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| EPRA fighters in a base area, late 1970s |
November 7, 2017 in the Gregorian Calendar marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution of October 1917 (where the Julian calendar was observed). Despite its eventual defeat, the Russian Revolution ushered in an era where the old systems of oppression and exploitation were fundamentally and fiercely challenged as models for the organization of society. It marked the first successful attempt by socialist revolutionaries to overthrow capitalism and replace it with the rule of the common people. It was a watershed moment in human history, and capitalism and imperialism spent the rest of the twentieth century trying to reverse its successes. As a timely series of articles commissioned by the African American Intellectual History Society for its Black Perspectives feature on the Russian Revolution and the African Diaspora explains, the Russian Revolution came even to inspire a generation of revolutionaries around the world: and Ethiopia was no exception. As students of the Ethiopian revolution know, this was a complicated legacy, and during the Derg time, both pro- and anti-regime forces would claim the same socialist legacy as their own. In my opinion, however, any claim to inherit the spirit of the Russian Revolution by the military regime was entirely illegitimate.
To mark this occasion and provide some clarity, I am transcribing and republishing an article on the meaning of socialism from Abyot, information bulletin of the Foreign Committee of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Party, that in turn translates and summarizes an article from the EPRP’s clandestine journal Democracia. This article appears in the Feb.–March 1979 issue (Vol. 4, No. 2) of Abyot. I have re-typed this article and errors of transcription are my own; I’ve made a handful of small spelling and punctuation corrections for legibility. I assume the cited Democracia article is translated to English from the original Amharic by the Abyot editors.
In today’s post-Soviet era, many of these arguments about how the Soviet Union came to betray the original vision and intent of Lenin and the Bolsheviks seem somewhat distant, but in fact they should inform any sober assessment of the continued relevance of socialism to the still-necessary liberation of the world’s peoples. —ISH
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DEMOCRACIA Exposes the ‘Socialism’ of Social-Imperialism
In its Volume 5, No. 4 issue,
Democracia,
organ of the EPRP, exposes the ‘socialism’ of
social-imperialism.
For the broad masses, says
Democracia,
there is no socialism without democracy and there
is no democracy without socialism. Democracy is
necessary and useful for the construction of a
socialist society. However, social-imperialists
and revisionists, presenting themselves as examples
are trying to show that ‘socialist construction’
is possible with the absence of any sort
of democratic and human rights. That is not all.
They have gone to the extent of trying to show
how “socialism” can be built under fascism. Exposing
their true colours, however, they have
shown that democratic and human rights erode socialism,
and that socialism and democracy are
mutually exclusive.
EPRP’s position, continues
Democracia, on the relation between socialism and democracy is diametrically
opposed to the position of the social-imperialists
and revisionists. At a time when
all sorts of anti-socialists are professing
about socialism, we have found it necessary to
explain in short the principal charateristics
which scientific socialism differs from all the ‘socialisms’ of the anti-socialists.
Socialism, says
Democracia, is a system which
arms the proletariat and broad masses with broad
democracy. Socialism is a system which is based
on the power and supremacy of the proletariat.
Socialism is a system in which the proletariat
and broad masses organize themselves in many
forms to be able to administer themselves. Socialism
is a system in which the proletariat and
broad masses acquire more democracy, welfare and
development than the capitalist system in the
political economic and cultural fields. In the
Soviet Union, however, the party which still works in the name of the proletariat is trampling
the proletariat and broad masses underfoot and
deprives them their democratic rights. It has
kept the proletariat aside from political power.
It has concentrated all the power in its hands
and has become an anti-socialist party of few
bureaucrats which defends their bourgeois interests.
Thus continues
Democracia, the first socialist
country has been turned to be a social-imperialist
country. As a bad example and through its
practices, policies and influence it has and is
still challenging, opposing and fighting against
the purity, expansion, development and triumph
of socialism. Putting the parties in Eastern Europe,
Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam, who are in
power, under control; the Soviet Union has also
had these parties establish an anti-democratic
and anti-people rule.
The dictatorial rulers of the Soviet Union,
says
Democracia, have and are still attempting to present the rules of their anti-people and
anti-socialist puppets in a number of countries
as ‘socialist’. In contradistinction to the struggle
of the masses for democracy and socialism,
the Soviet rulers have presented the anti-people
rule of their puppets as ‘socialist’ in an attempt
to prolong the life of the reactionary system
and destroy the peoples’ resistance. Hasn’t the
demagogue Mengistu’s fascist regime calling
itself ‘socialist’ also called the proletariat,
broad masses and the proletarian party counterrevolutionaries?
