p The founders of scientific
communism conclusively showed tne narrowness and tentative nature of bourgeois democracy.

p They proved that, in fact, bourgeois democracy is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the rich minority over the majority of the working people. Moreover, they demonstrated that the working class cannot remain indifferent to democracy, which is, at the same time, “a weapon in the hands of the proletariat”.  [93•**  Democracy, even if it is curtailed and bourgeois, provides the working class with the possibility of extending its revolutionary struggle. Take the bourgeois parliament, for example. Unquestionably it serves the bourgeoisie, but, at the same time, the working class is using it more and more 94 frequently in its struggle against the reactionary policies of the imperialists.

p Under anti-democratic conditions—reign of terror, repressive laws, regime of personal power, and so on—it is incomparably easier for the monopolies to exploit the people, combat the revolutionary actions of the masses and implement their reactionary policies. Today there is a mounting reactionary political trend on the part of capitalism to abolish democratic liberties, to move from parliamentarianism to an undisguised terrorist dictatorship of the monopolies. In West Germany, for example, the Communist Party was outlawed in 1956. On the other hand, all sorts of nco-nazi, revenge-seeking organisations are flourishing. The number of these organisations has increased from 86 in 1961 to 123 in 1964. In 1963 alone there were 10,000 court actions against progressive organisations in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the U.S.A., not only the Communist Party but all other progressive organisations have virtually been banned, and a whole series of anti-labour laws has been passed. Yet, with the connivance and, frequently, the patronage of the authorities reactionary organisations like the Ku Klux Klan operate freely.

p Political reaction and the absence of democracy not only hinder the revolutionary movement but also infringe upon the human dignity of the working people, upon elementary liberties and rights. For that reason the working class, together with other sections of the people, is resolutely struggling for democracy. It is stirring the masses to rise against the attempts of the monopolies to abolish democratic freedoms and against the revival of any variety of fascism. The combining of the struggle of the working class for socialism with the general democratic movement for peace, national independence and democracy is an important feature of the present-day working-class movement.

p The democratic demands of the working class of the capitalist countries include: general democratisation of economic and public life, of all administrative, political and cultural institutions; nationalisation of major branches of the economy and the democratisation of the management of these branches; a higher living standard for the 95 working people; defence of the interests of the peasants and of the petty and middle bourgeoisie against the arbitrary rule of the monopolies; national independence; peace and the utilisation of the economy and of science and technology for peaceful purposes, in the interests of the people.

This programme does not abolish private ownership or exploitation, it does not call for the overthrow of capitalism as a whole and does not signify a reformist growth of capitalism into socialism. Many of its points are important not only in themselves but as milestones of the workingclass struggle, as footholds for the onward movement of the working class towards its principal objective—-socialism. The struggle for democracy undermines the influence of the forces of reaction, particularly of the monopolies, and thereby clears the road for the socialist revolution In the course of this struggle the working class becomes more organised, acquires experience and rallies the majority of the people round itself, thus forming the political army of the socialist revolution. Thus, far from retarding the socialist revolution, the general democratic struggle against monopoly rule brings it nearer and, therefore, the struggle for democracy is a component of the struggle for socialism.