National Democratic Revolution

A national democratic state is a state formation that is the result of specific base and superstructural relation that exists in that given state, according to Marxist–Leninist theory. The ideological concept was first formulated in the Soviet Union, and it was intended as a tool for Soviet foreign policy as well as communist parties in Third World countries trying to seize power.

The Soviets designated both communist states and non-communist states as national democratic states, for example, the communist state of the People's Republic of Angola and the non-communist state of Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

Theoretical origins

After World War II, the Western world was divided into two blocs: a capitalist bloc led by the United States and a communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union. In response to the decolonisation of the Third World and the rise of national liberation movements in the post-World War II era, Soviet theorists aimed to develop a coherent ideological and policy framework to address these developments. During the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1952, the initial ideas that would evolve into the theory of national democracy were introduced. At this congress, party leaders informed the delegates that the world was divided into three blocs: a communist bloc, a capitalist bloc, and a third bloc of uncommitted states. For the world revolution to be successful, the communist bloc needed to bring the uncommitted states to their side. Four years later, during the 20th CPSU Congress in 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, announced that the communist bloc had united with the group of non-aligned nations to create a "zone of peace."

The policy change led the Soviet Union to concentrate on fostering positive relationships with states they viewed as anti-imperialist and bourgeois nationalist. This included Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Jawaharlal Nehru’s India. The Soviet Union prioritised these diplomatic relationships over assisting local communist parties in those countries in their efforts to gain power. During the 21st CPSU Congress in 1961, Khrushchev criticised these states for repressing communist activities. He stated that even with this problem, the Soviet Union would persist in offering foreign assistance to those states.

In the late 1950s, the CPSU Central Committee established a special group led by , an official in the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee. The group drafted party policies and speeches for key leaders concerning the national liberation struggle in the Third World and national democracy. They submitted these drafts to the CPSU Secretariat, the highest executive organ of the CPSU Central Committee, for approval. Once approved, they became official party line. It was not until 1960, at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, held in Moscow, that the term national democracy became official policy of the Soviet-led world communist movement. By the 1970s, national democracy had developed into a coherent theoretical system. Several academic research institutes studied Soviet national liberation theory and how it worked in practice, according to scholar Irina Filatova. They produced hundreds of books, thousands of theses, and many articles on different aspects of this topic.

National democracy is closely related to two other concepts: revolutionary democracy and socialist orientation, also referred to as a "non-capitalist way of development”. The Soviet academic journal, '' Africa: Problems of Socialist Orientation'', defined revolutionary democracy as a social group that represented the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, democratic, and socialist goals of various working people in states at the pre-capitalist and early-capitalist stages of development. Socialist orientation was introduced in 1960 at the Moscow summit. It refers to a way of development that is not based on capitalism. This concept is seen as a first step toward socialism in countries where people reject capitalism but where the material conditions are not yet ready for a socialist revolution.

The material base of the colonial state

Soviet theorists viewed the national liberation movements as reflections of the material base present in their societies, in accordance with the Marxist–Leninist materialist interpretation of history. Soviet theorists posited that numerous countries in the Third World were in the early stages of establishing class societies. , deputy head of the CPSU International Department, argued that these societies displayed a pre-capitalist and primarily pre-feudal social structure. This underlying structure was superficially concealed by bourgeois relations, which mainly developed in the areas of commodity production and money circulation.

Karen Brutents agreed with Ulyanovsky, highlighting that these societies were founded on family and tribal connections, caste biases, and religious affiliations rather than class relations. This posed a significant problem, as individuals exhibited a stronger attachment to what Brutents considered outdated social ideas, such as tribes, instead of recognising the real, shared material conditions they were experiencing. While admitting that traditional class categories lacked relevance in the context they were used, it is clear that Soviet theorists strongly favoured classical Marxist terms—such as national bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, peasantry, and proletariat—when studying the material base of the colonial state.

National bourgeoisie

Soviet theorists posited that the national bourgeoisie in the Third World had distinct characteristics compared to the classical bourgeoisie found in Western societies. Understanding these differences, they posited, could provide valuable insights into the material base of these states. They reasoned that the national bourgeoisie differed from the Western bourgeoisie in that they were not capitalist owners and, therefore, were not exploiting the working masses.

The national bourgeoisie worked mostly in trade, services, money exchange, and lending; what Soviet Marxist–Leninists would often call nothing more than petty bourgeoisie tradesmen. Soviet Marxist–Leninists believed they took a role akin to the petty bourgeoisie tradesmen in the West. They concluded that the low level of historical development in these states was a significant factor. Additionally, the fact that the largest enterprises were owned and operated by Western capitalists diminished the influence of the local bourgeoisie and marginalised it as a class.

The dominance of foreign capital over the means of production hindered the national bourgeoisie from establishing itself as a separate social class, as Western capitalists typically exploited their limited resources. The discriminatory policies enforced by the colonial state also made the national bourgeoisie more positive towards the idea of national liberation. Soviet theorists maintained that due to oppression by foreign capital and the colonial state, the national bourgeoisie, rather than upholding the existing order, became active participants in the struggle for national liberation.

