10 PROPOSITIONS
277
possible, indeed necessary, a quite different kind of party from
the Bolshevik model. A looser party, reflecting the diversity of a
more highly developed society, perhaps a grouping of parties
rather than The Party.
It is wrong to look at the question of political parties
sub
specie etemitas:
the Great French Revolution was not 'made' by
any one party, nor was the 1905 Russian revolution. While it is
true that
some
form of organization is necessary, and does not
exist today, this deficiency does not of itself invalidate the general
line of these propositions. And if this line of development is cor–
rect, if the capitalist order in England and America is as unequal
to the problems of this war period as we think it is, then we can
at least today propagandize such ideas and support such tendencies
as seem to lead towards the formation of a party or movement
which will be able to take advantage of the 'revolutionary situa–
tions' we believe will develop in the future. Parties sometimes
make history, but history also makes parties.
10.
To win the war against fascism, we must work for the replace–
ment of the present governments in England and the United
States by workingclass governments committed to a program
of democratic socialism. All support of whatever kind must
be withheld from Churchill and Roosevelt.
Otherwise we are lost. They can only lead us to disaster.
The attack upon them and what they represent should take the
form of constant and radical criticism of their conduct of the war.
This criticism must be coupled with demands for the greatest pos–
sible mass participation in the leadership and guidance of the
state, referenda upon crucial issues, workingclass control of eco–
nomic planning, public diplomacy, democratisation of the army,
equality for Negroes, etc., etc.* These demands are by their very
nature an attack upon the existing social order, and it is incon-
'There are those who will say that these demands
per se
are so impracticable as
to
cancel themselves out in the public consciousness: there won't be enough time to
pat
such demands into effect, and even should they be put into effect the machinery
ef
the state and the army would become so cumbersome and slow as to be ruinous to
die
prosecution of the war. As for
(l),
this war has so far consisted of long periods
cl
comparative inactivity, punctuated by short bursts of fighting, which would have
p.en
Great Britain and France ample time to reorganize themselves along the lines
J110posed.
Such changes can take place more speedily in wartime than in peace. The
British
still have time. As for (2), democratisation of the state and the army does
lilt
exclude the limited delegation of authority in emergencies, and it is debatable
wllether referenda would take more time than the deliberations of bourgeois statesmen.
