Introduction
The Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition in the Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is paid a salary which ultimately comes out of the taxpayer's pocket. If one pauses to reflect on this sentence it can be seen to contain at least two somewhat surprising implications, namely that the Leader heads an institution, the Opposition, which is dignified by the title 'Her Majesty's', in the same way as the government; and that this institution is regarded as of such importance to the smooth functioning of government that Parliament has considered it proper to provide its Leader with a salary out of public revenue. Most people in Great Britain today take this institution for granted. Yet it is of comparatively recent origin even in Britain, and in many countries the legitimacy, even the very concept, of an institution which challenges the govern-ment in the political arena, is denied The fact that in Britain the Leader of the Opposition is a public functionary, whose duty it is to criticize the measures of government, and whose success or failure is a matter of public concern, comes as a surprise to the inhabitants of many a country still struggling to establish representative institutions. How has this situation come about?
The purpose of this book is to offer the reader as complete a survey as possible, within a very brief compass, of the emergence of this institution, not only in Britain but in other countries, and an assessment of its importance and present vitality. Brevity requires that the subject be reduced to its essentials, and any subject thus dealt with reveals more strikingly some basic features, which might pass unobserved if treated in a wider framework. One of the peculiarities of the subject of opposition is that, although the problem of opposition is one
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12 Introduction
with hew to contain and correct power than with how to exalt it
The twentieth century has seen the growth of the great industrial societies, with their twin problems: on the one hand the enlargement of the sphere of responsibility of governments, and on the other the emergence of social conflict as the main motor and issue of political life. The appearance of the contemporary monocracies, with their formidable state-machines, has led the study of politics to concentrate ever more on the fast growing phenomena of the accretion of power. The specific functions of political opposition have not merely been gradually overlooked; they have often been deliberately minimized.
Political science is of course not to blame for this. Like all sciences it moulds itself on its subject matter. It is in political life itself that the delicate balance between rulers and ruled, between government and the governed, has been more heavily tipped in favour of the former. The sphere of power has been enlarged, while the influence of opposition has declined. On the world map, the number of polities governed without a political opposition grows larger. The number of parliamentary states has rapidly decreased, in comparison with those which pay lip-service, or not even that, to such seemingly obsolete institutions. Within parliamentary states, too, there is less confidence in the value of a political opposition and, indeed, it arouses less interest. It has lost ground for a number of reasons which will be examined later, though some of them may be mentioned here: there is, for instance, the impact of the mass communication media, and of the mass political parties; and there is also the growth of consensus.
And yet the way in which politics is studied does influence the general attitude of a given society towards its own political life. It is natural, for instance, that the contemporary itudy of politics should concentrate more on government itself (which incidentally is still the name under which politics is mostly taught in the traditional British and United States universities) than on the forces and activities which limit, control, conflict with, and try to give a corrected shape to government.
Introduction
It is true that the business of government grows more and more complex, and the more one studies the changing patterns of decision-making, and the ways in which participation by. and j especially the consensus of the community is attained^ the deeper and clearer is our understanding of the transformed politics of our era. But, by the same token, the study of political opposition should also adapt itself to the politics of our age. For, just as the concentration on, and fascination with, power inevitably heightens the power-seeking instinct of those attracted by politics, so the study of political opposition should strengthen and stimulate the quest for freedom for freedom's sake, the instinct to dissent for the sake of dissent - the mainsprings of human reaction to domination and coercion.
In the wake of the rapid progress made by sociology in the last century or so, political anthropology and political sociology have enriched and deepened our knowledge of political societies. In the nineteenth century, political studies concentrated mainly on the state and its institutions and the theories which explained their origins and their functions and methods. Today attention is focused on society itself, as a whole. The modern study of politics is the study of the relations between state and society, the complex interaction between rulers and ruled, the government and the governed. This interaction is in turn the result of a complex network of interrelations created by the co-existence within a territorial unit under one political authority, or under none, of many different groups, forces, interests and values. Seen in this perspective, the exercise of power is no longer the main object of study of political activities. Conflict in the field of human relations is perennial Indeed, anthropologists speak of conflicts of all kinds in acephalous societies, that is to say, socieu'es in which the exercise of power has not been established.
But these societies are as dynamic as societies in which opposition is directed at the central source of power, because of the tensions set up between opposing forces and trends. Thus integration and disruption, conflict and consensus, power and opposition have become a central feature of the study oi political sociology.
