The Corri anti-abortion bill was eventually defeated in parliament, but only after a campaign of mass anti-parliamentary action All these show that parliament cannot be relied on to defend workers interests. During the 1970-4 Tory government huge attacks were launched on the working class. But the workers couldn't rely on the Labour Party in parliament To tree the five imprisoned dockers it took of a one-day general strike by the TUC strike action by 600,000 workers, and the threat tional The miners' strikes, which brought down the Tory government, were won through mas picketing by the miners, and vast solidarity ac Lions by other groups of workers. None of ihese things would have been achieved by relying on the oratorical wizardry of M. Foot in parlia For socialists, the highest principle is the inthe working class.
Reliance on the antique rituals of parliament has never been enough to fight the bosses.
Parliamentary democracy is not the democracy, bourgeois democracy, simultaneously gives the working class important political rights, and severely restricts its real control over events.
The right of working class parties to fight for their programmes in elections, to have MPs Again. It gives the workers' voice in national politics. But parliamentary democracy is also designed to restrict the self-activity and contro of the working class over political events. political decision making by just voting onc every four or five years and then leav every ing to professional politicians. Thi isn't the highest form of democracy - far fror Socialist democracy might well include a na representative assembly elected b universal secret ballot, But the essence o socialist democracy, in a democratic socialis socicly, would be the direct participation of th masses in assemblies in places of work localities, assemblies which would hav decision-making power and directly elec delegates to regional assemblies.
participation own organisations, their own struggles, and the institutions which affect their lives.
Bourgeois parliamentary democracy premised on the masses being passive and leav ing politics to the professional politicians. The Parliament is not central to achieving socialism Socialism cannot be achieved by capturing the existing state apparatus and wielding it in the interests of the working class The present police force, army, civil service all defend the interests of capitalist society, tha is to say the bourgeoisie. Achieving socialism means breaking up this state apparatus and reorganising it in the interests of the working The self-organisation of the masses through workers councils must bring the institutions of the state under their own control.
It may well be that the first decisive step towards socialism is the achievement of a socialist majority in parliament. But if such a socialist majority started to legislate socialist measures, the ruling class would resist with all its extra-parliamentary might.
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MILIE Workers are expected to 'participate' i
Such delegates would be instantly recallabl if the body which elected them was dissatsified For socialists the essence of democracy is th of the masses in running thei
daily involvement of the masses in real decision making is incompatible with capitalism.