Lenin on the Need to Fight for Democracy Under Capitalism [View all]

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Lenin, more than anyone, was aware of the limited and relative character of bourgeois democracy and was able relentlessly to expose its vices and evils. However, Lenin’s criticism was directed against bourgeois democracy and not against democracy in general, as the enemies of Marxism-Leninism try to represent it. Lenin fought against petty-bourgeois illusions of the possibility of establishing true rule by the people under capitalism. He showed that the facade of any bourgeois republic, even the most democratic, sanctified by slogans about the non-class, all-national will of the people, always disguises the mechanism of the class rule of capital and that the bourgeoisie strives to place all the institutions of democracy at the service of this rule.


But, while criticising those who were victims of petty-bourgeois democratic illusions for the sake of which they were ready to renounce the great fundamental aims of the working class, Lenin clearly saw the benefits the working class could derive even from those frequently scanty liberties which it had won at the cost of great sacrifices and blood and upon which the bourgeoisie was encroaching. He considered that "democracy is of enormous importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation".

Lenin was therefore implacably opposed to the backward views and moods whose bearers alleged that democracy was no concern of the working class and that the struggle for democracy would only hamper it in its struggle for its class interests.

Lenin rejected these Leftist aberrations and pointed out the fundamental and practical importance of the struggle for democracy during which the working-class movement matured and grew, at the same time improving the conditions for its activities. Without winning certain political rights from the bourgeoisie the working class cannot achieve even its economic demands. Lenin taught that "no economic struggle can bring the workers any lasting improvement, or can even be conducted on a large scale, unless the workers have the right freely to organise meetings and unions, to have their own newspapers, and to send their representatives to the national assemblies".

But the importance of democracy to the working class is not only that it determines the conditions for the struggle of the working class. Lenin repeatedly emphasised that the demand for democracy corresponds to the ultimate aims of the working-class movement. By calling on the working class to carry out the economic revolution necessary for building a new, socialist society, Lenin at the same time pointed out that "the proletariat which is not being educated in the struggle for democracy is incapable of carrying out an economic revolution”.

All this makes quite comprehensible the profound conviction with which Lenin stated that "it would be a radical mistake to think that the struggle for democracy is capable of diverting the proletariat from the socialist revolution or of hiding, overshadowing it, etc. On the contrary, in the same way as there cannot be a victorious socialism that does not practise full democracy, so the proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the bourgeoisie without an all-round, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy".

Of course, Lenin realised that however vigorously the struggle for democracy in bourgeois society may be waged and whatever successes it may score, it can bring the working class only partial results, limited beforehand by the framework of the capitalist system. Under this system there is not, and cannot be, full and consistent democracy for the broad mass of the working people, because the class rule of the bourgeoisie remains unaffected whatever the organisation of the capitalist state. To carry real democracy into effect under capitalism, as the petty-bourgeois fantasists hope to do, is absolutely impossible. But. in Lenin’s view, the struggle for democracy prepares the working class for a more successful accomplishment of its mission of abolishing all class oppression and creating a truly democratic society, i.e., a socialist society.

It follows that by acting in defence of democracy the working class proceeds from the interests of its day-to-day struggle, as well as its tasks and plans for the future.

Such is the fundamental principle which determines the attitude of the Marxist-Leninist parties to the struggle for democracy in bourgeois countries.

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism • Manual, Otto Kuusinen, 2nd edition 1962