However, there was still widespread disagreement within the Soviet foreign policy establishment on how one should understand the motives of the national bourgeoisie. Vadim Zagladin and Fedor Ryzhenko, two theorists, believed that they took part in the national liberation struggle since they did not want to share their profits with foreign imperialists. Although this was the more conservative viewpoint, most others held a more moderate position. Ulyanovsky believed that the national bourgeoisie had a vested interest in the struggle, but they often linked national liberation to their own class interests. Bobodzhan Gafurov, who headed the Oriental Institute at the USSR Academy of Sciences, argued in a paper, prepared under the guidance of Pyotr Fedoseyev, that the revolutionary potential of the national bourgeoisie was merely an illusion. He claimed that this class acted solely for its own benefit. Due to its small size and perceived self-interests, many Soviet analysts overlooked the national bourgeoisie as a social class.

Nevertheless, the official party line remained as articulated by Brutents, who reasoned that the national bourgeoisie faced a contradiction. On one end, they aimed to improve their material and political conditions by establishing an independent national state, enhancing economic conditions, creating a national market, and gaining control of it. However, their desires conflicted with the goals of the colonial state. This contradiction determined the national bourgeoisie's involvement in the fight for liberation, Brutents believed.

Petty bourgeoisie

The petty bourgeoisie, unlike the national bourgeoisie, was seen by Soviet ideologues as having revolutionary potential. However, Soviet theorists never reached a common understanding of what the petty bourgeoisie was, according to scholar Galia Golan. Some theorists placed the petty bourgeoisie within the intermediate strata, while others proposed that the intermediate strata were an internal group within the urban petty bourgeoisie. Furthermore, some theorists regarded the rural petty bourgeoisie as part of the intermediate strata as well, while others saw all these class categories as related yet separate.

As noted by Ulyanovsky, the misclassification arose from early Soviet theorists who categorised the left-leaning intelligentsia and the military as part of the national bourgeoisie. Brutents highlighted a similar but distinct anomaly, where earlier Soviet theorists classified small traders and independent farmers as a pre-capitalist phenomenon rather than as part of the petty bourgeoisie. Yevgeny Primakov, the head of the Institute for World Economy and International Relations at the USSR Academy of Social Sciences, noted that earlier classifications grouped clerks, intellectuals, and military personnel with traders, artisans, and small producers. However, he opined, these groups had different relationships with the means of production and could not, therefore, be members of the same class. Primakov argued that the intermediary strata and petty bourgeoisie were distinct groups, believing it was incorrect to merge these two categories.

Soviet theorists believed that the petty bourgeoisie, which includes tradespeople, small business owners, artisans, and minor producers, often earned low incomes. In some cases, these individuals were even worse off financially than the proletariat. Consequently, they believed that this group was inherently against imperialism. According to Brutents, the petty bourgeoisie joined the struggle because of colonial oppression, exploitation, and damaging competition from foreign countries. They also faced pressure from wealthy compradors and moneylenders.

Even with these advantageous characteristics, the petty bourgeoisie, as part of the bourgeoisie, were perceived to possess a dual nature. In contrast to the proletariat, which had an inherent tendency to resist capitalism and imperialism, the petty bourgeoisie, due to their connection with private capitalist property, developed a bourgeois mindset and social values that justified capitalism.

Yet, in colonial states, the petty bourgeoisie frequently occupied the roles of both owners and workers simultaneously, leading them to often empathize with the proletariat's struggles. Furthermore, as a significant portion of the petty bourgeoisie had either been peasants or hailed from peasant backgrounds, they felt connected to their struggles. This caused Brutents to claim that the petty bourgeoisie were custodians of tribal, religious, and caste values: outdated values that were opposed to both capitalism and communism. This position was influenced by Vladimir Lenin, who stated that the petty bourgeoisie in the national liberation struggle carried "prejudices, reactionary fantasies, weaknesses, and errors."

Due to their inherent self-interests, the petty bourgeoisie was believed to foster groups of collaborators of capitalism and imperialism. Soviet theorists believed that the petty bourgeoisie often shifted between the bourgeoisie's interests and the proletariat's. Although they hosted radical thinkers who followed ideas from non-Marxist socialism and nationalism, few of them fully embraced Marxism–Leninism. Nonetheless, they were considered an essential ally of the proletariat in the national liberation struggle and in forming a national democratic state.

The intelligentsia

Soviet theorists believed the intelligentsia, part of the intermediate strata or petty bourgeoisie, had significant independence from other class formations. For instance, Georgy Kim, who thought they belonged to the lower and middle strata, mentioned that the intelligentsia was primarily made up of white-collar proletarians. Brutents, conversely, held the view that the intelligentsia consisted of affluent elites, encompassing individuals from free professions, technicians, and bureaucrats (such as clerks or civil servants working for the colonial administration). Unexpectedly, from a Marxist perspective, Soviet theorists paid minimal attention to the material base of the intelligentsia because of their assumed independence.

