The Right To Referendum And Initiative At All Levels Of Government

08 Feb 2020

This will be the first in a series of articles on a very important topic. In this first article I will argue the need for rights to referendum and initiative at all levels of government as an essential part of building the democratic state necessary for the construction of socialism. In further articles I will being going through the National Citizens Initiative for Democracy, a proposal long supported by Mike Gravel. I will argue a socialist party should rekindle this movement and suggest some changes needed in the current proposal.

First of all we can ask, does this demand facilitate the issuance of threshold or intermediate demands later on? I think it can be said that the answer is an absolute yes. We can already see that initiative and referendum can be used to pass legislation that would have very small chance of being passed in through a representative body. Things like the legalization of medical and recreational cannabis in California and Colorado respectively, and creating a citizens redistricting board in Michigan to end gerrymandering,. With this tool further democratic reforms could be issued implementing more direct working class power. The opposition of the state and the propertied classes to democratic reforms and the will of ordinary people makes quite clear the divide between the working class and the oligarchic state in alignment with the propertied classes keeping the basic principles consciously in view.

As Marx proclaimed in The Communist Manifesto “the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy”. In order for the working class to enact their revolutionary program, it is essential that direct working class rule can be achieved. Engels in The Principles of Communism states this in response to the question “What will be the course of the revolution?”:

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat. Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat

The working class must through the class struggle make efforts to transform the state into an instrument of direct working class power, and enact their program to set forth the transition to socialism. One means of direct working class power is the rights to enact and veto legislation, and to amend the constitution by means of popular vote. This right should be guaranteed at all levels of government, local, state, and federal with no ability for any official to disregard the will of the people.

An organized socialist party could then take on new functions, convincing the general public of its program and strategically putting up for vote legislation and amendments to fulfill specific demands in the parties program. The struggle for specific demands will allow the socialist movement to further merge with other labor and working class movements connecting the struggle for these specifics with the struggle for socialism in general.

While this demand is only one part of a multi-pronged effort in the transformation of the state into an instrument of direct working class power, in order to facilitate the issuance of further demands and the construction of a truly and fully democratic state this should be the first step in that transformation. Many states and localities already have these institutions in place, the next step is to fully instate them in all levels of government and remove all limitations on their direct power. A powerful tool in the hands of the working class indeed, and the first step towards winning the battle of democracy.