14 Introduction
the study of opposition as instinct
As an instinct, 'opposition* is rooted in human nature, more or Jess controlled or repressed according to the degree to which the society we live in allows its open manifestation. It accounts for those seemingly motiveless dislikes of which the causes, based on differences of character and temperament, go so deep that they are beyond self-knowledge. This form of instinctive and emotional hostility to ideas, people and things has found in many languages a special description - contrariness. Wider-spruchsgeist - which distinguishes it from reasoned disagreement. But it is this instinctive reaction which more often than not gives energy and vitality to reasoned disagreement.
If the instinct of hostility is one of the sources of opposition, it has a twin, the other side of the coin, namely the instinct for freedom. Man alone by himself is an anarchist. Within the material range of his possibilities he has freedom to choose what he will do. He can hunt, sleep, eat, move about as he wills, His hostility to the stranger is in part caused by the fact that the latter may present a threat to his freedom. When man comes to live in society, his instinct for freedom has to be domesticated. He will have to give up some of his freedom if he is not to impinge too much on the freedom of others. But he will always strive to keep as much freedom as he can, and in any community there will always be a shifting balance between how much freedom can be left to the individual and how much must be given up, if the community is to survive as a community. And, within the community itself, where freedom for some is obtained at the expense of freedom for others, tensions will be set up by those who strive to break their bonds.
The two drives, to hostility and to freedom, are bound to clash with two of the fundamental features of an organized society: the necessity for authority on the one hand and obedience on the other. Such relationships, in order to develop, imply the existence of a group large enough for some to command and others to obey, and of an ultimate purpose common to the whole group. In pre-political societies, the rela-
Iniroducthn 15
tionships of authority and obedience need not assume the form of institutions. Decisions can be taken collectively, or imposed by the will of the strongest on an ad hoc basis, patterns of self-administrauon may form, break up and form again, within certain well-worn channels, depending on accidents of personality and the type of problem to be decided.
But except in an outright tyranny, imposed by terror, the willing obedience of the governed is a necessary counterpart of the legitimate exercise of authority by the rulers, and die willing obedience must be manifest. Thus even in primitive political societies some mechanisms can exist which have the object of allowing the expression of divergent opinions and of collecting the general sense of the community. As societies become more complex, so the problems they throw up multiply and the institutions which grow up become more sophisticated. Groups will become aware of common interests within the framework of the community as a whole, and will seek to express them. They may come into conflict with other groups, also aware of their common interests.
opposition as an institution
If the forms which human conflict can take are innumerable, even the much narrower range of manifestations which are usually grouped under the name of political conflict cover a vast range. Political conflict originates in two sources. One is the conflict of interests tetweenTKTVarious forces in that society. Tne^orTdiveToped the society, the more conscious and active are the pluralistic forces or groups which contribute by their activity to the functioning, indeed to the viability of that society. The second source is the conflict of values (beliefs, faiths, ideas, attitudes, customs) between different categories of people living together in the same society, and between au of them on the one hand and those who hold ultimate political power in that society on the other. These two forms of conflict exist in all societies and as the society becomes more complex they will require political outlets. If no sa ety vahc* are provided political conflict will erupt into violence, me
16 Introduction
conflict in interests will eventually materialize and express itself by means of the checks which the most important groups or associations in a society can exercise on the functioning of the state, whether by political, or by non-political action. The conflict of values finds its outlet In the,right of any group or individual to dissent from the official views and actions of the state, by political or other channels.
Political opposition, in the sense in which it is used here to distinguish it from political conflict, is the most advanced and institutionalized form of political conflict Hence the term should be used of situations where an opposition is not merely allowed to function, but is actually entrusted with a function. As such, it becomes an institution, part of a vast set of institutions upon which It is based, and without the prior existence and functioning of which it could neither exist nor function. Political opposition thus becomes the crowning institution of a fully institutionalized political society and the hallmark of those political societies which are variously called democratic, liberal, parliamentary, constitutional, pluralistic -constitutional, or even open or free. Thus the presence or absence of institutionalized political opposition can become the criterion for the classification of any political society in one of two categories: liberal or dictatorial, democratic ot~ authoritarian, pluralistic-constitutional or monolithic.
As an institution, political opposition has a history. And it is significant that, of late, political sociologists, after establishing ingenious sets of prototypes, patterns, and systems of human society, have turned back to political history to support their findings. <CUco_tL Parsonsv for instance, one of the founders of modern political sociology, in his latest works classifies societies according to historical standards, that is to say he divides archaic from modern societies. The latter, according to him, began to appear in Western Europe in the seventeenth century, by a gradual transformation of surviving medieval institutions (whether parliamentary or monarchical) under the impact of economic and social changes, proceeding at a different pace, with differing results in such countries as England, France, Holland
Introduction 17
The slow process of the institutionalization of political conflict reached its full achievement in the nineteenth century The appearance of parliamentary regimes including a fully fledged political opposition as one of hit main institutions coincided, especially in France, with the process of the separation of powers in the state. Thus, the institutions which condition the existence of a political opposition are also moments in the political evolution of societies. Sometimes these institutions appear at the same time, sometimes successively, sometimes they fade away, sometimes they survive; some, indeed most, societies never reach the full range of institutionalization which permits the free functioning of a political opposition.