The intelligentsia held significant importance in society due to their literacy in a predominantly illiterate population, according to Brutents. They effectively maintained a monopoly over education and cultural knowledge, shaping the intellectual landscape of their community. Individuals within the intelligentsia often had relationships with various social classes, reflecting their diverse backgrounds and experiences. Many of them came from families with elite tribal and aristocratic status within traditional societal structures. Consequently, they often maintained close connections with colonial administrations and military institutions. It was also thought to be closely associated with the national bourgeoisie, from which it emerged, as well as with the petty bourgeoisie, which had very comparable material conditions.

Igor Andreyev, a researcher at the Institute of World Politics of the Academy of Social Sciences, argued that one should distinguish between the intelligentsia and the petty bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie ran private capitalist businesses, while the intelligentsia did not; that is, their material basis was different. The intelligentsia, unlike the petty bourgeoisie, did not adopt capitalist values like profit-seeking. Andreyev believed they often understood and sympathized with the working masses, even seeing things from their perspective in many cases.

Andreyev and Brutents suggested that the inherent radicalism of the intelligentsia can be linked to their position within the colonial state. The colonial state needed administrators in the form of clerks and civil servants. During their training, the intelligentsia were exposed to progressive ideas. Individuals in the colonial state frequently traveled back to the home country and, through these visits, were often confronted with the grim realities of the colonial system. This experience sparked a kind of national consciousness, leading to the emergence of nationalism. Consequently, the colonial state’s education of the intelligentsia ended up undermining their own state, effectively creating its own gravediggers, they believed.

The intelligentsia, drawing on their experiences in the colonial state, were regarded as the class with the most significant political expertise during the national liberation struggle. Their insights and understanding of political dynamics made them a key force in advocating for change and guiding the nation toward national independence. Brutents asserts that the intelligentsia assumed the role of organisers and played an active part in the fight for national liberation. Kim believed that they served as representatives of the collective national aspirations for independence, social justice, and opposition to capitalism.

Military

Most Soviet theorists viewed the military in a way similar to the intelligentsia. They even suggested that the local military officers formed a class or sub-class they called the "military intelligentsia." According to Galia Golan, Soviet theorists often grouped certain characteristics under the term intelligentsia. This group was usually divided into civil and military intelligentsia. Overall, the traits of these two categories were often very similar or even identical. For instance, Ulyanovsky contended that both the civilian intelligentsia and the military shared an identical social background, education, mindset, and practical experience, which connected them regardless of specific material social forces, status, or classes.

This position was challenged, chiefly by the Soviet military. A study led by Vasily Zhukov provided the first academic response to this viewpoint. It aimed to explain why the military often got involved in the national liberation struggle in the first place. Military officers and personnel, like the intelligentsia, received education from the colonial state since it needed a well-educated staff to operate effectively. They were exposed to progressive ideas through their education and travels to the home country, both facilitated and organized by the colonial state.

Unlike the civilian intelligentsia, military personnel were often enlisted to fight in their home country's imperialistic wars. They were employed to quell local disturbances and unrest in the colonies. Military personnel developed a sense of national consciousness by participating in this oppression. The colonial state hindered the progress of indigenous leaders by assigning top positions to individuals from the home country.

This practice weakened the loyalty of indigenous military personnel towards the colonial rulers. Due to this, Soviet theorist Georgy Mirsky argued, "no one feels the backwardness of the state as acutely as an officer." Mirsky argued that a military officer's national awakening began when he realised that his country was lagging behind the rest of the world. This growing sense of national consciousness and pride motivated him to join the liberation struggle to end colonial rule. Zhukov agreed and asserted that the military possessed significant revolutionary potential because of its structured organisation: it could create a cohesive group that aimed for revolutionary transformation.

Peasantry

The peasantry was believed to be the largest class formation in Third World societies, and as such, could not be ignored by communists and national democrats. This was accepted orthodoxy, and even Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, accepted it as a basic fact. The peasantry as a class was generally perceived to have great revolutionary potential by Soviet analysts such as Ulyanovsky, mostly due to the semi-feudal conditions they were forced to live in. It was generally believed that they were most oppressed class in colonial society and had the most to win in the national liberation struggle. As Brutents put it, "The peasantry, living and working in arduous conditions, being driven off the land by foreign companies and settlers, subjected to oppression, arbitrary acts and levies by the colonial administration, exploited by the landowners, the tribal elite and the money-lenders, were driven to take part in the national movement, which held out the prospect of obtaining land and a radical improvement of their condition." This oppression produced, according to Ullianovskii, "patriotic feelings of anti-imperialist nationalism."

Nontheless, Soviet analysts mostly agreed that the peasantry did not form a uniform class. An article in the academic journal, ''Asia and Africa'', argued that the peasantry "was a class composed of
smallholders, landless peasants, and agricultural workers." However, others, like Yevgeny Primakov, were skeptical of defining it as a class. His main argument was that in many areas it was close to impossible to divorce what one defined as the peasantry from tribal groupings. While noting that the tribal system was breaking down, this process was slow. It had created several groups with different material interests: "peasants of the tribal system, the feudal system, and the capitalist villages."

