Revolutionary groups have a very different picture of what democracy looks like than what has sprung up in the #occupytogether movement. For example, the Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party (PL) has a very inflexible view of democracy and how organizing decisions should be made. They claim that democratic centralism is the end all and be all of revolutionary democratic organizing:
We communists are bitterly opposed to the democracy practiced in capitalist countries, that is, to "bourgeois democracy" based on periodic elections with secret ballots for presidents and parliamentsor congresses. Bourgeois democracy is an elitist system that guarantees thecapitalists run things while workers have no real say in how society works…The Party is organized on the basis of democratic centralism. The Party is divided into cells, or clubs, which meet regularly to evaluate members' work and to make suggestions about how to improve it, and to evaluate the Party's positions and make suggestions for change. These suggestions are taken by the club leader to section meetings (made up of the club leaders and other leading comrades in an area, and by section leaders tothe Central Committee. Based on the collective experience of the Party, the leadership decides on new positions (a new line) which all Party members are then bound to put into practice. Only if all of us put the same line into practice can wefind out if the line works; if each of us goes our own way, we will never havethe common strength of a united Party.
Democratic centralism is communist democracy. After the revolution we will run all of society along democratic centralist lines. Let us contrast communistdemocracy with bourgeois democracy, to show how communist democracy serves theinterests of the working class, the great majority of people, while bourgeois democracy serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, the small rich elite.
Democratic centralism forces everyone to speak up. At club meetings, eachperson must express their opinions, including openly voicing theirdisagreements. Bourgeois democracy listens only to the silver-tongued stars,the media-fashioned "opinion makers." Most people are encouraged tobe passive, to go along with the drift. Nothing encourages you to speak out ifyou are shy. This builds the elitist attitude that politics is only for thechosen few, that most of us are too dumb to know what is going on. This isinherent in a system based on large-scale elections, without smalldecision-making groups that meet regularly.
Democratic centralism forces people to evaluate themselves honestly and to listen to the evaluation of others (praise as well as criticism). This lets people grow and improve, and it holds back the liars and braggarts. Bourgeois democracy, on the other hand, encourages the con artist who can hide his failures and his cheating. The system penalizes honesty and thoughtfulness in favor of the best actor. Under bourgeois democracy, politicians are rarely held responsible for their mistakes. This is great for the elite who want to hidehow they swindle and exploit us.
Besides drawing on the strength of the collective, democratic centralism also forces us to act in a collective manner--to do what is best for the group. He who pursues individual self-interest at the expense of the common purpose willcatch hell at the next club meeting, because he makes things harder for his comrades. This way we learn to help each other. Bourgeois democracy is based onthe principle of screwing the other guy so you can get ahead. Telling lies about your opponent is okay as long as you don't get caught. What counts is winning the election, not improving society.
Each Party member accepts the discipline of carrying out the Party line. So once a decision has been reached, we can be sure that there will be a struggle everywhere to put that decision into action. Under bourgeois democracy, there is no discipline except the courts and the jails. There is no system to win people to the common decision. There is nothing to guarantee that the rich and powerful will follow the decision of the legislature, if they can figure out how to avoid it; no one is going to call them to account in front of a mass meeting. Each person may try to undermine the group decision for his own advantage.
Finally, democratic centralism is based on struggling to weed out rotten ideas and anti-social behavior. We want to help each other become better people.Bourgeois democracy is based on "doing your own thing," which is the essence of civil liberties. Each person is said to be "free" to dowhatever they want--that is, to screw everyone else, if they can get away with it." Free speech" protects vile racist crap that advocates massmurder. Communists want nothing to do with such "free speech"--we think that seriously dangerous anti-social ideas should be rooted out, not given freeplay. Bourgeois democracy protects creeps, while only democratic centralism encourages full and open discussion and criticism.
In short, bourgeois democracy helps a small elite that wants to hide its lies; bourgeois democracy encourages dog-eat-dog individualism; it forces most peopleto be passive while superstars take over politics. The problem with secret ballots, legislatures and civil liberties is not that the rich capitalists cheat on the rules for their own benefit. The problem is that the rules of bourgeois democracy guarantee that the great majority of people, the workers, are frozen out. If we were to institute bourgeois democracy after the revolution, that would only encourage the formation of a new capitalist class (On Democratic Centralism 1982).
I doubt they are the only party that feels this way but I’m not personally interested in tracking down opinions from other groups.
Many radical Marxist types I have overheard discussing how conflicted they feel about #occupytogether’s “horizontal democracy.” They have no experience with it, they don’t know if it will be effective, but there seems to be consensus that this is important somehow, if only because giving it a chance to empirically prove itself (or not) will be historically significant. They would prefer to see a clear working class message in the interests of recruitment; they feel that a real working class message will resonate with people, and I agree. On the other hand, a clear working class message would require centralized leadership, which would be contrary to the whole idea of horizontal democracy.
