words, people in many countries are well aware of the real possibility that any revolutionary change will worsen their conditions for a time and even for their lifetimes. They have experienced ruling class vengeance directly or indirectly. This is particularly the case in ex-Stalinist countries but also in many parts of the Third World, such as Indonesia and Latin America.
Linked to the third argument, is fourthly, and crucially, the terrible suffering of workers in the territories of the former Russian Empire, from the time of the Civil War down to the present day, has prevented any new revolution and also acted as a deterrent to any other working class.
Today, indeed, the main burden on the conscience of the working class is that of the terrible defeat suffered in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Marxism has yet to be salvaged from the effects of the mass killing of the old Bolsheviks and the rest of the left, the atomisation of the Soviet working class and the destruction of Marxism, in the name of Marxism. In the former Soviet Union many workers have lost all hope of socialism. It appears as a failed or Utopian doctrine. If socialism in one country has been proved a failure, workers ask why they should have to suffer yet again in order once more to begin the process of world revolution.
When these four points are combined together, it becomes hard to see why anyone would turn to the left. The whole apparatus of propaganda stresses time and again the cruelty of the Bolsheviks, beginning with Lenin, and continuing in an amplified form under Stalin and his successors. Writers then argue that any attempt at a better society is Utopian and that the very act of trying to change society leads to violence, massacres, concentration camps and millions of deaths. The end of the Soviet Union itself is falsified. It is argued that it ended because socialism is inefficient and so collapsed under its own weight when given a shove by the wise leaders of the United States and the UK. Stalinism was inefficient but it was never socialist, as any honest person, let alone scholar or writer, ought to recognise. It did not end because Reagan adopted a stronger anti-USSR policy, but because the Soviet elite wanted it to end, given that the system was unviable and they expected to do well out of converting to capitalism and, indeed, they have done extremely well out of the conversion of the USSR. None the less, this message is drowned out in the messages propagated by the mass media. This would appear to give the mass media and education the central role in preventing the emergence of a left wing understanding of reality, but that is only true because there appears to be no answer to the points that socialism is Utopian, inefficient and murderous, if not in intention then in outcome. Stalinism has discredited both the personnel and the message, leaving a vacuum.
Capitalism declared itself triumphant with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the victory of Yeltsin two years later. Lenin became a monster who gave birth to a supermonster—Stalin. Trotsky was not a monster but only because he did not have the opportunity. The self-sacrifice of Marxists is seen as fanaticism and their doctrines are regarded as extremist and inhuman. The famous words of Levine, when on trial for his life for the revolution in Bavaria in 1919: 'we Communists are dead men on leave', have acquired a new contempt with the self-sacrifice of the Islamic terrorists of 11 September. Stalinism turned everything on its head but triumphant capitalism went further and induced a feeling of derision.
The Legacy of Stalinism and Social
Democracy
The period from the defeat of the left opposition down to the fall of the
Soviet Union can be called, for the purposes of this essay, the Stalinist
period. During this period Stalinism dominated the left and working class
consciousness. Its dogmas and fantasies, not to speak of its criminal accusations,
were the everyday bedrock of left thought. Everyone else on the left was
marginalized. Social democracy, which progressively attenuated its socialist
demands over the period, gradually became dependent on the Stalinists for its
own existence.
This last period continues to dominate the thinking both of the working class, in its potentiality, and of the left itself. Stalinists, pseudo-Stalinists and bureaucratic leftists accused those critical of the USSR of being agents of various secret services. Within the left, the siege atmosphere led to parallel absurdities where such accusations were taken seriously and new variations were found, where members of organisations were accused of being agents of the KGB or GPU. The accusers have seldom recanted but have instead retired into an embittered silence. Unfortunately, those who have been through such organisations have often drawn the wrong lessons. Instead of seeing the atmosphere for what it was, they have burnt their shirts and beaten their breasts, all the while shouting that they were determined to absolve themselves of their guilt by re-interpreting history in the light of the importance of civil rights.
In the 20th century the chain of capitalist control has been challenged more than once. Lenin spoke of breaking the chain at its weakest link but the chain reconstituted itself. His analogy has not proven to be correct. Capitalism was overthrown in the Russian empire and its overthrow altered world capitalism forever but world capitalism was not overthrown. The Russian Revolution was an epoch-making event which severely and permanently damaged the foundations of the capitalist structure but capitalism survived in an altered form. It is probably more true to compare the Russian Revolution to an earthquake which irreparably damaged the foundations of the capitalist edifice. It has been shored up but only by abandoning parts of the building and by cannibalising parts of the rest. Capitalism cannot be irreversibly overthrown until its foundations are destroyed, but they have been irreversibly weakened and capitalism is in a different form from what it was.