Proletariat

It was generally believed in the Soviet establishment that the proletariat, that is, the working class, was minuscule in these societies. Leading theoriticians, such as Brutents, warned against exaggerating the proletariat's influence in these societies: "One must object, therefore, to the now and again pronounced tendency—apparently for the purpose of emphasising the role of the working class—to argue its large size on the strength of the data concerning the number of wage-workers with an approach similar to that used for the developed capitalist countries."

National democratic revolution

According to academic Irina Filatova, the concept of national democracy suggested that recently formed independent nations could skip capitalism and directly create socialism, meaning establishing the socialist mode of production and a socialist state, in a two-stage process. The first stage was the national liberation struggle (synonymous at this point with the national democratic revolution), and the second stage was the initiation of socialist construction. Soviet theorists recognised that the material base in the colonial states was insufficiently developed, but they held the view that an advanced superstructure could be established in these states through a national democratic revolution. That superstructure could transform their countries into socialist states with the help of the communist bloc and the assistance of world proletarian forces. This, in turn, would level up the material base and hasten the construction of socialism in these states.

Brutents believed that national democratic revolutions possessed unique characteristics that set them apart from prior revolutions. He thought that these revolutions contained an inherent anti-capitalist inclination that would eradicate both colonial and semi-colonial oppression. These revolutions would consequently undermine the imperialist structure led by the advanced capitalist states. At first, Brutents believed that when the national democratic revolution was led by political groups representing the interests of the working class, these revolutions would turn into socialist revolutions.

In cases where pro-proletarian forces or the proletariat did not lead the national democratic revolutions, Brutents argued that they could still weaken imperialism and feudalism and bring about anti-capitalist transformations, which would help transition to socialist construction. He theorised that the progressive and communist tendency of the national democratic revolution could gain the upper hand in the internal balance of revolutionary forces either at the first or second stage of the revolutionary process.

Brutents also believed that the national liberation struggles and the national democratic revolutions could alter the correlation of forces between capitalism and communism, and the Third World was the chief contest area between the two systems. He believed that, due to the course of the world revolutionary process, the need to work with national liberation movements and how formerly colonised states developed had changed. This shift was significant both in practical terms and in how people thought about it, especially compared to the early days of the Soviet state. He reasoned that in the past, the focus was mainly on protecting the first socialist revolution, meaning the Soviet Union, from imperialism. In the 1970s, the objective shifted to actively combating imperialism and global capitalism to eradicate both, Brutents believed.

The two-stage revolutionary process paradigm was attacked by Nodari Simoniya, a Soviet orientalist theorist from Georgia, in his 1975 book, '' Countries of the East: Roads of Development.'' In the book, Simoniya denied the national liberation struggle and the national democratic revolution a special character, simply referring to them as bourgeois revolutions. That meant he did not believe these revolutions had anything innate in them to produce socialism.

While thoroughly criticised in the press and within the party establishment, this debate produced a new understanding of the national democratic state and revolutionary democracy. In 1978, Semen Agaev and Inna Tatarovskaia wrote an article in the Soviet academic journal ''Asia and Africa'' that supported most of Simoniya's criticism, except the socialist potential of the non-capitalist path offered by the national democratic revolution and state. In their article, they tried to bridge the gap between those who considered national democracy as a bourgeoisie phenomenon and those who thought the national democratic state was a tool to establish socialism. Their key argument was to differentiate the national liberation struggle (national liberation revolution) from the national democratic revolution. They formulated three stages: the first stage was the national liberation struggle, the second stage was the national democratic revolution, and the last stage was the socialist revolution.

The distinguishing feature of the national liberation struggle, Agaev and Tatarovskaia reasoned, was the elimination of colonialism and the establishment of an independent state. This stage could be followed up by a national democratic revolution, which they created two sub-stages for. The first sub-stage instituted a general democratic transformation of society. This was akin to the lower stage of the national democratic state discussed earlier. The second sub-stage, similar to revolutionary democracy, saw socialists institute policies to create the material basis to construct socialism. The third and last stage, the socialist revolution, would see the building of socialism, they reasoned. In this schema, the national democratic revolution became an independent stage, and the national liberation struggle did not necessarily have to produce a national democratic revolution. For the states of socialist orientation, it was a transitory stage that needed to be passed to construct socialism.

National democratic fronts

The 1960 Moscow conference called for communists in the "majority of countries" to establish national democratic fronts to unite progressive forces in a common coalition. The idea is that the national democratic fronts would, similar to the united front and popular front policies of the 1930s and 1940s, play a key role in the establishment of a national democratic state. The main aim of the national democratic front was to unite the "national bourgeoisie, the petty urban bourgeoisie, and the democratic intelligentsia" with the proletariat in a common progressive struggle. The main intention of the strategy was to harness nationalism for communist ends. Having broadened their social base thanks to the fronts, the communist parties in question, it was believed, could use the national democratic fronts as a basis to take power. In the meantime, the communist parties were to push the national democrats in a pro-communist direction and promote communist policies.