It is proposed to examine here, if only briefly, the historical setting of the emergence of some of the main prerequisites for a political constitutional opposition, in the countries and centuries in which it happened, and first and foremost in Western Europe and the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since its first appearance and free functioning on both shores of the Atlantic, the Western parliamentary system has been treated in most of the political science of the West as the teleological end of all political processes. It may well be, and the present authors share this view, that pluralistic-constitutional structures will remain for ever in history the best mechanism for safeguarding the political freedom and dignity of modern man. But this does not mean that they have always worked or that they will work everywhere and always. In our century the world is divided into several camps according to the social and political doctrine on which the states composing these camps are based. Technological changes may occur in the future which may alter the very functioning of human societies- also the centres of world power may shift from one continent to another. What may have worked reasonably well in Western, Christian, industrial civilization, may not suit other civilizations with different traditions and problems. Bearing tlj this in mind one may wonder whether the Western pobtr-institutions, and at their centre political opposition, know it now, will not remain the characteristic institution
18 Introduction
European and American political history, or whether on the contrary, in different forms, they will continue to be adopted In other states too, if and when conditions become more favourable.
In Chapter 2 of this book, an attempt will be made to trace the historical process of the institutionalization of political opposition. In order to do so, it will be necessary to discuss other basic elements in a constitutional pluralistic state, without which political opposition could not function. These elements are a modern social force, namely public opinion; a theory, the theory of representation, from which the theory of sovereignty cannot be separated; a specific political institution, the parliament; and modern political groupings, or political parties: Some of these elements have existed under these or other names for a long time in history, before their re-actualization in modern forms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even now they still exist separately. Political societies have existed and still do, with representative systems, or parliaments, or parties, or public opinion, or with two or more of these elements. But it was only in the coherent pluralistic-constitutional system of the Western democracies that they could be united and mutually integrated.
Chapter 3 will attempt to examine the state of political opposition in the second half of the twentieth century in the pluralistic-constitutional states, and the reasons why it seems to be losing some of its significance. As an institution it has lost ground in terms of the number of countries where it is to be found. Where it still functions, it suffers from a lack of vitality which has aroused the concern of political scientists and politicians, and has encouraged the study of the reform of parliaments, of electoral systems, and of the mechanism of decision-making, and examination of the formation of public opinion and the role of mass-communication media.
Chapter 4 will deal with polities in which political opposition does not function, but where the conflict of interests and the conflict of values express themselves by other means. These oppositionless states can be divided into three groups. In the first, without any theoretical principle being involved,
Introduction 19
political opposition as an institution does not in fact exist In the second group, a political opposition is not admitted/either in theory, or in fact, by the government in power, allegedly for the sake of the pursuit of superior national goals. In the third group, the'Jtolitical opposition is rejected both in theory and in fact in the name of the creation in the future of a classless, apolitical society. What forms do checks and dissent take in these three different kinds of oppositionless states?
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States
Australia, Austria. Belgium, Canada, Chile. Denmark. Finland France, the Federal Republic of Germany. Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel. Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden. Switzerland. Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay are at the time of writing pluralistic-constitutional states.1 In all of them political opposition functions; how it functions, and whether it could function better or worse has been discussed in the preceding pages. For reasons put forward in the Introduction,2 it was suggested that the states which are not pluralistic-consututional can be grouped into one broad category of oppositionless states, in the sense that political opposition there does not function fully, or is not institutionalized. It was also suggested that the oppositionless states can be divided into different categories according to the reason why opposition has been banned in the state concerned.3 According to this classification, these states fall into three groups: sovereign states in which political oppositions as an institution has not been banned by the power-holders but does not exist in fact - which for our purposes here corresponds with the politically underdeveloped states; ;sovereign states in which {political opposition as an institution is denied by the power-holders in the interest of the pursuit of higher national goals, to be described here shortly as nationalist states; and sovereign states in which the political opposition
1. So also up to a point are South Africa and Rhodesia. But the problems of pluralistic-consiitutional states based on a narrow racial suffrage are of such a nature as to make of them hybrids between the constitutional states and the oppositionless states.