Whereas the Leninist analogy produced an all or nothing result—either the chain was broken or it was not—the metaphor of a damaged building allows one to understand that capitalism is continuing but in an altered form. Lenin's analogy is really political rather than socio-economic and, as a purely political device, he was not incorrect. The point, however, is that in the Leninist metaphor the analysis is stark and clear. In the analogy of the building the consequences are not so clear. In other words, the capitalist chain was broken and that meant that capitalist control and the world market were limited. Workers and intellectuals could see the result. And yet, Stalinism and social democracy restored capitalist control by acting as its partners in restraining or even destroying working class organisations. That, however, has not been so evident. The press, school and university education have ignored this aspect of reality. Indeed they have so distorted the nature of Stalinism, the nature of the Russian Revolution, the nature of the Soviet Union and the parties that have fought capitalism that very few can understand what really happened in the past and so what exists today.
The Complexity of the Present
As if this was not difficult enough, there is an even more complex reality
standing behind these problems, which is the real reason why many cannot
understand the present, given the nature of education and the media. Capitalism
is in decline, where decline is defined in terms of the increasing difficulty
of finding mediating forms between the poles of the contradiction forming value
and so capital.9 In other words, capitalism has found it increasingly difficult
to sustain the system and consequently resorted to political and economic forms
which compromise and even threaten the system itself. Imperialism, wars, great
and small, fascism and various other forms of authoritarian rule, and the
welfare state are such forms. The decline of capital necessarily involves the
decline of value and so the market itself. The resulting conflict between the
market and administrative forms takes on a fetishised form in which it appears
that efficient private enterprise is fighting bureaucracy. Neither war nor the
welfare state can be intuitively perceived as forms of decline. Indeed they may
be trumpeted as signs of strength.
The overthrow of capitalism in 1917 ushered in a transitional period as Trotsky put it. It has hitherto been a period where both subjectively and objectively transitional forms have come into existence. Parties, theory and masses of literature have been dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. Revolutions and attempted revolutions in the name of socialism have been numerous. Only the earliest were genuinely socialist but even nationalist uprisings in the name of socialism have destabilised capitalism without bringing socialism nearer. An abortive form of overthrow such as Stalinism is part of the transitional period. Indeed one might have anticipated, with Jack London, that the initial attempts to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism would be unsuccessful. The result is not a pristine capitalist world but one in which various abortive forms have come into existence.
From the point of view of conscious workers, the situation becomes highly complex in that they have to disentangle the laws of capitalism, the laws of its decline and the laws of the transitional period. Worse still, all three aspects are shrouded in obfuscatory ideology such that it is difficult even to discern the fact that we are living in such a complex period.
The consciousness of the majority of humankind has been grossly distorted by the tendentious, prejudiced and venal descriptive analysis of the October Revolution and its aftermath by journalists, academics and politicians. It simply does not pay academics in the West to produce an objective and true analysis of that event. For a very long time, Stalinist-type interpretations held sway in the left. Today right wing anti-socialist academics, such as Pipes and Figes who are dominant on the right, are also influential directly and indirectly in much of what passes for a left. Stalinist accounts, however, are still believed.
Despair
Considering the difficulty of understanding modern political economy, the
nature of the subjective and objective concessions made through the welfare
state, the fear of bourgeois revenge and real history of Stalinism, has led
many to despair of any real change. It is this despair that is the foundation
of contemporary nationalism, religious fundamentalism and the relatively more
benign politics of identity, greenery and post-modernism, even if the
participants do not understand it.
In the countries with parliamentary-type democracies, despair at the failure of the political system has led people to turn to cynicism, the drink/drug culture and, in the US, to religion. Commentators in the US wonder why workers have turned to the right of the right wing parties, which stand for family values. It is not, however, difficult to see that it is the same reason why Russians support Putin, even though he has raised utility and transport prices and rents and de facto cut pensions. In a society where the only certainty is uncertainty and where change is constant, the institutions, parties and rulers who promise a modicum of stability and security receive support, as an island of temporary hope in a sea of despair.
The most desperate have turned to riots, armed uprisings and assorted crazy actions. Where the population is in despair there is always the opportunity for movements based on the lumpen elements or the petite bourgeoisie or both to put themselves forward. Nationalism and racism have played appalling roles in this regard. The slaughter in Bosnia, Tajikistan, Rwanda and Congo are examples where the populations have turned on their neighbours in an atmosphere where the future appeared abysmal.
