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Republican Socialism is Working Class Republicanism
Republican socialism is working class republicanism. It emphasises the struggle for liberty (or freedom), equality and fraternity (human solidarity) and links this to the establishment of a secular democratic republican state. Working class republicanism comes ‘from below’ from the self-organisation and activity of the people (civic republicanism) and this connects the daily struggles arising spontaneously in the workplace or community to the struggle for democracy and a democratic republican state.
Sovereignty and Democracy
Working class republicanism emphasises the republican principles of sovereignty and democracy and the rights of citizens and workers to decide action and for representatives to be regularly elected, accountable, subject to immediate recall and paid the average national wage. These principles can be applied to organising a strike, a trade union, a political party, a community or the state.
Socialism From Below
Working class republicanism provides the democratic foundation for ‘socialism from below’. Hence republican socialism refers to the aim of democratising and socialising the means of production and to the working class as the agent of change. This can be identified in the political ideas of Tony Benn and Karl Marx. It stands in contrast to bureaucratic ‘socialism’ from above (for example monarchical socialism and Stalinism or socialism in one country).
A Social Republic
Republican socialism stands for the democratic organisation of the people into a democratic and social republic (or Commonwealth). A social republic is not ‘socialism in one country’ or the abolition of capitalism in one country, but a democratic republic whose constitution and laws recognise and support the rights of working people, puts the welfare of the people before profit and defends public property before private property.
The Republican Road To Socialism
Republican socialism is the ‘republican road to socialism’. This is a strategy comparable to, but distinct from, the old left “British road to socialism” and connected ideas about transitional democratic demands, or reforms, as steps towards democratic power and internationalist goals. Hence the struggle for republican democracy is not an optional extra or an end in itself but steps to establishing a social republic and moving towards greater international co-operation between working people in different countries.
Internationalism
Republican socialism is a universal idea, which is relevant to and adaptable by working class movements in nations and states across the world. As an inter-nationalist ideology, it demands complete equality between nations and therefore fully supports the right of nations to self-determination and opposes all manifestations of imperialism and the imposition of the rule of one nation or state over another. Even though it appears in national form, in the different nations and states across the world, republican socialism is in essence internationalist because it depends on the unity of the international working class.
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