For the social-imperialists and fascists, continues
Democracia, socialism means a system of
which a regime of handful few dictators has the
control of the masses and when the people do not
have any control of the government. For them,
socialism is being against democracy, anti-proletarian,
anti-people and which combines the
reactionary superstructure and practices which
enables them to maintain their fascist and exploitative
rule. The difference between the socialism we are fighting for and the ‘socialism’
of the social-imperialists and fascists is as
wide as heaven and earth. To us socialism is a
system in which the proletariat and broad masses
hold state power; in which they take part in all
responsible positions, in which the right of
the people to call or change the officials of the
government elected locally or at a country-wide
level is guaranteed, in which there is a proletarian-
led regime that stood for the broad masses
of the people.
For the social-imperialists and fascists, ‘socialism’
means depriving the proletariat and broad
masses of the people their democratic and human
rights; depriving them the right to free speech,
press and assembly; and depriving them the freedom
of movement in their own country. ‘Socialism’
for the social-imperialists and fascists is a system in which the masses are subjected to constant
repression, harassment, torture and execution
until they bow to silence. For us, socialism
is the exact opposite of this. Socialism without
democracy is unthinkable. Socialist democracy
is different from and superior to bourgeois
democracy both in breadth and form. Socialism is
not only a system in which the proletariat and
broad masses have the right to free speech, press
and assembly and organization; but also the right
to sound out their opinions or protests against
their regime or any organization without restrictions.
Under socialism the masses also have the
right to take a different position and make it
public, the right to protest. Socialism cannot
be a system in which a democracy narrower than
bourgeois democracy reigns.
A system in which the proletariat and broad
masses do not directly take part in the excercise
of power, says
Democracia, cannot be socialist.
There is no socialism if the proletariat and
broad masses do not take part in decisions of
government affairs and if they do not administer
themselves in a democratic system. Socialism is
not democracy for the ruling class and government
officials and dictatorship over the masses as it
is like in the Soviet Union and its allies. Socialism
cannot be a system in which those who
oppose are imprisoned, kept in concentration
camps, tortured, executed and where the freedom
of speech of the masses is abolished.
Under socialism political power is in the
hands of the proletariat and broad masses. Thus
the existence of the special and highest form
of organization of the proletariat, its weapon
of struggle and leader, the proletarian party,
is indispensable. Without its party the proletariat
cannot seize political power. For us, however,
a proletarian party is not something that the masses would worship and follow blindly because
it claims to be one. It should be one which
the masses support and have confidence on due to
the correctness of its political positions, the
struggle it conducts, its method of work and the
day-to-day activity it performs. A proletarian
party cannot replace the proletariat to make the
revolution. It cannot be commanding and know-all
against the proletariat and peasantry once it
seizes political power. It is the proletariat and
broad masses who are the creators and the driving
force of the locomotives of history. This is true
under socialism too. The guarantee of the existence
of a genuine proletarian party, its source of
power and legal base are the masses. The right
of the proletariat and broad masses to control
their party, to criticize the party, to express
their views before any important decision is taken,
to oppose or support or to take part in decisions
is guaranteed. Socialism does not mean where a
party isolated from the masses imposes its dictatorship
over the masses as it is in the Soviet
Union.
For the social-imperialists, socialism means
when few self-proclaimed “geniuses” control state
power isolating the party members, suppressing
inner-party democracy and speak on behalf of the
members of the party. It means where few (or one)
individuals become autocrats worshiped and
feared like gods. For us socialism means where
party members discuss and decide on important
decisions, where the leadership is everytime elected,
where the party works on the basis of collective
responsibility and leadership, where a genuine
party which do not have mini-gods seize
state power.
For the social-imperialists and fascists socialism
is where a policy of chauvinism reigns supreme in the name of ’unity and indivisibility,’ the right of oppressed nations is trampled under the rule of the gun and where national oppression is maintained in many forms.
For us, socialism is a system in which the equality of and right of nations to self-determination is guaranteed; in which the languages, culture existence are respected, in which oppression nations use their own language as the medium of instruction; where there are no national privileges; where unity and assimilation is created on the basis of voluntariness and equality; where proletarian internationalism flourishes; and which is free of chauvinism and narrow national mindedness.
For the social-imperialists, socialism means depriving the political and organizational rights of other political organizations and putting them under their tutelage. It means to claim the right of invading other countries, exploiting peoples, controlling other goverments and abolishing their state sovereignity.
Socialism is democracy, equality and respect of people and countries, brotherhood and proletarian internationalism, justice and peace. What social-imperialism practices is the invasion of Czechoslovakia, dispatching mercenaries to put down national liberation movements of other countries. As an imperialist power, it also competes and contend or collude and agree with other imperialist powers for the plunder and division of the world.
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