Where a mode of production is in decline, writers who do not understand the process produce dirge like literature. Today, there is an outpouring of works on the increasing scarcity of resources, the heating up of the planet, Malthusian mutterings on the growth of population, possible nuclear warfare, rampant disease and comparisons with civilisations which have disappeared. The fact is that a rational, planned society could deal with all these questions, in so far as they are problems, by a diversion of resources away from the wasteful economic forms today based on profit and warfare and use those resources to combat disease, climate change etc. Since it is obvious, for instance that pharmaceutical companies have no interest in producing cures for diseases which then no longer exist, most people have some idea of the potentialities. The discussion, then, has to be diverted away to a form of a natural evolution, which might overwhelm humankind and, by no coincidence, this fits in with the more general atmosphere of despair.
Whom the Gods Would Destroy …
The further we are from the end of the Cold War, the greater the potentiality
for a positive change in consciousness This is so for two reasons. In the first
place the political and economic forms of stability provided by the Cold War
are gradually vanishing. This aspect has been discussed in previous issues of
this and other journals. In the second place, understanding of reality is less
distorted by that period.
At the same time, as argued above, so-called globalisation is integrating economies both inside those entities and among them. Proletarianisation is proceeding apace and divisions in the workforce are diminishing. Parliamentary democracy is clearly cracking, as many observers have noted. Imperial US dominance is in rapid decline. At the same time, civil rights are diminishing and states are assuming more authoritarian forms. The welfare state has been reduced in scope everywhere. The situation for many in the Third World remains intolerable.
If the workers find it hard to understand the modern world, the contemporary bourgeoisie and its governments are no different. Their actions have become irrational in the sense that they are pursuing short-term policies which conflict with their long-term interests. Indeed it is not clear that they understand their long-term interests today. In the United States the failures of the Iraq War and of the New Orleans non-rescue demonstrate the incapacity of the government to deal with issues which they might have solved easily 40 years ago. If the ideological lunacy of the US government is patent, that in the UK is suicidal. Ross McKibben writes: 'This is the most intensely ideological government we have known in more than a hundred years. The model of market-managerialism has largely destroyed all alternatives, traditional and untraditional. Its most powerful weapon is its vocabulary'.10 The fact is that New Labour in the UK has failed by any standard and its chief proponent, Blair, is highly unpopular. The real point, however, is that the failure of this doctrine was inevitable and it has wiped the slate clean. Having correctly attacked the mixed economy as a failure, the concept of the totally marketised economy has also failed. Socialism, the society consciously controlled from below, automatically re-appears.
Michael Portillo, the former Conservative Minister of Defence, has already called Blair 'unhinged'.11 The actions of Bush-Cheney are not dissimilar. The end of the Cold War has had a series of negative consequences for the ruling class. In this connection it has meant that they have lost both their unity and their rationale. The anti-communist doctrine which they espoused had a kernel of truth to it. The present-day ideology of the market has been reduced to the concept of the dominance of money, which in itself supposedly breeds money and breathes efficiency. Everything must make money. The needs-based sectors, such as education, health, civil service, the army, the police, are all subjected to it, with the production of an almighty muddle. The result is the opposite of what was intended: massive inefficiency. The very instability of the system drives the government to war and other counterproductive measures, without the politicians understanding their own motives.
The bourgeoisie does not know which way it is going. It does not see that it is in decline but is so deceived by the end of the Soviet Union that it believes that it is dominant as never before. First they argued that there was a new paradigm of high growth. That ended with the March 2000 downturn. Now the enormous military power of the United States serves the same purpose in arguing that the US is the guardian of a democratic and benevolent capitalism. 'Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad'. When a mode of production is in decline and the ruling class is in denial, its representatives tend to be less perspicacious, less learned, more opportunist and more venal because it does not pay anyone else to be in that position and because there is no real solution to the problems of the day. Such government personnel then find that their policies turn into their opposites and in desperation they take steps perceived by others as mad. The leaders of many present-day countries appear similar, from Berlusconi in Italy to Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Some Presidents/prime ministers are more cautious and some more intelligent but all are subject to the same pressures.
The nonsense and the essential insanity of present-day establishment discourse provides the left with an opportunity that it has not had for a very long time. Inevitably, true intellectuals will be forced to the left, while genuine Marxists will find an audience formerly closed to them. Whereas, for a long time after the Stalinist defeat of the Russian Revolution, the ruling class was better organised with a clearer consciousness than the working class and its parties, today that is changing.
