What is Socialist Democracy: Workers’ Councils or Electoral Politics?

In our opinion this article is unfortunately mistitled, but that shouldn’t stop us from learning from its major point. Socialist democracy is not some gradualist participation in elections, even by a socialist party. Rather, the real example of socialist democracy was workers’ self-management assemblies and councils during the Russian Revolution. We disagree that the Bolsheviks seriously supported these councils, but the author is right to contrast worker council democracy to social democratic solutions.

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Image from No-Gods-No-Masters 

 

About Bruce Lerro

Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his five books: "From Earth-Spirits to Sky-Gods: the Socio-ecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning", "Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World" (co-authored with Christopher Chase-Dunn), "Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present", "Lucifer's Labyrinth: Individualism, Hyper-Abstract Thinking and the Process of Becoming Civilized", and "The Magickal Enchantment of Materialism: Why Marxists Need Neopaganism". He is also a representational artist specializing in pen-and-ink drawings. Bruce is a libertarian communist and lives in Olympia, WA.

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