Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism is a broad political movement propagating the ideals of socialism within the context of a democratic system. In many cases, its adherents promote the ideal of socialism as an evolutionary process resulting from legislation enacted by a parliamentary democracy. Other democratic socialists favor a revolutionary approach that seeks to establish socialism by creating a non-parliamentary democratic system, usually based on workers' councils or similar organizations.

History

Many early varieties of socialism, particularly those stemming from the sans-culotte branch of French Revolutionary politics, took for granted democratic characteristics such as universal suffrage and equality before the law. Notable among such currents are the egalitarian Jacobinism of Babeuf, the humanistic revolutionary spirit of Louis Blanc, Robert Owen's so-called utopianism, and the communism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Such early socialisms might in retrospect be included as democratic socialist. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Socialist Industrial Unionism of Daniel DeLeon in the United States represented another strain of early Democratic Socialism, which favored a form of government based on industrial unions, but which also sought to establish this government after winning at the ballot box, thus assuming a revolutionary approach while incorporating the parliamentarism of evolutionary democratic socialism.

Related Topics:
Sans-culotte - French Revolution - Jacobinism - Babeuf - Louis Blanc - Robert Owen - Communism - Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Daniel DeLeon - United States

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However, democratic socialism as such only becomes a movement in its own right as a current rejecting both Stalinism (with its distinctive visions of the vanguard party and the dictatorship of the proletariat) and, preferably, the reformism characteristic of yellow socialists and social democrats.

Related Topics:
Dictatorship of the proletariat - Reformism - Yellow socialist - Social democrat

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During the 1920s, Council communism anticipated democratic socialist positions in several respects, notably through renouncing the vanguard role of the revolutionary party and holding that the system of the USSR was not authentically socialist (describing it as defective or specious socialism). However, council communism has generally tended towards the "ultraleft" position of opposing any reforms of capitalism in the short term.

Related Topics:
1920s - Council communism - USSR

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The guild socialism of G. D. H. Cole was a conscious attempt to envision a socialist alternative to Soviet-style authoritarianism.

Related Topics:
Guild socialism - G. D. H. Cole

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During India's freedom movement, many figures on the Left of the Indian National Congress organized themselves as the Congress Socialist Party. Their politics, and those of the early and intermediate periods of JP Narayan's career, combined a commitment to the socialist transformation of society with a principled opposition to the one-party authoritarianism they perceived in the Stalinist revolutionary model.

Related Topics:
India - Freedom movement - Indian National Congress - Congress Socialist Party - JP Narayan - Stalinist

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The folkesocialisme or people's socialism that emerged as a vital current of the Left in Scandinavia beginning in the 1950s could also be characterized as a democratic socialism in the same vein.

Related Topics:
People's socialism - Scandinavia - 1950s

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In much of Europe and North America during the 1960s, there was a strong current of democratic socialism in the politics of the New Left. For example, the classic Port Huron Statement of the SDS combines a stringent critique of the Communist model with calls for a democratic socialist reconstruction of society. In western Europe, Dany Cohn-Bendit, the situationists, and various groups taking to the streets in May 1968 articulated similar positions. The New Left legacy of democratic socialism may be clearly seen in the post-Marxist positions of a wide range of intellectuals (often identified with post-modernism or post-structuralism), from Chantal Mouffe in Europe to Cornell West in the United States.

Related Topics:
Europe - North America - 1960s - New Left - Port Huron Statement - SDS - Dany Cohn-Bendit - Situationist - May 1968 - Post-Marxist - Post-modernism - Post-structuralism - Chantal Mouffe - Cornell West - United States

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Simultaneously in Eastern Europe (particularly Czechoslovakia), there was a tendency towards socialism with a human face meant to endow a Marxist-Leninist political establishment with more authentically democratic credentials.

Related Topics:
Czechoslovakia - Socialism with a human face

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Since the end of the Cold War, many traditionally Marxist-Leninist groups and parties have evolved positions more closely resembling democratic socialism. The parties of the European United Left today often include both a "conservative" Marxist-Leninist wing and a "liberal" democratic socialist tendency.

Related Topics:
Cold War - European United Left

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The boundaries of what might be categorized as "democratic socialism" are thus necessarily fluid. On the right, democratic socialism shades seamlessly into social democracy; on the left, it passes into various hybrids and permutations of Leninism. Furthermore, it also shades off into a variety of radical progressive groups not specifically identifying with the history or symbolism of "socialism" as such. Since the 1990s much of the political activity of the democratic Left has fed into the international movement against capitalist globalization. Many anti-globalist groups describe themselves as anti-capitalist without self-identifying as socialist, despite sharing a great many positions and analyses with the New Left and democratic socialism.

Related Topics:
1990s - Movement against capitalist globalization - Anti-capitalist

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