Patrick Tourey/Gao Jingyu (Trans.): Democracy Within and Tyranny Without

Western countries, led by the United States, are launching a massive international campaign against China under the banners of democracy and human rights. Although they possess no special privilege to judge other nations, nor the right to overthrow states that do not follow their dictates, countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria have paid a heavy price for this in recent years. Because of its rapid development, China is viewed as a dangerous competitor by the U.S.-led Western camp. In this economic, commercial, and ideological conflict, the West acts as both plaintiff and judge. In fact, the West not only refuses to accept the prevalence of views contrary to its own but goes so far as to condemn the "other" in return. For example, when United Nations agencies or international agreements displease the United States, it withdraws from and condemns them. The situation with the U.S. dollar is similar: in the eyes of the United States, the international financial system must accept the supremacy of the dollar without question.

I. How Far Can Western Democracy Go?

What, then, is democracy in this context? Why does it seem so important to the West? The true meaning of democracy is the power of the people, the power of the majority. This requires defining "power" and "the people" across time and space, as well as across different forms of democracy.

To define the essence of power, one must first distinguish power from its external forms. The forms of democracy are diverse—some are more or less restrictive, while others are flexible and respect diversity. However, there is a simple, adversarial way to know who truly holds power: observe when power is threatened (or appears to be) and when power resorts to force to impose its will. This is how the "other side" of Western democracy operates: through coups and armed interventions. In principle, everything can be debated, discussed, and modified, but only within the limits of real power and the framework of prior agreements—that is, within formal or tacit compromises. The more such compromises exist, the more likely a Western democracy is to indulge in multi-party systems, competitive elections, and rotations of government. As long as this "game" does not call into question the balance of society and the state, or any other fundamental compromise, the "game" can do anything. But as soon as power is threatened, or even feels threatened, the issue is decided through a decisive struggle over the exercise of real power.

Ultimately, this real power does not reside in the universal suffrage or parliamentary systems of Western countries, but in the economic and social power of a class or a coalition of classes that is willing to share and negotiate on all matters except its own supremacy.

If Donald Trump could "play" at a coup on January 6, 2021—despite his bluster, he did not act rashly—it was because his differences with the opposing side had not reached a level that would justify it; he had to continue performing within the system to serve the system. Even if contradictions existed, they were not diametrically opposed ^[1]. The United States remains the dominant world power and cannot afford the danger of being weakened internally; therefore, Trump would not truly move to overthrow the system.

II. International Balance of Power and Interventionism

The state of democracy is not merely a national issue; the international context must also be considered. Examples of military and foreign intervention abound. The most representative include Spain (1936), Chile (1973), and more recently Venezuela and Bolivia—not to mention dozens of countries across other continents. Let us specifically recall the military interventions of imperialism against the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, and the Cuban Revolution.

For a long time, and particularly over the past twenty years, the massive offensives of imperialism have been carried out in the name of democracy, freedom, and human rights. However, the results have been exactly the opposite: the loss of popular sovereignty and a decline in well-being for the people of the intervened countries, consequences sometimes masked by the veneer of Western-style elections. In the name of democracy, the United States strikes at the sovereignty of peoples and nations that do not comply. In other words, the U.S. and other Western countries are in open confrontation with the right of peoples to self-determination—that is, with democracy itself. Then comes the simple ultimatum to non-compliant nations: either integrate and submit, or remain outside as potential hostile targets, suffering anything from simple reprimands and sanctions to total military destruction.

When Western countries decide to destroy a nation, triggering catastrophic social consequences, they indifferently label it "collateral damage." When faced with waves of refugees fleeing war and famine, they immediately close their doors to these populations. These people must suffer the consequences in silence so as not to disturb the stability of the Western countries themselves. Western nations destabilize other countries and then use the pretext of "collateral" victims welcoming their own politico-military actions to justify refusing to bear the consequences.

It is precisely this disparity between the "internal" and the "external" that explains why a regime calling itself democratic, such as the United States and other Western powers, can destroy a country in the name of democracy, using violence or covert action to crush democracy—meaning true people's power—whenever that power is perceived as an obstacle to their own. Whether directed against democratic states or dictatorial regimes, imposing the appearance of democracy (what official U.S. rhetoric calls "regime change") remains a form of tyranny. In fact, the United States is imposing its system on other nations, and with it, its political and cultural domination. This clearly evokes colonial precedents, such as converting "natives" to a specific sect of Christianity favored by the occupying power.

If a "dictator" of a country is indeed targeted by Western military intervention in the name of democracy, it is not actually because of the internal nature of the regime, but because they have not bowed to the world's dominant power. The benevolent attitude of the United States toward friendly, docile, and subordinate "dictatorships" is proof of this. What is ousted by the Western democratic system is not the dictator, but the independence of these nations; they are sentenced to death for "insolent disobedience."