2. See pp. 18-19.
3. See also on this point, O. lonescu. The Politics of the European Communist States, London, 1967, pp. 4-5.
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States 137 an institution is denied by the power-holders in the cause of he elimination of political alienation and of the integration in I the classless society of the future, that is. communities £
IW H       ,k        categ0ry'thc tw° ,auer "havc in c°™°° the fact that they are constructed around a central apparatus
lor backbone, a centralized.but widely ramified political and
administrative organization in charge of the mobilization of
Jht society in the economic, political and ideological fields.
J states where political opposition has not [yet been formed
i.
|Although states in this category have achieved sovereignty, externally and internally, their political life is characterized by j a certain amorphousness and by elementary consensual activities. Direct bargaining by primary groups (clans, tribes, | regional populations) does not crystallize into forms of political representation. As a result of the simplified exercise of authority, conventional or traditional, and of the fact that the prin-•* cipal concern is the actual viability of the state as such, the political Mites are understandably enough more easily interested in and absorbed by government than concerned with the expression of independent attitudes. Efforts are concentrated on building up the central authority into a potential centre of rower in an otherwise inchoate political structure. Where the jprimary concern is to maintain the viability of the state and its external sovereignty, the functioning of institutionalized opposition may prove to be beyond the meagre forces of the society I - it may even lead to the dissipation of effort. Such forces as are available lead to the prevalence of the politics of counsel. [Bargaining between specific groups in the society is carried on [directly; a kind of permanent process of consultation goes on ^either informally, or within certain traditional deliberative bodies, and around the central nucleus of power. The absence, because it has not emerged, of political oppo-
4. cf. in this context the description of a politically underdeveloped state .liven by Jose Ortega y Ga&set in 1921, in the title of his book Invertebrate Spain (English translation. New York, 1937).
138 Opposition
sition is for instance typical of most of the states of Francophone Africa. Even in the most advanced and politically most developed of these states, Senegal, because of the lack of political activity, 'the opposition, unable to overthrow the government by force, and having lost hope of succeeding through elections, was thus faced with an alternative between increasing hardship in opposition or acceptance of government overtures ... Political opposition, as organized in the form of a political party has for the moment failed in Senegal.'5 Other states in Francophone Africa lag still further behind this stage of political articulation. In most of them there is a presidential regime, either with or without a representative assembly. Where it does exist, there is only one, government, parry whose object is to assist in the task of administration. In some states parties did form, and either dissolved, were banned, or were absorbed by the government. Finally in a number of these countries the military seized power in order to speed up the solution of administrative problems. The only opposition which could conceivably have achieved some degree of activity was that of the communist parties, but even these were too weak to be reckoned as serious political forces. The populations are at present too politically apathetic to respond to the over-simplified appeal of Russian or even Chinese communist inspiration.
A second type of political society in which the very potential of political opposition seems to be lacking is the very traditional type of which the best example remains Ethiopia. Here 'parliamentary representation ... runs so counter to the authoritarian caste of Amhara political culture that electoral procedures are simply not taken seriously. All serious articulation of interests has been in the form of petitions to His Majesty, whether directly or through the mediation of a high ranking official or member of the imperial family ... The lack of organizations for the articulation and aggregation of interests in Ethiopia reflects the difficulty Ethiopians have in undertaking any sort of concerted action, particularly in the political
5. D. Cruise O'Brien, "Political opposition in Senegal, 1960-7', m Government and Opposition, VoL 2, No. 4, July-October, 1967.
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States   139
.sphere'* In such cases the potential opposition likes to think, or pretends to think that all possible political activities are ■[crushed by the regime's implacable pressure. This is in part the result of wishful thinking. If the opposition could find a way to |interest the people, it would be able to assert its existence even *in more severe conditions of political repression, as happened, 'for instance, in Ghana during the last phase of Nkrumah's ^government by terror. On the other hand institutions set up "inder Western inspiration in some modern republics and tra-litional empires would not so easily fall into disuse if there vas the slightest possibility that these organs of representation should in fact become representative of the views and interests t!of the populations. But in the absence of this indispensable 'factor, opposition activities are out of context; whereas on the contrary the tasks of government present the ilites with innumerable and urgent problems which are more easily treat ad hoc consensual ways.
•olitical power in contemporary iation a l 1st states
ie contemporary nationalist states are characterized by following features-
1, Power is seized by the army which either continues to exercise it directly, or maintains ultimate control over the fate of ie regime.
The political power thus obtained is used to mobilize society order to provide the impetus for modernization, for which plan is drawn up. 3. Although the political object is development, an ideology is levised which proclaims that the only way to achieve such levelopment is to be found in the traditional institutions and jdeals of the original society.
6 Quoted from a most penetrating study by Donald N. Levtae, 'Ethiopia : identity, authority and realism* in Lucian W. Pyc and Sydney Verba is.) Political Culture and Political Development, Princeton, 1965. P-tTJ.
