Democracy and State Power
Democracy and State Power
The arrival of mass suffrage, in countries with governments responsible or irresponsible to elected parliaments, gave rise either to ‘umbrella’ pan-class parties, or sectional parties of class or nationality and/or religious identity. These gave rise to variations in circumstance determining the likely degree of socialist-liberal cooperation. On balance, socialists and liberals did cooperate, but only to a limited extent. The 1905 Revolution in Russia re-opened the debate about possibilities for overturning entrenched state power. It was also important in revealing the likelihood that liberal revolution could easily displace bourgeois leadership and present opportunities for socialists basing themselves upon the proletariat. Debates on this matter involving Rosa Luxemburg, V.I. Lenin, Karl Kautsky, and Leon Trotsky are examined. Whether militarism and imperialism was inherent in capitalism was debated by Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding, and Lenin: Lenin's conclusion that bourgeois liberalism was defunct is foreshadowed.
Keywords: suffrage, 1905 Revolution, V. I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, imperialism, Rudolf Hilferding
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