ARGUMENTS
295
The growth of democracy in nineteenth-century England is notably
a consequence of social (class) struggle: labor insurgency together with
reform movements among intellectuals and middle-class people. In turn,
this social struggle is enabled by the growth of democracy. A "rich social
history" signifies the ways in which an oppressed class defines itself
through conflict, thereby gaining power and confidence: Chartism, the
chapel, trade unions, the Labour Party, etc. Also: the Reform Bills,
Dickens, Mill and liberal socialism, George Eliot and the religion of
humanity, indeed, the whole tradition of sociocultural criticism described
in Raymond Williams'
Culture and Society.
This profoundly liberating
complex of developments stands in sharp contrast to the faceless and
static anomie of social life under the Communist dictatorships; and that,
Mr. Caute, is one reason socialists place so heavy a stress upon the
"absolute fetishism of parties and nominal pluralities" (how dismal an
echo that sneering phrase of his sounds, quite as if we were right back
in the wretched days of "social fascism!").
The experience and conquests-the experience of solidarity in a
strike, the conquest of political independence-which the English work–
ing class won for itself is today, after decades of what Mr. Caute deli–
cately calls "Soviet socialism," still denied to the Russian people. In
respect to class activity (to say nothing of political and intellectual free–
dom) the workers in the Communist countries are still behind the Eng–
lish workers of a century ago, for they have not yet won for themselves
or been allowed by their societies the most elementary political and
social rights.
That is why I am indeed quite "solidly based" when speaking in
behalf of the Russian Ivans; I speak in the language of such "revisionists"
as Djilas, Kolakowski and Tertz. I want those Ivans to have the same
liberties and powers that their brothers in the West have wrested for
themselves---even while I am quite ready to say that in the West those
liberties are often unused and those powers often misused. Democracy is
not a sufficient condition for socialism or the good society, but it is a nec–
essary one; and without it, there can only occur a self-alienating elitist
manipulation of the masses in the name of "history" or "industrial
development" or "the revolutionary vanguard." On this score Mr. Caute
is right in saying I have forgotten nothing: it is a lesson, Mr. Caute,
that has been paid for with the agony and blood of generations. And
in any case I am confident, these days, that when it comes to forgetting
there will be no lack of candidates.
Similar considerations apply to the underdeveloped countries. It