140 Opposition
4. Political opposition is banned, and power is held in a narrow group because of irreconcilable conflicts between different social, ethnic or cultural groups.
5. The power-holders are usually a group of junior officers led by a charismatic figure, backed by the army, and sometimes the Church and business organizations. Sooner or later they combine into an ad hoc political organization under a generic title such as party, movement, union.
6. Although nationalist, and anti-communist in internal policy (because alTopposition is banned) the regime observes a neutralist foreign policy by which it hopes to obtain as much if not more support from the communist camp as from the Western powers.
Most of these six features can be found in practically all the contemporary nationalist states, from the earliest survivals from the Fascist era, Spain and Portugal, to the most recent ones, for example Nigeria and Greece. Thanks to the war, then to the Cold War, and now to its continuation, the age of 'peaceful engagement* in which we live today,! nationalist regimes of the military type described above have spread in all five continents, There are two reasons for such a proliferation. On the one hand governing is a difficult task, and in the present day of political national and international turmoil, it is easier for those who control the ultimate means of coercion to hold on to power in new and not very secure states. On the other hand, modernization and development, which are the driving forces of this political age, are thought to be more easily achieved by the poorer states by a process of mobilization undertaken by a monolithic government. Some of these regimes have now lasted a long time; in others there have been counter-revolutions or a series of coups. Some have elaborated their own doctrine and defined their own constitutional functions and institutions; others have shown themselves relatively indifferent to this theoretical aspect and are more concerned with the pragmatic exercise of power. For the purpose of this analysis five historical case studies have been chosen: the Franco regime, in which thanks to its longevity the six features
Political Conflict In the Oppositions States 141 footed above can be clearly discerned, and which serves as a vintage model of the conservative nationalist dictatorship; Pakistan, which is characteristic of the claim to represent a new and genuine political system suitable to the needs of underdeveloped traditional societies in the twentieth century; the United Arab Republic, which is characteristic of the transformation of the army into the leading force in political mobili-zation and the representative of the national ambitions; Ghana, which (together with Algeria, Nigeria and Indonesia) is typical of the replacement of the single party by the army, which afterwards continues through its own structures the policy of modernization which the party inaugurated but failed to carry out; finally Argentina under Perdn which is an example of a tripartite structure, with the Armed Forces, the trade unions and the party_jharing. under Perdn's personal supervision, in E the exclusive exercise of power.
The Spanish Civil War. started by a group of Spanish gene rals in command of army groups, broke out on 19 July 1936 When on 1 October of that year General Francisco Franco was proclaimed "Head of the government of the state of Spain' ' the regime which he tried, and after three more years of cruel struggle, succeeded in extending over the whole of Spain, had from a political point of view two principal features. It was first the typical, and also typically Spanish, regime of military intervention in the affairs of the state which occurs when the usual complex of forces, the right wing, and sometimes the centre political parties, the Church, business, and last but not least the army fear that the liberal constitutional regime is lead-ing the country towards a thoroughgoing change in the eco-, nomic and social foundations of the state. Secondly, the Franco regime became the latest embodiment of a quasi-Fascist state. It claimed to unite under one firm command all the activities of the society; and it acknowledged, if not as its vanguard, at least as its partner, a single party, the FET y de i las JONS (an amalgamation of traditional and pseudo-Fascist groups), which hoped to become at a later stage the main mobi-pzing force in the future state. During the Second World War, and in the 1940s and 1950s, Franco adopted an attitude of
142 Opposition
neutralism, and the regime became much more pragmatic and much more personal. The centre of power shifted decisively towards the person of Francisco Franco, generalissimo, caud-illo and head of state. His use of personal charisma, and his art of playing off one group in the small body politic against another, and reconciling them only under his leadership, helped to build up his ascendancy. The regime won in stability, but lost in enthusiasm, interest and dignity. It was only in the 1960s that the Spanish regime undertook the modernization of society, and especially economic and technical development. Thus it was only after the appearance of the new nationalist regimes in, say. Egypt or Pakistan, which stressed so heavily the/dc-velopmental aspect of politics, (which they inherited rather from Kemal Ataturk's recipes for Turkey in the 1920s and adapted to new conditions of technology and international politics) that the Spanish regime abandoned its conservative outlook, and adopted a more progressive one. in which the nation thus saved was allowed to take full advantage of the new means of economic and technical development. But by then the political enthusiasm which should in theory animate at least the mobilizers in an operation of mobilization was difficult to rekindle. The Falange was a tired and disappointed body, and the army, never having achieved the role of the agent of mobilization, had been relegated into the background of the head of state. When modernization was finally launched in the 1960s, it was undertaken by a combination of the state administration and business Ilftes.