III. Capitalism and Democracy

However, this contradiction is only a surface phenomenon. In reality, this duality between the internal and external has existed since the historical origins of democracy. Democracy indeed has two levels: the internal level aims to coordinate contradictions through rules accepted by all, making decisions based on broadly agreed-upon choices and peacefully resolving disputes between equal or quasi-equal parties; the external level aims for exclusion—that is, excluding non-beneficiaries and potential victims of domination and exploitation from the privileged circle.

We can trace the historical trajectory of this concept: from ancient Greece and Rome to Venice and the Netherlands (13th and 17th centuries), and then to Britain. In these places, commercial and imperial rule relied on powerful maritime force, thereby creating a system that practiced internal democracy while serving the interests of overseas domination.

With the era of colonial empires, this principle spread globally. With few exceptions, citizenship and democracy were not granted to the colonized because, by definition, they were conquered, inferior peoples.

Capitalism itself operates according to the same principle, with a barrier between the internal (owners, shareholders) and the external (non-owners, proletarians). What we call highly unequal democracy is merely the internal condition. As socialist and anti-colonialist movements worldwide have shown, capitalism a priori ignores the external; for capitalism, everything external is first discarded or even crushed—even if this principle can later be turned around and used by colonies in their intent and power to oppose colonial rule.

Western-style democracy is not the result of an ideological choice by the democratic factions of the wealthy classes in rich countries to generously grant freedom to others. Rather, it is the result of struggles among themselves and between social classes—a minimum consensus established through compromise. It is the pursuit of this foundation that has guaranteed the improvement of the quality of life and the development of civil rights for the people of Western countries. Whenever disagreement arises, the system is overturned. Similarly, international democracy can only be guaranteed if it is based on an international consensus rooted in respect for sovereignty and diversity.

IV. Democracy and Civil War

Let us use an ancient and important example—the American Civil War (1861–1865)—to illustrate the essence and contradictions of this Western democracy. The American Civil War took place on the soil of this much-vaunted but fragmented American-style democracy. The outcome of the Civil War marked the victory of freedom over slavery; at that time, Marx and the First International cheered it, but this is not the whole story of the war. If the war was indeed initiated by the Southern slaveholders, it was because they feared losing their privileges; however, the war initially launched by the North was not for the abolition of slavery, but to re-establish the Union. To them, the most intolerable thing was the division of the country. The evidence lies in the fact that it was weapons, not the democratic opinion of the voters (who undoubtedly cast their ballots for Lincoln), that were respected.

Furthermore, only after the North had actually faced defeat and was confronted with the necessity of defeating the Southern slaveholders did the Civil War dialectically transform into a victory for the abolition of slavery, rather than the other way around. In this war, filled with slaughter and trauma for Americans, there were two intertwined aspects: first, the South's political decision to secede; second, the South's social motivation to preserve slavery—slavery was condemned in the North but faced no realistic threat there. As for the war, it was launched by the North to prohibit separatism. It was the course of the war that led the North to take a more direct stance against slavery, but this was a gradual process attended by certain difficulties.

It was precisely because the North did not respect the results of a democratic vote that the South seceded. And it was precisely because the South lost the war that it lost its most cherished institution of slavery. In short, the South decided to secede from the Union to avoid the risk of abolition, but abolition was not actually on the agenda; it was through the war, and primarily through its own military defeat, that the South catalyzed the move toward abolition. This is similar to how a century later, the defeat of the Anti-Comintern Pact of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy in World War II led to an unprecedented expansion of the socialist camp, particularly the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Returning to the American Civil War, the conflict resulted in 750,000 deaths and remains the war with the highest number of American citizen fatalities to this day. Moreover, on the soil of American democracy, it was a true civil war. In those four years, the blood shed by the American people on their own soil far exceeded that of any domestic or foreign battlefield (such as the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) since the founding of the country in 1776. Adjusted for the current U.S. population, such a civil war would be equivalent to 8 million deaths. The mortality rate of nearly 3% during those four years of conflict is close to the combined totals of France and Germany during World War I.

V. The Limits and Ideals of Democracy

The critique of Western democracy here intentionally avoids emphasizing the differences between its reality and its formalisms (whether the working class has the right to vote; whether women, Black people, and various minorities have the right to vote; public freedoms vs. civil rights; and the unequal financial resources behind communication methods and political power). If these differences also follow a certain law of separation between the internal and the external, they are primarily the results of the different social, political, and cultural historical developments of the countries they follow. These social, political, and cultural historical limitations do not, in fact, invalidate the model of internal-external separation itself, because these limitations only indicate the incompleteness of the model's principles—an incompleteness that, in many countries, has become less pronounced. This is because within a country, due to struggle and natural development, the boundaries between the external and internal (wealth, race, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.) are constantly shifting.

