What is Democracy in a Capitalist Country?
In the “bourgeois democratic State”—the capitalist State, whether republic or monarchy, in which there are parliamentary institutions—the armed forces and bureaucratic machine, controlled by the capitalist class, exist alongside a parliament in which political parties, representing different classes or sections of classes, have a place determined by the electorate’s votes. For a long period the political composition of Parliament corresponds with the “economically dominant” class—to begin with, the landowners, at a later stage the industrial capitalists, have a substantial majority. There is therefore no conflict between parliament and the State; and the conception grows up that the State is an impartial servant of parliament, because the aims of both are identical. However, with the growth of the working class and its industrial and political organisations, it struggles for democratic rights for itself. It wins the right to organise, to hold meetings, publish papers, etc., and to cont