The situation created in Egypt when a group of officers seized power on 26 JulyJ952. differed politically in many respects from Franco Spain. In the first place the organizers and leaders were not generals but a group of younger officers, Then they had no political party immediately available to them; they allowed existing political parties to survive for a while before suppressing them, and it was only in the 1960s that they turned to forming a political party of their own, the political structure necessary for economic and social mobilization. Secondly ~Tt was the army itself which was proclaimed and idealized in the revolution as the force which could lead to the regeneration of
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States the nation. Thirdly, it was the army itself, which in a manne reminiscent of the Prussian Army of the eighteenth century became the dominant body in the new state thus created, ant Nasser, as the Rais. the charismatic leader, was presented as the embodiment of the army. Fourthly, emphasis was laid from the P beginning on modernization, involving emancipation from r foreign capital, social and economic reform, including the very necessary land reform, and catching up with the West and the colonial powersj Finally, and as a corollary to these aims, the divorce between the new regime and the traditional religious movement, the Moslem Brotherhood, was complete. Nasse dissolved it.
These specific traits of the Egyptian Army revolution have v appeared also in the great majority of similar military regimes l' which have taken power in a number of Middle Eastern. Asian 'and African states.7 The main variations on this theme have arisen around the nature of the relationship between the revolu tionary movement and its party, and the Communisf Party where it existed. A bilateral relationship with the Communis Party arose in the Iraq of Kassem, whereas in Ben Bella' Algeria a triangular relationship was set up between the party which held power, the army of liberation in the backgrounc, and the Communist Party in an uneasy situation of collabora tion cum opposition. Colonel Boumedienne's deposition of Ben I Bella in 1965 was a reassertion of the army against the cumber some and inefficient party, and also a reunion with the tradi V tionalist and nationalist religious groups. Such shifts in t balance between army and party are inevitable in regimes ^which the political vacuum created by the dictatorship mi [be filled at least to the extent that the operation of mobilization | for which the new Mites have seized power can be undertaken.
An ideology and especially a doctrine of the state is needed : provide the foundations of legitimacy and to enable the nc structure to justify its control over the entire society. Ayub Khan's regime in Pakistan (and from another poir
L 7. The background of a colonial or semi-colonial relationship with one )or other of the great powers accounts of course for some of the common ' aims of these regimes.
144 Opposition
of view Nyerere's Tanzania) is in terms of political imaginativeness the most interesting to study. It offers the most deliberate attempt to provide a genuine political doctrine in which modernism combines with and draws freely on emotional traditionalism. A double nationalism underlies the regime, for it is in principle oriented towards the emancipation of the country from past servitude to the West, but at the same time it is directed against India, which for Pakistan is the immediate imperialist power. A nationalist appeal, on political and religious grounds, for the unity of the people of Pakistan, should in theory have succeeded. Yet the pluralistic political parties failed to create national unity. On 27 October 1958. the Commander-in-Chief of the Army took power in a bloodless coup d'etat, and dissolved the political parties which he described as inefficient. But the army as such withdrew from the political stage almost immediately after the coup d'&tat, while Ayub Khan proceeded to devise a new kind of political theory and system. (The army's return to its professional occupations and withdrawal from the political stage may have been facilitated by the fact that being British-trained it is more inclined to look favourably on a pluralistic-constitutional regime if such a regime can ensure the viability of the new state.) Exactly a year after Ayub Khan's accession to power he published the Basic Democracies Order^This Order established a local unit, known from then on as 'basic democracy' which, according to the accompanying political theory, is the real seat of power. The entire political process is supposed to originate in the local units and converges on the central government.