Conclusion
It is clear from the above analysis that workers will never become a class
without two features particularly necessary at the present time. The first is
the requirement for a theory to understand the present and the second is the
need for an organisational form to provide the ability to take power. In the
past workers have thrown up a number of forms of self-organisation from trade
unions to workers councils. Thus far all these forms have been corrupted and
absorbed into the system after the initial wave of enthusiasm. It is clear that
there has to be a party or parties of the working class in order to ensure that
theory, the educational work consequent on the theory and the necessary
organisation are present.
However, socialist ideas cannot simply emerge from an elite group of people. The fundamental ideas must already be the property of ordinary people before they can be theorised, turned into a strategy, and widely disseminated in all their complexity. This implies a process of mounting struggles from which people can learn as well as the development of a broad layer of intellectuals who are able to genuinely refute the propaganda of the established order and expand the knowledge and theory necessary for the working class to take power. Only in this way, with the dialectical interaction of theory with struggle, can the population as a whole make socialist ideas their own.
This is all the more necessary given the way objective and subjective conditions for the formation of the class are merging into one another.
6. Almond and Verba: The Civic Culture:
Types of Political Culture and how it affects the political system
“When we speak
of the political culture of society, we refer to the political system as
internalized in the cognitions, feelings, and evaluations or its population.” (Almond and
Verba, 1963: 14)
|
The modal attitude toward: |
Parochial Culture: (do not know and do not act) |
Subject Culture: (know but do not act) |
Participant Culture: (know and act) |
|
The support of government: To what extent do people support government? Do they see it as a distant source of command, a benevolent source of help? Note that presidents, prime ministers and legislative majorities come and go, but people’s attitudes toward government is longer and deeper in their effect than the attitude of single or a group of politicians. |
(Low) The support to the government is very low. This case may be attributed to the unawareness of the existence of the central government at all. Ex. the remote tribesman in Central Africa or Latin America may have never known about the existence of the central government. |
(High) There is a high support for government. In a more practical terms, citizens believe that they belong to a legitimate political system. Other loyalties exist but they are secondary after the loyalty to the state. |
(High) It is similar to the subject culture in its recognition and acceptance of the legitimacy of government. The difference is in the major belief in the role of masses in influencing the government. They usually approach the state as its interest is compatible with their own individual interests. |
|
The trust of others in political system: the second dimension that Almond and Verba examined was the feelings of people toward other individuals and groups. Examples: What do Democrats do when a Republican is selected as a president? In Nigeria, to what extent the Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Fulani tribes been willing to work with each other in the political system? |
(Low) (Long social and psychological distance with others) When citizens feel closer to their tribes, regions, religions or ethnic groups, they do not acquire the sense of the other social or ethnic groups, the nation, the state or the political system as such. This tendency of losing trust in others usually is nurtured by the cross-cutting cleavages and civil wars. Ex. Would a Bosnian or Kosovian easily trust a Serb, a Palestinian and an Israeli, a Hutu and Tutsi, a Chinese, Vietnamese or Muslim Cambodian would trust Khamir Rouge who ruled Cambodia from 1975 –1979 and their brutality led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people? |
(High) There is more trust to other groups in society comparing to the parochial culture. |
(High) Most people in society accept the same rules for gaining and transferring power (through elections, for instance) and their loyalty to the nation is more important than other specific group loyalties. |
|
The efficacy of one’s role in the political system: The key here is; how important do individuals think they are in the political process? Will their participation make a difference? |
(Low) Along with the low support to government is the low sense of efficacy. How would individuals think their ability to influence a government that they do not believe in its existence? |
(Low) however individuals, still, do not think that their participation would much matter or affect politics. They think that politics are made by the elite not by masses. |
(High) The level of political efficacy is very high. |
Agents of socialization:
1- Family: Most students of socialization believe that the most formative learning takes place during the childhood years. Mothers and fathers are the initial purveyors of a society’s culture. In a parochial culture, children learn from their fathers how to be apathetic and family or tribe centered. The opposite is in the case of participant culture.
2- School: In all societies, schools do more than educate students how to read, write and do mathematics. Schools tend to reflect the dominant culture because teachers themselves are the products of these cultures and the students read the books that the government assigned to them to read. A good example is how wars are explained. Take the Spanish-American War. Although it was a brief war that the United States waged against Spain in 1898, it is not mentioned that way in high schools.
3- Media: People get most of their believes from mass media, especially TV and newspapers. It is said that television has become the most important source of news and values. In this regard, mass media is a tool to enhance democracy by offering people what they need to know from news and criticisms, what the government (especially in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes) want to convey to people and to tempt people to believe in through building stereotypes.