Social-Democracy or Socialism?

The UPC has one main ideological problem: It’s ideology is not very distinct from it´s main competitors NRM and NUP. I am not saying that the UPC would be the same in practice as the NRM or NUP, but at least in proclamations they are.

According to the 2008 Constitution of the UPC the party is a “social-democratic party”¹. The thing is that the NUP also claims to be a “progressive, social-democratic organization”². Even the NRM calls itself a “social-democratic liberation movement”³. So some may polemically ask: Who is the “true social-democratic party” in Uganda? Who is the “true Scot”?

The problem here is that the meaning of social-democracy eroded heavily over the past century. Starting with World War I most social-democratic parties betrayed their original goals. Originally social-democracy was synonymous with Marxism, socialism and communism. That is the reason why the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was named Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia (Bolsheviki) until 1919. So let us go into a historical example: The Social-Democratic Party of Germany.

The Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) used to be the forerunner of Marxism and socialism in the world. Marx and Engels were teaching the founders of the SPD, August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, via their correspondence. Lenin and Stalin have shown high respect towards the SPD in the years before World War I. When World War I started the leading officials of the SPD refused to oppose the imperialist war and instead supported it, except for Karl Liebknecht (later a founder of the Communist Party of Germany), who openly spoke out in parliament against the imperialist war from the first day on. What the bite into the apple by Adam and Eve was in the Bible, the Fall of Man, was the support of the SPD for the imperialist war. In German the term “Sündenfall” (literally: sin fall) is used for both events. Later the SPD rejected the Great Socialist October Revolution and even condemned it.

Despite that, at least in the 1925 Heidelberg Program of the SPD socialism officially staid as the goal: “The goal of the working class can only be reached by transforming the capitalist private property on the means of production into societal property.”⁴ There is no difference in words to what Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin demanded. The main issue was the claim by the social-democratic leaders, that the Soviet Union would not be a socialist state but instead a “bureaucratic despotic regime”, a claim for which they never delivered any proof. They in fact had no interest in reaching socialism. Eduard Bernstein, a right-wing social-democrat and enemy of Marx and Engels, and important ideologist of the SPD after 1918, wrote openly already in 1899: “That final goal, which is generally called socialism, is nothing to me and the movement is everything for me.”⁵ The social-democratic leaders in 1925 still had to hide the fact that they betrayed the socialist cause like Bernstein did.

After World War II this changed. The 1959 Bad Godesberg Program threw Marxism officially over board. It was replaced by a vague “democratic socialism” that is just capitalism with minor welfare reforms. In essence it is capitalist:

“Private property on means of production can demand protection and support as long as it does not prevent the constriction of a just social order.”

“The Social-Democratic Party affirms the free market wherever there is real competition.”⁶

Private property and market economy are supported. The labor market is more indirectly recognized:

“Trade unions fight for a just share of the workers on the yield of societal labor and for the right of employee participation in economic and social life.”⁷

Marx himself said about “just wages”: “To clamour for equal or even equitable retribution on the basis of the wages system is the same as to clamour for freedom on the basis of the slavery system.”⁸ Instead of overcoming wage labor, the SPD started to not go beyond the trade unionist struggles within the capitalist system.

The above is very important to stress the SPD´s rooting in capitalism. Stalin listed as conditions for capitalism these three things: “Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private ownership of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country.”⁹ The above fits in all three conditions. Commodity production is just the Marxist term for a market economy.

But that is not the end. In 1989 the SPD adopted the so-called Berlin Program. There it is said:

“We are against the privatization of elementary risks of life.”¹⁰

Well, well. But these are just words. Under that program, after some alterations from 1998, the SPD-led federal government 1998-2005 privatized the pension system partially and also marketized the public health system. This program was in practice not worth the ink and paper it was printed on. The general tone of the program is just slightly “less capitalist” than that of 1959. But really only slightly. It contains the phrase:

“Within the democratically set frame market and competition are indispensable.”¹¹

So the market economy was still endorsed. There was just a slight criticism:

“The effective possibilities of the market are overturned by excessive concentration.”¹²

The concentration of capital is meant here. But this is a basic tendency of capitalism with its market concurrence. This tendency is what led to the creation of capitalist monopolies that can be nationalized like picking ripe fruits. Here the SPD argues like so-called “classical liberals” that wish that they could return the wheel of time back to the early 19th century.

There is one Program to go: The 2007 Hamburg Program. This program was drafted after Gerhard Schröder, the SPD chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD) 1998-2005, implemented neoliberal reforms that can be compared to “New Labour” in the UK. The market economy is still endorsed:

“For us the market is a necessary means and superior to other economic forms of coordination.”¹³

Also that trade unions are only seen as organizations that fight for a “fair share” instead of the root of capitalist exploitation is repeated. But there is something new:

“Privatizations can be useful and justified.”¹⁴

The SPD of course promises in words that there should be carefulness in regards to the state monopoly of power and public goods. But words are only words. Also strategic infrastructure was privatized in the past decades, no matter if it was under a government of the SPD or the conservative CDU. Especially the privatization of public hospitals was executed under both ruling parties in pretty much the same way.

As you can see, social-democracy in the West became like a chewed bubblegum: Colorless and tasteless.

How does this all connect to Uganda? First of all in the way that social-democracy is internationally seen as part of the neoliberal umbrella ideology that also contains liberalism, conservatism and a big chunk of green politics. Secondly these are all phrases that exist similarly in Uganda.

Museveni said in 2005: “The most strategic stimulus factor is the market.”¹⁵ That is clearly a neoliberal statement and he acts after that principle until today. But is that so far off from the other social-democratic leaders? In Europe Museveni surely could call himself a social-democrat without creating suspicion, especially after “New Labour”.

But also the UPC is not completely innocent. Jimmy Akena might be honestly concerned with social issues in Uganda. Some of his critics will deny that. But that does not directly matter here. Fact is that Jimmy Akena, when being honest, will not be a socialist like his father Milton Obote was before him, but just a left-wing social-democrat reformer within the framework of capitalism. Also the UPC website still carries information from the past decades where it was claimed by Patrick Rubaihayo in 2006: “UPC shifted its ideological position from socialism to a free market economy.”¹⁶ So shortly after Obote´s death in declarations the NRM and UPC did not sound too different from each other in regard to the economic policy.

Bobi Wine might recently voiced opposition to the privatization of marketing boards¹⁷, but can that be taken seriously in the background of his Western big capitalist supporters? The SPD also rejected privatizations in the 1989 Berlin Program and then endorsed them in the 2007 Hamburg Program. His journey to America and Europe contain many details the Ugandan public does not get informed about, like his support for the LGBT movement. So it would not be the first time he is dishonest towards the Ugandan working people.

Social-democracy is a dead horse. Riding it will not move us a centimeter away from capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Instead we need to get a grip of the Marxist theory to practice it under the Ugandan conditions. Milton Obote´s Common Man’s Charter was a solid program of socialism in Uganda, despite not being a 100% Marxist one. It differs a lot from what social-democrats are today proposing as “solutions” towards the Ugandan working masses.

There can only be this conclusion:

Fight for socialism, combat social-democracy!