A national democratic state is a state as political entity that, according to the Marxist–Leninist theory of national democracy, is the product of a national democratic revolution. In certain cases, it was believed, a national democratic state could endeavour to establish the socialist mode of production, transforming the state into a communist state known as a socialist state in the process.
Basic definition
The 1960 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, held in Moscow, defined the national democratic state as follows: "[The] political 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 a "national democratic state of socialist orientation" to indicate a state without a national democratic front and a revolutionary democratic vanguard party, and others spoke of a 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 a supreme state organ of power.
The state's characteristics Soviet theorists never reached a consensus as to the national democratic state's material base, meaning the economic foundation of the state. 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, acted as the material base of the national democratic state. 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 of 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 the latters' influence in its internal affairs. Secondly, it aimed to reduce Western capitalist influence on 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 state was 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, "[The national democratic state must] take 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 a 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 regarding the notion that a national democratic state was a tool to transition to socialism. 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 regarding 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 proposed that one or more interim stages had to be reached before such an entity became a socialist state. 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 interim stages before developing into a socialist state. In the first stage, it would be 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 believed the national democratic state was arrived at in two ways: 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 at 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 as a specific stage. According to Kim, revolutionary democracy was an ideology or type of rule of the national democratic state that paved the way for 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 of 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 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.