The basic democracy is a unit of local self-government (thus reducing to very little the separation of powers) and is directed by a Union Council. There are some 80,000 members of Union Councils, who by now form the political iliu of the new regime. In so far as they are united by common vested interests, they resemble members of a single party in power (they are even called basic democrats). In the 1962 constitution, in which these political improvisations were consolidated into law, political parties were allowed to function again, even if in very circumscribed conditions. By 1962 it seemed that the personal
Political Conflict in the Oppositions Statu tf« position of the basic democrats would have become sufficiently , strong for them to stand up to bargaining with polítal parties ■^uch weakened by their period of eclipse. And it was also assumed that the progress made by the new organs of ,etf-government in development plans (the economic plan and the different social, cultural and religious schemes) would give them an obvious advantage over the political parties. Ghana deserves special study1 in so far as it is typical of j the replacement of a single party in what had been moulded as a single-party state, by an army which nevertheless con-I tinued to rule according to the existing constitution and system. The United Gold Coast Convention, formed in 1947. was the . first party in Ghana. Its objective was to establish and man the organs of self-government in the independent state. The general secretary of the party, Kwame Nkrumah. formed from within lit a much more radical party, the Convention Peoples Party, which stood for 'self-government now' and was based on the new intelligentsia. The UGCC dissolved before the election of 1951. which was easily won b~y the CPP. And the new intelligentsia filled the innumerable posts required for the administration of the new state, and for the launching of mobilization -including posts in that essential branch of the state machine, the independent Ghanaian army. The opposition groups which had been eliminated from the CPP, and which counted many members of the intelligentsia, formed a new party, the United Party. Between 1951 and 1958 it seemed that Ghana might continue with a two-party system (the United Party did very well in the 1956 elections). But partly because of general political conditions, and partly because of Nkrumah's own temperament, this prospect faded when the Osagyefo decided in 1958 Vlo promote his CPP to the position of single party in a state 'in need of a socialist African political system'. This policy was ^implemented in the 1964 constitutional amendment which introduced voting by single lists of candidates.
The inevitable happened, for when opposition was banned from outside the party, it crept out from within the party.
8. See especially Dennis Austin, 'Opposition In Ghana, 1947-67' Government and Opposition, 11, No. 4, 1967.
146 Opposition
Indeed it is significant to note how. during his years of lonely power Nkrumah succeeded in turning against himself all the main structures in the state: part of his own party, the trade union congress, the United Ghana Farmers* Council, the National Co-operative Council, the Regional Headquarters, and last but not least the Army and the Police. Indeed it was a National Liberation Council of People which decided to act in the first weeks of 1966. and took power from the dictator who was travelling abroad and never returned to his country. The new government did not change the structure of Nkrumah's state - but one year after their seizure of power they invited the leaders of the opposition to Nkrumah to join them in the task of administration.
The caseol^šIŮD^&J^gcaúuA. is singled out here finally as the prototype of a tripartite rule.9 The centre of power was formed by three main organizations: the armed forces, the trade unions and the Peronista or Justiciahst Party, all united under the personal leadership of Perón (and of Evita, his wife, whose death underlined the importance of the part she had played, since Peron's decline dates from then). The^jparty contributed the necessary political cement, and the instruments for propaganda, stimulation anxT^onlron TheJ trade unions provided the social element in the mobilization of the human potential fora "modern and independent Argentina'. The termed forces remained constantly present in the background as the main political force. The relationship between Perón arid the armed forces can however only be understood if one remembers that the latter were divided into different factions, sometimes as between branches of the forces (the navy was more anti-Perón, and the army more in favour), sometimes as between groups of commanders, sometimes as between ranks and generations, the younger officers being on the whole more in favour of Perón than senior and older officers.
In the crucial election of 194St when Perón and his descami-sados dislodged the military government of General Ramirez,
9. The expression 'dual rule' is used by S EL Finer in The Man on Horseback, London, 1962, which contains an admirable explanation of Argentine politics under Perón. But Finer does not include the party.
t his
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States
the greater part of the armed forces attempted to prevent _ coming to power. They even had Perdn arrested but had to give way before the opposition of the trade unions. A smaller group of officers believed that Perdn should be adopted as the candidate of the armed forces as well Once in power, Perbn. now himself head of the armed forces, showed no great sympathy for them. Only later, and especially after the death of Evita,
ndid he attempt to win more support from the military - and
1 then he succeeded only in part, since many officers, particularly in the navy, remained his sworn enemies. At the end of his
g regime the final struggle took place between the anti-Perdn and pro-Perdn elements in the armed forces. The anti-PerOnists were at first defeated, in June 1955; but they emerged victorious from the second round which raged over the whole
' country in September 1955, and their nominee. General Leo-nardi, was appointed provisional President.
These five examples of how power works in the opposition-less nationalist states were chosen because each of them illustrates one typical relationship between the various structures within this type of state. We shall come back to them, when, after analysing the relations of power in the other broad
} category of oppositionless states, the communist states, we turn to the general problem of political conflict and opposition in the oppositionless states.
political power in the contemporary ^communist states .
: In the communist states, thej>artyjs by and large the dominant power and is therefore in control of the entire state and through it of society. But neither of these statements can be accepted without qualification. In some communist states the party holds *the dominant position more securely and exclusively than in others. In some states also the party is less willing to admit Brother institutions to a share in the control of the state, and V hence of society, whereas in others it govena mainly by sharing power.