I’m going to throw myself into this curious but ambivalent faction, though I should mention that I have been at times far more ambivalent about democratic centralism (depending on the time of day). I have participated in three #occupyboston general assemblies (GAs)—one in the Common and two at the occupation at Dewey Square. This is how it works, as far as I can tell:
- There are working groups to which anyone is invited to attend and talk or help. These groups are:
- Tactical/Logistics
- Media
- Medical/Mental Health
- Legal
- Recess
- Outreach
- Messaging
- Direct Action
- Comm Team
- Faith & Spirituality
- Food
- These groups are free associations of individuals and any individual or group of individuals can decide to form an additional group. Someone at last night's GA, noted that he wished to begin a new group, for instance. I do not believe that Faith & Spirituality was present at the planning GA's, but they formed and have been organizing like crazy since the encampment began. OccupyWallSt just began publishing their own newspaper, I wonder if a small working group (or perhaps a sub-committee of media) might emerge to fill this need for Boston.
- These group make some decisions for the group; for instance, Direct Action decided (by their own small group consensus) the first night (9/30) that there would be a march the next day to Collegefest in the afternoon, and that there would be marches each morning and evening during the week. These were not put up to a vote by the whole group, but the times for the weekday marches were disputed and so were changed via consensus to a later time.
- During the GAs important information is shared by each working group. In addition, issues that affect the entire group are voted on, such as how the GAs will be run (with “peoples’ mic” or not, what is the percent necessary to pass a motion, etc.) as well as big decisions like when the occupation will begin. Before votes, there is a temperature check, and then short one-minute-ish speeches by anyone who wishes to come forward (this is called “the stack”). Once the stack is exhausted, there is a final vote.
- However, people in the minority during a vote can “block,” which means they think that a decision has been made which is so bad for the group that they might consider leaving. This is a way to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
- Proposals can be submitted by the members of the GA at any time (I think that this process is in-flux; I believe that they are trying to get people to get proposals on the agenda ahead of GA; the process for counter-proposals is still a bit unclear, as well). Facilitators recognize who has the floor at any point in time, but because of people’s mic, the crowd participates in giving someone the floor.
On the second night of the occupation (10/1) there was a very interesting process for allowing a broad discussion of the group’s messages and ideas for demands. It was heavily related to democratic centralism. After announcements, the GA broke down into smaller groups and people were encouraged to share why they chose to come down to the occupation. After about 45 minutes, one person was selected from each group to share what had been discussed in the smaller groups. If anyone felt left out of the process, individuals were encouraged to join the stack so their ideas could be shared to the entire GA. This differs from democratic centralism because the entire process was transparent in the sense that every member got to hear the ideas of every small group as well as any individual that felt their thoughts were being left out. Additionally, those at the top did not form a “party line” from the information that was passed up.
These GAs can take a long time. Determining whether the occupation was going to start 9/30 or 10/7 took several hours on Tuesday night and the issue was not resolved until late Wednesday night. It is also not perfectly “leaderless.” I don’t know exactly who is behind the scenes, but someone is choosing, for instance, when GAs are and who will be facilitating. I think it is important to note that these are process-related decisions. There is, as far as I can tell, no “thought leaders” for the movement. This has been played up by the media and some malcontents, who think that the lack of a central message is a clear weakness and a sign that the movement is sophomoric, incoherent, and impotent. But what it is really a sign of is that no one feels comfortable speaking for the whole. And that might end up creating a whole new kind of movement.
I think it may be appropriate to think of #occupytogether as a community that operates with a certain kind of political process as opposed to being a party that people can shop around and select based upon a platform. In this sense they do not represent an alternative to mainstream "parties." It is not the "left wing equivalent" to the Tea Party. It is not an alternative to leftist Parties like the PL, the ISO, the Socialist Alternative. And, it is not an activist organization like City Life/Vida Urbana or US Uncut. The occupation movement might represent an alternative political process, a counter to the entire corrupted “democratic republic” that our legal system maintains. Which means that the demands that are produced will not be a party platform, they will be democratic decisions, in the same way that presidential elections are supposed to be. Such a movement could change the way the people think about social power and their relationships with each other. And that could end up being an extremely important development for the revolutionary movement.
Or maybe not. The worst case scenario is that the occupation movement will just produce an ineffectual counter-culture that is enjoyed by white out-of-work post-college 20-somethings. I don’t know, yet.
But I do know that I have never felt as much of a sense of community, mutual respect, or selfless devotion to the whole. Neither have I ever had a chance to engage in such satisfying exchanges of ideas face-to-face before. I am hooked, and feel as if I am glimpsing into the future of what humanity is capable of. As Saul Williams says,
"A call to the youth! Your freedom ain't so free, it's just loose, but the power of your voice could redirect every truth. Shift and shape the world you want and keep your fears in a noose--let them dangle from a banner star spangled. I'm willing and able to lift my dreams up out of their cradle. Nurse and nurture my ideals 'til they're much more than a fable. I can be all I can be and do much more than I'm paid to, and I won't be a slave to what authorities say do. My desire is to live within a nation on fire, where creative passions burn and raise the stakes ever higher. Where no person is addicted to some twisted supplier who promotes the sort of freedom sold to the highest buyer." -Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)
