naires russes, de 1918à 1924 se sont trompés sur l'importance à accorder à la démocratie, à son extension et sur l'organisation du pouvoir des classes populaires.
Ils ont, progressivement, liquidé les libertés démocratiques, condamné les opposants. Les révolutionnaires ne doivent plus commettre ce type d'erreurs.
Notre perspective est celle de l'auto-émancipation populaire. Il ne s'agit pas de prendre le pouvoir pour soi (parti, armée ou avant garde)... mais de le rendre au peuple.
Le socialisme ce n'est pas moins de démocratie, c'est au contraire plus de démocratie, de suffrage universel, de pluralisme, de débats, de consultations populaires, de rotation des dirigeants.
La démocratie socialiste, c'est gestion de l'économie par les travailleurs et le gouvernement du peuple par le peuple.
Nous ne réduisons pas, non plus, la question du pouvoir à la seule destruction de la vielle machinerie d'Etat. La conquête du pouvoir par les classes populaires ouvre un autre processus où toutes « les relations de pouvoir doivent commencer dépérir.
Mais la condition d'un tel processus, c'est bien le renversement du pouvoir capitaliste.
Tout cela est-il nécessaire? Nous partons de loin. Les rapports de forces sont défavorables Il faudra du temps pour les reconstruire et créer les conditions de nouvelles transformations révolutionnaires.
Mais il faut avoir une boussole, car les résistances quotidiennes, les alliances sociales et politiques font partie d'une lutte à long terme pour changer la société.
Ceux qui ont prétendu ignorer la conquête du pouvoir ont souvent été rattrapés par lui : ils ne voulaient pas le prendre, le pouvoir les a pris.
Et ceux qui ont cru pouvoir l'esquiver, l'éviter, le contourner ont souvent été François Sabado This is an old question, which is being asked again in the strategic debates that the anticapitalist movement is having. What does it really mean?
Reforms, social gains, new laws and rights or a fundamental change in society, an overthrowing of social relationships, who owns what and who controls whom, in short of a social revolution.
In fact all through the history of social struggles, number of reforms new rights and social gains have been won under the pressure of the balance of forces and of social mobilisations but without taking power.
Revolutionaries support any reforms which improve the living and working conditions of the population. They follow closely or take part in everything people do which weakens the domination of capitalism.
These movements are decisive but they are not enough. They don't consolidate the gains that have been won in the long term. The ruling class often takes back with one hand what it has given. Nor do these struggles change the basic logic of the situation and replace the logic of the profit motive with that of providing for social needs.
In building an alternative these experiences can be indispensable points of support. But even an accumulation of these experiences is not enough to overthrow the real basis of society. They clash with the power at the centre of things.
The ruling classes are able to prevent structural modifications of society by means of controlling the state and capitalist property.
The war in Iraq shows again the key part that states play, specifically American imperialism. In the same way that the power of the multinationals demonstrates the importance of capitalist property and the means of production in the world economy. Military and economic power seem more spread out than ever before but they are also more concentrated than ever The ruling never peacefully allowed themselves to have their property taken off them. The revolutionary conquest of power by the workers is a decisive link in this chain. before. To make change possible we have to break this double hold of the state and property. Without a social and revolutionary mobilisation which breaks the back of capitalist domination - the state - and those who support capitalist domination continue to rule Zapatistas raise objections based on the failure of the social-democratic or Stalinist models. instead of those who want to bring this property into public ownership used for the benefit of everyone in society.
We don't know what the future revolutions will be like. Also, based on our experience we can only give some strategic pointers as to how they might look: there isn't a revolutionary situation without a major crisis in social relations, without a loss of legitimacy of those in charge, without the creation of an hegemony of the working class over society and without the emergence of antagonistic forms of dual power exercised by opposing classes, one of which must give way.
And we must never forget that the ruling classes have never peacefully allowed themselves to have their property taken off them. The revolutionary conquest of power by the workers is a decisive link in this chain.
The currents or movements which support "changing society... without taking power", e.g. the Zapatistas who are at the heart of a process of self-emancipation, raise several objections against us based on the failure
the social-democratic (Labourite) or Stalinist models.
Let's look at Brazil they say. Is the situation there more or less favourable for the development of the social movements after the victory of Lula and the PT?
It's a real question but it doesn't raise the issue of power itself but the type of policies that the Lula government is applying: policies which accept the imperatives of the financial markets and which demobilise ordinary
For in a country like Brazil where political and military power are very concentrated, there can be no structural modifications without politics which are anti-capitalist on issues concerning the land and farmers, the cities and workers.
The magnificent movement of the MST is pushing against these limits.
There are increasing numbers of land occupation but, at a certain level, you need government intervention and that is where the Brazilian peasants are paying the price for the economic and budgetary choices of Lula's team.
What's on the agenda now in Brazil is a break with the markets, the IMF and the World Bank and a change to policies which meet the population's most basic needs.
This type of politics inevitably implies a confrontation with the Brazilian capitalist to decide who will govern.
They say "doesn't your idea lead to too much state control and don't you risk repeating the mistakes of the bureaucratic Stalinist system?" We don't mix up the Russian Revolution, which we support, with the Stalinist counter-revolution.
Yet it's true that the Russian revolutionaries of 1918-24 were mistaken on the importance they attached to extending democracy and the organisation of the power of the working class and peasants.
They abolished democratic freedoms and condemned their opponents. Revolutionaries must never again commit these sorts of mistakes.
Our conception is that of ordinary people freeing themselves. It's not a question of taking power as an end in itself (with a party, an army or a vanguard) ... but giving it to the people.
Socialism doesn't mean less democracy. It means more democracy, universal suffrage, pluralism, debates, consultations among the people, regular changes of leaders.
Socialist democracy is the management of the economy by the workers and government of the people by the
We no longer reduce the question of power to the destruction of the old machinery of the state.
The conquest of power by working opens process where all the "power relations" must begin to shrivel away. But this can only happen with the overthrowing of capitalist power.
Is all that necessary? We are a long way from it. The balance of forces is unfavourable. We will need time to change them and create the conditions for new revolutionary transformations.
But we must have a compass, for the everyday acts of resistance, social and political alliances are part of a long term struggle to change society.
Those who have claimed to disregard the conquest of power have often found themselves conquered by it. Power took control of them.
And those who thought that they could dodge it, avoid it or go round it have often been crushed by it.
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