PARLIAMENT OR SOVIET
To American and British Soldiers:
You are told that you are fighting for democracy. But what kind of democracy are you fighting for? On one side is the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, on the other side the capitalist "democracies" of England, France and the United States.
The fact is clear, and you have to choose between two existing systems of management of public life - by the workers for the workers; or by the workers and the capitalist for the capitalists. The political system under which you live appears to give the right to control public affairs to the people. But who actually controls affairs in your countries? Is it not the Morgans and Rockefellers, the Devenports, Rhondas or men like these; big business men, capitalists and financiers. At elections they make fine promises, but when they are returned do nothing, and when some petty reform is demanded they wonder where the money is to come from. If the workers get more insistent in their demands these so called representatives of the people will call out troops to shoot the people down, as they did at Ludlow, Colorado, Tonypandy Wales, and Dublin.
In our democracy only the workers have a voice, only those that produce the useful things decide how to enjoy the results of their common efforts. We are a commonwealth of fellow-workers and we don’t want parasites and their supporters to interfere with our affairs.
This kind of democracy is not to the liking of those who wish to live upon the labor of others. Being a minority they want a democracy that secures the rule of the few over the many and you are made to fight for this kind of "democracy."
You may argue since we have general suffrage it is our own stupidity if we elect the wrong representatives to Parliament and we are going to change this gradually.
But even if it was possible to secure a majority of the right people in Parliament, this would not help you out since Parliament is only one of the institutions of capitalist power and not the most important either. There is the government with its bureaucratic machinery, the police, the judges, the army. In the Parliaments the representatives were allowed to talk, but it is the executive power, the government that acts. And this government in all countries is becoming more and more powerful, whereas the influence of the Parliament is on the decline. It would be absurd to believe that it will be possible to vote the capitalists out of power, out of their privileges. Parliament is a capitalist institution to further capitalist interests and if it ceases to further those interests it will he simply reorganized or abolished altogether.
More than that, political control is useless if it does not carry with it control of the means of life; in your country Parliament has only a very limited control of industry. The means of production are owned and controlled almost exclusively by capita1ists. Those who own the means of life, own every thing. In Russia the means of life are owned by the whole nation, and the control is vested in the local and National Soviets. The Soviets are elected from the workers in the factories, mines or railroads as the case may be. We have thus direct and exclusive labor representation. Ours is a real labor republic, and when you come against us to overthrow the Soviets and establish the kind of democracy that exists in your countries, you are attempting to overthrow the rule of the workers and re-establish the rule of kings and capitalists.
Fellow workingmen, refuse to be the suppressors of your own class. Strive rather to establish your rule in your countries. Form soldiers’ councils in your regiments. Send your representative to your officers and demand to be sent home. And when you get home remove the sham capitalist democracy reigning there, and establish true republics of labor as we have done in Russia.
THE GROUP OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COMMUNISTS
Found in: "Revolutionary Radicalism, Part I, Volume I, p. 326-327, J.B. Lyon Company, Albany, 1920."