While this was relevant for some states, in states without a communist party, the Soviets usually designated the largest socialist party as a "national democratic party." The Soviets treated these parties well and invited them to attend the CPSU party congresses and other notable events. Direct relationships were also established, such as with the CPSU and Mali's Sudanese Union – African Democratic Rally on 19 September 1962.

National democratic state

Basic definition

The 1960 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, held in Moscow, defined the national democratic state as follows: " hepolitical form of the activity of the revolutionary democracy is the national democratic state". What constituted a revolutionary democracy and a national democratic state was, according to scholar Irina Flatova, "so vague that they could be stretched in any direction. Clearly, there were no tangible criteria for a government to be recognised as a revolutionary democracy, and for a country to be considered a national democratic state. But the slogans were attractive, and this was what mattered." Despite this vagueness, Soviet analysts agreed that the national democratic state was "a transitional state towards a state of the socialist type".

The national democratic state was later divided into two types: one for non-communist national democratic states and another for communist national democratic states, which later became known as states of socialist orientation. However, in some circles, the terminology differed. For example, some spoke of "national democratic state of socialist orientation" to imply states without a national democratic front and a revolutionary democratic vanguard party, and others of the people's democratic state of socialist orientation, a state run by a revolutionary democratic vanguard party that was close to the communist bloc. A people's democratic state of socialist orientation was also expected to institute a communist form of government based on democratic centralism and unified power, and establish the institution of supreme state organ of power.

The state's characteristics

Soviet theorists never reached a consensus on the national democratic state's material base. The Soviet academic journal ''Africa: Problems of Socialist Orientation'' argued that the proletariat, peasantry, and national bourgeoisie formed a coalition that served as the ruling class, that is, the material base of the national democratic state. Rostislav Ulyanovsky concurred with this definition. He believed the national democratic state to be the political power of a social coalition composed of the working people. This coalition comprised the ever-growing proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie in urban and rural areas, and certain national bourgeois individuals who adopted a progressive and anti-imperialist stance.

During the Moscow summit in 1960, a national democratic state was defined as a state type where a forward-looking bourgeois nationalist ruling class governed in partnership with communist forces. The summit declaration stated that a national democratic state had four key characteristics. Firstly, it was politically and economically autonomous from capitalist countries and worked to negate their influence in its internal affairs. Secondly, it aimed to reduce Western capitalist influence in their economy through proactive state policies. Thirdly, these states permitted local communists to organise and operate freely. Finally, these states actively worked to enhance the state's involvement in economic affairs.

Even with these four characteristics, Soviet theorists were unable to come to an agreement on how the national democratic state would reach socialism, specifically the socialist mode of production and the establishment of a socialist state. The dominant idea that emerged at the end of Khrushchev's leadership was that communists should be allowed freedom to operate within the framework of the national democratic state and seize power when the base and superstructural relations were ripe. Consequently, the national democratic states were considered temporary and, according to Soviet theorists, would eventually be succeeded by a socialist state in the future. The idea was that the national democratic states, through their close cooperation with the Soviet Union, would draw on the Soviet model and gradually introduce communism through reform. That is, it would be a non-violent method of transitioning to communism.

According to ''Africa: Problems of Socialist Orientation'', the national democratic state needed to enforce "A speedy, revolutionary creation of the material, technical, scientific, social and political prerequisites for socialist construction constitutes the essence of non-capitalist development." On the other hand, the Soviet ''African Encyclopaedia'' stated the following, "he national democratic state musttake the course toward the elimination of the economic and political domination of imperialist monopolies and trans-national corporations, as well as of internal reaction — feudal landlords, tribal nobility and the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie; strengthen the state sector — the economic basis of socialist orientation; encourage co-operative movements in the rural areas; implement progressive agricultural reforms, aimed at the elimination of feudal property and at the creation of a rural public sector." Specifically, ''African Encyclopaedia'' editors believed that the state sector represented the main tool in the construction of socialism and defense against the domination of foreign capital.

Pyotr Manchkha, in his book ''Current Problems in Modern Africa'', contended that the national democratic state would initiate policies that saw "systematic improvement of the standards of life of working people" and "the creation of a reliable mechanism of defence of revolutionary achievements from external and internal enemies". Gleb Starushenko, writing in his book ''Africa: Problems of Socialist Orientation'', added two other features: "an independent foreign policy" and "economic, political and cultural cooperation with socialist countries". Regarding national democratic states that were under communist rule (states of socialist orientation), all analysts, according to Flatova, stressed the importance of the "leading role of the proletariat" and cooperation with the communist world. Filatova argues that, in practice, none of these purported features or reforms meant anything: "It seems that what mattered for these countries to be recognised as non-capitalist by the Soviet bloc was their willingness to proclaim socialism as their goal, to introduce some form of state control over their economy and to support the Soviet Union in the international arena."