In countries with long democratic traditions, progressive forces are legitimately attached to the political forms generated by democracy, mainly due to two factors: the fruits of their political and social struggles (sometimes bloody) and the assurance of a certain balance between political factions and the freedom of political action. The limitation of democracy is the consensus of these factions. Questioning the basis of these achievements can easily turn into reactionary resentment, which primarily benefits anti-representative, far-right, and fascist groups.

However, while the democratic forms of Western countries were obtained through the struggles of the people and often possess revolutionary origins, these countries have utilized military force to impose these democratic forms upon others, resulting in famine, death, and the dislocation of social relations. Rather than expanding these democratic forms, Western nations have discredited them, brought them into contempt, and stripped them of the legitimate reputation they ought to enjoy among the people of the world. This is because there was never an intent to impose these democratic forms for the benefit of any nation; instead, the ruling classes believed they had the right to do so for their own interests. This is precisely the situation foreseen as early as January 2, 1792, by the French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre: the most extravagant idea that can be born in the mind of a politician is to believe that one people, entering the home of a foreign people with arms in hand, can force the latter to adopt its laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries ^[2], and the natural and cautious response is to repel them as enemies.

VI. The Struggle for Democracy and Socialism

For the oppressed, fighting for democracy—that is, fighting for the power of their people—first requires organizing and training themselves. Subsequently, the legacy of democratic forms produced by these old revolutions is transformed into various continuously developing forms of people's democracy and socialist democracy. However, the oppressed have never been free from the fate of foreign interference and armed interventions aimed at restoring the old regimes.

In a world plagued by constant conflict and where the independence of peoples and the sovereignty of states are under threat, it is immaterial whether these destabilizing political-military threats and actions originate from countries possessing some form of democratic republicanism. What matters is that these countries seek to perpetuate a violent global dictatorship, usurping rights for themselves without any democratic mandate.

On January 5, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out: “The historical materialist viewpoint regarding the inevitable demise of capitalism and the inevitable victory of socialism has not become obsolete. This is the irreversible general trend of social and historical development, yet the road is tortuous. The final demise of capitalism and the final victory of socialism will necessarily be a long historical process.” We remain in this stage and will likely continue to be so for a considerable time. The period of transition is fraught with threats to peace, as the United States and its allies seek to reshape a Cold War atmosphere. Having won the previous round, they now sense that their time of hegemony is running out. Yet, international democracy can only be achieved by imposing an end to this hegemony.

President Xi Jinping added: “We must have a profound understanding of the self-regulatory capacity of capitalist society, and fully estimate the objective reality that developed Western countries will long maintain advantages in economy, technology, and military affairs.”

One might add certain democratic forms, rights, and rules of freedom to this comprehensive assessment of the achievements of capitalist society. However, this first requires stripping these major powers of the right to use democratic rules in a manner that contradicts their declared goals, as the sole purpose of these powers is the conquest and destruction of other states.

VII. The Well-being of the People

Seeking well-being, development, and a harmonious balance is the natural aspiration of all peoples. Democracy is a means to achieve this goal; it must serve these ends rather than the hegemony of a few. In a joint signed article by the Chinese and Russian ambassadors to the United States on November 26, 2021, this viewpoint was clearly emphasized: “A basic criterion of democracy must be about the people, i.e., whether the people have the right to govern their country, whether their needs are met, and whether they have a sense of fulfillment and happiness... pursuing supremacy and always putting oneself first are acts of hegemonism and unilateralism, which are clearly anti-democratic.”

The West’s pursuit of imposing its political system on other nations is not for the sake of spreading well-being and happiness across the globe, but to proclaim its own dominance, prove its own intellectual and moral correctness, and impose its economic and social system based on exploitation and inequality. If the West truly wished for the people of the world to attain well-being and free, flourishing development, it would first avoid making itself the permanent supreme judge and an international coercive force that interferes with and destroys the sovereignty of other countries.

The principal contradiction in the world today is the contradiction between the minority who occupy a dominant position on Earth seeking to impose their system on the dominated majority, and the latter seeking to implement their people's sovereignty and national sovereignty. Only a harmonious world that sets aside domination and threats can rationally and fairly manage the major issues facing all of humanity: food, health, ecological balance, access to water and energy, and demographic, social, and cultural development. This harmonious world will turn a new page for international and national democracy, where different democratic forms will be able to blossom fully in various ways, and can innovate by drawing on the different experiences and systems currently in struggle across the planet.