By the late 1970s, Soviet analysts began voicing skepticism about the notion that a national democratic state was a tool to transition to socialism. Brutents sent a memorandum to Boris Ponomarev, the head of the CPSU International Department, that national democrats were not moving in a socialist direction. He reasoned that this was due to the petty bourgeoisie nature of the national democrats. Skepticism to the concepts of national democracy and the national democratic state was not new in communist circles, especially amongst communists in the Third World. Joe Slovo, who later became the general secretary of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party, wrote in 1974, "Lenin's theoretical commitment to a bourgeois democratic phase in pre-February Russia was bound up with the slogan of a ‘revolutionary democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants’ and not that of bourgeoisie". That is, Slovo believed in the national democratic revolution, but only if it was led by the proletariat and the working masses and not by the bourgeoisie.

The state's historical development

There was disagreement within the Soviet scholarly community on how the national democratic state would develop. Some believed it to be a uniform entity that would develop socialism, while others created one or several historical stages it had to develop through before it reached socialism. While there was a consensus that the national democratic state was a transitory state, there was no consensus on how this transition would unfold or how the national democratic state would establish socialism.

Soviet orientalist Yuri Gavrilov believed that the national democratic state had to undergo three historical stages before developing into a socialist state. In the first stage, it was headed by petty and national bourgeois elements who enforced anti-capitalist policies, mostly due to their nationalist ideology. The second stage, called revolutionary democracy, replaced this narrow-minded nationalism with a socialism based on clear material interests. The third stage was called national democracy. It was the penultimate stage in the establishment of the socialist mode of production and the socialist state. In this stage, the ideological belief of the ruling class was believed to be, at the very least, influenced by scientific socialism. Theorist Aleksei Kiva, like Gavrilov, believed the national democratic state went through two stages: national democracy and revolutionary democracy. Each stage represented a specific stage of development of the material base, which produced specific class interests and groups. National democracy was the stage for societies that had a pre-capitalist material basis, too underdeveloped to establish socialism, while revolutionary democracy suited societies of a medium level of development. The national democratic state during national democracy was perceived as a national democratic front of progressive and anti-imperialist elements, while the state under revolutionary democracy was perceived to be led by a form of scientific socialism.

Unlike Gavrilov, Georgy Kim, the editor of the Soviet academic journal ''Asia and Africa'', believed revolutionary democracy to be unique to the national democratic state, but not a specific historical stage. According to Kim, revolutionary democracy was an ideology or type of rule of the national democratic state that paved the way to socialism. Like Kim, Soviet theorists Petr Manchkha and Lev Entin considered revolutionary democracy as the type of rule (meaning ideological system and leader) unique to the national democratic state. However, unlike Kim, they specified that the national democratic state was a "broad democracy". Unlike Kim, Gavrilov, and Kiva, Ulyanovsky merged the two terms, national democracy and revolutionary democracy, into one: national-revolutionary democracy, which he perceived as a stage between "national reformism" and scientific socialism. However, Ulyanovsky was not consistent in his works, and in certain writings, he referred to revolutionary democracy as the leftist faction in a national democratic society. He believed that without a revolutionary democratic element, the national democratic state would decay into a reactionary state. The national democratic state, he argued, was neither a progressive nor a reactionary state formation in itself, but rather a state built on an inherently contradictory class basis. Brutents mostly agreed with Ulyanovsky's assessment, but unlike him, he considered the national democratic state to be a unique state formation in the sense that it had the ingrained possibility, due to its class character, to establish socialism and capitalism.

According to Golan, "On the whole, revolutionary democracy was understood as a particular form of national democracy associated with a particular ideology and group which subscribed to it." While there was a general idea that the revolutionary democratic elite of a national democratic state had to reject capitalism ideologically and espouse socialism, it was not altogether clear if the revolutionary democrats should abolish capitalism immediately. Soviet foreign specialist Yevgeny Primakov recommended not discarding capitalism, even going so far as to recommend establishing state capitalism or developing capitalism since, from a materialistic standpoint, capitalism, while inferior to socialism, was more progressive than feudalism and traditional society. Brutents concurred, arguing that capitalism in these states did not contradict their anti-imperialist character. Kim outlined that the national democratic state under revolutionary democracy should, firstly, eliminate or drastically reduce the amount of foreign capital; secondly, establish national democratic institutions, a vanguard national-patriotic party and transmission belts that representing the working class, and lastly, align the state's foreign policy with that of the communist world.

Several theorists, best represented by Pyotr Fedoseyev, were critical of revolutionary democracy as a concept. Fedoseyev highlighted the bourgeoisie class background of most revolutionary democrats, reasoning that they were mostly not inclined towards socialism. However, he considered revolutionary democracy a long historical process subject to progress and reversals that might lead to scientific socialism. His main point was that there was no guarantee that the national democratic state under revolutionary democracy would create a socialist society since the revolutionary democrats were under the influence of third way ideas, a system that was neither capitalist nor communist. Georgy Mirsky concurred, labelling revolutionary democrats as "leftist radical nationalists ..which may or may not take the road of socialism." Like Fedoseyev, Mirsky reasoned that the revolutionary democrats could "get stuck" in a Third Way policy instead of affirming scientific socialism.

Lev Entin shared Fedoseyev's and Mirsky's reasoning, highlighting the bourgeoisie class background of revolutionary democrats and how most of them rejected the class conception of the state and the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat. Yuri Gavrilov believed that revolutionary democrats used Marxist rhetoric, but did not actually believe in it. Ulyanovsky made clear the progressive nature of revolutionary democracy, but made a qualification: "Revolutionary democracy can be a staunch ally of the proletariat if it does not slide back to the positions of the national bourgeoisie but breaks away from them." Brutents, unlike Ulyanovsky, agreed with Fedoseyev, concluding that revolutionary democracy did not guarantee the development of socialism. He reasoned that this was due to both objective factors (material circumstances) such as the low level of development and the class composition of the national democratic state, and subjective factors (superstructural circumstances) such as the ideological outlook of the revolutionary democrats.

This paradigm came under attack from Nodari Simoniya, a Soviet orientalist theorist from Georgia, in his 1975 book, '' Countries of the East: Roads of Development''. In the book, Simoniya denied the national liberation struggle and the national democratic revolution a special character, simply referring to it as a bourgeois revolution. That meant he did not believe these revolutions had anything innate in them to produce socialism. While thoroughly criticised in the press and within the party establishment, this debate produced a new understanding of the national democratic state and revolutionary democracy. In 1978, Semen Agaev and Inna Tatarovskaia wrote an article in the Soviet academic journal ''Asia and Africa'' that supported most of Simoniya's criticism, except the socialist potential of the non-capitalist path offered by the national democratic revolution and state. In their article, they tried to bridge the gap between those who considered national democracy as a bourgeoisie phenomenon and those who thought the national democratic state was a tool to establish socialism. Their key argument was to differentiate the national liberation struggle (national liberation revolution) from the national democratic revolution. They formulated three stages: the first stage was the national liberation struggle, the second stage was the national democratic revolution, and the last stage was the socialist revolution. The national democratic state came into being after a national democratic revolution, but that state formation would have to be taken over by a revolutionary democratic elite to initiate the construction of socialism.

Vanguard party

At a 1980 Conference on the Third World, Boris Ponomarev, the head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, listed establishing a "revolutionary vanguard party founded on scientific socialism" as the first requirement to create a viable national democratic state in its revolutionary democratic stage. While Soviet literature on national democracy in the 1970s and 1980s made direct references to vanguardism, there was, according to Golan, skepticism within the Soviet foreign policy establishment of the viability of creating Marxist–Leninist parties in the Third World. While it was acknowledged that a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party needed to be established for a national democratic state to transform into a socialist state, most commentators asked for gradualism and instead called for a revolutionary democratic vanguard party.

Primakov believed that a vanguard party was not needed at every stage of a national democratic state's development. In the first stage of the national democratic revolution, the state could be led by "national revolutionary elements". In its revolutionary democratic phase, he called for establishing "vanguard revolutionary parties" that most commonly had a Marxist–Leninist ideology that worked to construct people's democracy. However, he warned against leftist adventurism and called for establishing a Marxist–Leninist party at the right time, when the material base was ripe for it. Nikolai Kosukhin, a department head at the Africa Institute of the USSR Academy of Social Sciences, concurred with Primakov, but altered his schema. During the national liberation struggle, Kosukhin called for a mass party open to everyone. At the next stage, that party had to be transformed into a revolutionary democratic party based on social class and specific organisational principles. At the third stage, that party had to be transformed into a Marxist–Leninist party. Most of the Soviet policy establishment expressed the same skepticism of a Marxist−Leninist vanguard party in national democratic states. Gleb Starushenko believed that few societies were prepared to develop socialism and should instead focus on strengthening and developing the national democratic state.

Entin, when writing on the vanguard party in the national democratic revolution, made no references to Marxism–Leninism and the proletarian character of the party in his writings. Orientalist Aleksey Kiva specified that "the crux of the matter lies not so much in the parties as in the nature of the revolutionary process itself." Kiva distinguished between a vanguard revolutionary democratic party and the proletarian vanguard party. The latter, while having emerged in an infant state in some African states, had not even in these instances evolved into a true Marxist–Leninist proletarian party. Kiva argued that the key difference between them and a "real" Marxist–Leninist party was that in Africa, these parties had an unclear understanding of Marxism–Leninism and did not have a truly proletarian class composition. In his view, the transformation into a real Marxist–Leninist party took time and was determined by material conditions and developments.

The Soviet policy establishment's innate skepticism about establishing Marxist–Leninist vanguard parties in the Third World led it to advise against establishing them or transforming the national democratic parties into them. For example, Simoniya and fellow orientalist Pyotr Shastitko quoted Vladimir Lenin's advice to the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party to not establish a communist party in 1921. While both believed that only a Marxist–Leninist vanguard party could establish socialism, they urged instead to form broad national democratic fronts and class blocs to transform society toward socialism. Anatoly Gromyko went the furthest, refusing to recognise any vanguard party in Africa as Marxist–Leninist. By 1981, Gromyko spoke of "the aspiration" of these parties to become Marxist–Leninist, but made it clear that he did not consider them to be that. The general idea was that the material base in these societies, especially in Africa, was too low. Establishing a Marxist–Leninist party in haste could do more harm than good. Brutents was of the same position. While saying a vanguard party was key to transforming a national democratic state into a socialist one, he also advised against haste. However, he did note that in states without a vanguard party, such as Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, the socialist cause was in retreat.

Ulyanovsky infrequently addressed the concept of the vanguard party in his writings. However, he did highlight what he perceived as the importance of establishing a progressive party within the framework of a national democratic state. Instead, he wanted Soviet policy to primarily focus on building wide-ranging national democratic fronts in these states. In focusing on the national democratic front, he believed the communist parties in Asian and African nations had recognised the importance of not pursuing immediate power. If they did, he thought it would devolve into putschism. Ulyanovsky believed that no ruling party in Africa, including those that called themselves communists, could truly be considered Marxist–Leninist. As a logical extension, he believed that none of the ruling vanguard parties in Africa, even those of the self-proclaimed communist states, could be considered Marxist–Leninist parties.

To Ulyanovsky, creating a vanguard party based on Marxism–Leninism in a post-colonial society that was socioeconomically and economically backward was a complex societal process. His point was that Marxist–Leninist parties could not be reduced to approving and proclaiming a self-declared scientific socialist programme. To bring about scientific socialism, the Marxist–Leninist party leadership had to make the theory the basis for all practical activities at all party levels. Ulyanovsky believed that the only way for a national democratic party to evolve into a Marxist–Leninist party was through this outlined process. This transformation would enable the party to understand the social, ideological, political, and organisational structures needed to guide the majority of the population toward socialism.

Nikolai Kosukhin was skeptical about the possibility of forming a Marxist–Leninist party in national democratic states in the near future. He contended that the establishment of ruling parties based on scientific socialist ideologies within the national democratic states of socialist orientation was a complex and highly contradictory endeavor. The main reason was that the ruling party often reflected society’s level of the material base and superstructure. In national democratic states, the working class did not hold power as the ruling class. He observed that the spread of Marxist–Leninist ideology encountered significant opposition from conventional communal and nationalist perspectives. From his viewpoint, dismantling outdated biases was a meticulous and sensitive task that would require a significant amount of time to overcome. Kosukhin argued that artificially accelerating the process of establishing Marxist–Leninist parties would cause more harm than good.

In his speech to the 26th CPSU Congress, held in 1981, Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, glossed over the issue entirely, only mentioning the fact that some states had chosen to develop along a non-capitalist path while others had not. Vadim Zagladin, a member of the Central Committee and an official within the CPSU International Department, after the congress acknowledged that a group of countries were "continuing the formation of vanguard revolutionary parties recognising Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism as their basis." But he did not acknowledge them as Marxist–Leninist. Before succeeding Brezhnev as general secretary, Yuri Andropov often spoke of the need to establish a Marxist–Leninist party in the national democratic states. However, once he came to power, he toed the party line, stating, "It is one thing to proclaim socialism as a goal and another to build it."

Classification

Cuba was the first state designated as a national democratic state. At the 1960 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, East German leaders Walter Ulbricht and Hermann Matern said Cuba had established a national democratic state. However, the Cuban leadership of Fidel Castro never accepted this designation. Instead, they claimed that Cuba was in the process of building socialism. By 1962 May Day celebrations, the Soviet Union had begun designating Cuba as a country that had "embarked on the path of building socialism". From then on, all mentions of Cuba as a national democratic state were removed from Soviet works on the matter. From then on, the term was used to mostly used to denote states that adhered to an alternate conception of socialism to that offered by Marxism–Leninism, such as Ahmed Sékou Touré's Guinea, Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana and Modibo Keïta's Mali. According to scholar William T. Shinn Jr., the application of national democracy met with several problems, such as the fact that there did not exist any communist parties in these states either. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Anastas Mikoyan, then a Soviet First Deputy Premier, declared in 1962 that these states represented "new forms of national democracy". He also acknowledged that Ghana was "building socialism", but a different form of socialism than the Soviet model.

By the 1970s, there was a dispute within the Soviet foreign policy community on how to assess the communist states of the Third World. Georgy Kim categorised, for example, the Provisional Military Administrative Council of Ethiopia and the People's Republic of Angola as national democratic states in a revolutionary democratic stage of development. In contrast, Gleb Starushenko and Yuri Gavrilov designated these same states as people's democracies. Moreover, Kim, Starushenko and Georgy Mirsky referred to the MPLA and FRELIMO as Marxist—Leninist parties, while Anatoly Gromyko, the head of the Institute of African Studies of the USSR Academy of Social Sciences, "explicitly denied them this status". Nodari Simoniya believed the communist states of Angola, Ethiopia, People's Republic of Mozambique and People's Democratic Republic of Yemen were national democratic states in a revolutionary democratic phase that were developing into people's democracies. Meaning that the Soviet Union did not consider any of the African communist states to be either socialist or people's democracies, rather they defined them as national democratic states of socialist orientation (or simply as states of socialist orientation).

References

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Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:National democratic State
Republicanism