/Soviet Russia, as the 'mother of socialism* and at the same
148 Opposition
tíme as an economically fully developed great power, stands in a category of its own, above any other communist state. Politically the USSR is the prototype of a one-party state, with the party, now. as the dominant power. Under Stalin, the role of the party was less clearly asserted than now - together with the political police, it was one of the arms through which Stalin exercised his personal dictatorship. After Stalin's death the political police was down-graded, and the party came into the forefront, in reality and not merely for propaganda or
doctrinal reasons.
As a state, the Soviet Union is. to use the Marxist expression, a 'corporation in action', a form of government by assembly from the local soviet at the bottom to the Supreme Soviet at the top. The separation of powers is in principle abolished -but representation is recognized and has indeed developed of late as against self-management and self-administration. According to more modern Soviet constitutionalists, 'in the great socialist states' (and this probably applies only to the Soviet Union) 'called upon to direct daily an extremely involved social production, it is impossible to replace the representative organs and their executive apparatus by the self-management of the people'. Thus, in the Soviet Union today, a steady process of institutionalization of representative organs is on the way, which runs counter to the deinstitutionalization which should precede and lead to self-management and self-administration. And the party, like the state itself, is not going to 'wither away' yet in the Soviet Union. On the contrary, they are going to be based on more lasting and more flexible foundations. A little more elbow room is now also being granted in the relation between state and society, and the latter is now expected to participate more intensively, directly or by means of representation, in the business of the former.
^Yugoslavia must be taken next, for it stands at the opposite ena ot the spectrum as far as pluralism, institutionalization, and the reduction of the role of the state are concerned. Yugoslavia is the most articulate communist state. It has reached a higher degree of pluralism, in the sense that social groups, institutions, cultural and regional bodies exercise more influence
Political Conflict In the Oppositionist States 149 within the political regime. This pluralistic aspect partly derives from the federal structure of Yugoslavia. Another cause can be found in the interplay between the state and the different social classes and categories which is more clearly articulate in Yugoslavia because of the self-administration of the communes and the self-management of the workers' councils. This extension of self-administration, against a background of federal and social pluralism, reduces the power of th$ centralistic state, which progressively takes on the role of a coordinator. The decrease in the power of the state is reflected in turn in the decreasing power of the dominant structure, the party. Since 1952. the party has been called by a new name, the League, to give it a more popular flavour, and it is expected by the leadership to become a broader and more deliberative body. On paper at least, the League has been advised to transform itself into a 'guiding* and not a 'controlling' organism - which means that it should not interfere at any level with the workings of self-administered communes or self-managed industries.
Yugoslavia is thus more advanced than any other socialist country in two opposite respects. It claims to have gone further on the road to building socialism (it calls itself a socialist republic), in so far as it has reached the stage when the state and its organs give way to self-administration. It is at the same time the most advanced in terms of internal freedom. The Yugoslavs enjoy more rights and liberties than the citizens of any communist state, and the judiciary and the legislature stand their ground better before an executive which is no longer so all-powerful.
The East European communist states, of which two, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, are socialist republics like Yugoslavia, and four are People's Democracies: Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Bulgaria, situate themselves politically between Soviet Russia and Yugoslavia. Wrth the exception of Poland agriculture has been collectivized in all of them. They have undertaken a programme of heavy industrialization, and they consider the party to be the supreme political force in the centralized state. Yet none of these measures have in the East (European context the clear-cut character they have in the
150 Opposition
Soviet Union. The fact that the countries themselves are smaller reduces the massive impact of the measures taken by the centre, and their European cultural tradition mark* them off Jess than Russia which has its own political tradition. Above all, social groups, institutions, national and cultural bodies had enjoyed before the advent of the communists a long period of national and at times political freedom. There is thus the memory of a time when they participated in greater or less degree Fn policy-making in conditions of political pluralism, and were not forced into the monolithic mould.
These seven states form a spectrum according to the role played respectively by the party and the state in the conduct of society, ranging from the complete control to be found in East Germany, Rumania and Poland, to the laxer control prevailing in Czechoslovakia and especially Hungary.
CommunistyChina is, like Russia, a great power, and is on the way to becoming a nuclear great power. In origin, like Yugoslavia, China was an army party state, and 'popular mobilization', with its organs, the mass~assoc1ations, remains basic to the political structure of Mao's China~.nrThis is why it is more difficult, in the long run to separate the influence of the army from that of the party in the sphere of policy making; the two have been interlocked since the foundation of the state not only in the person of the leader, but also in the tasks of administration. This relationship has gone through different phases, during which the party has at times attempted to secure more effective control of the army, without succeeding in doing so. The struggle between the two has become even clearer during the complex and changing phases of the so-called 'Cultural Revolution'. Although some of its leaders were under attack, the army reasserted itself as the arbiter of political order, and according to its spokesman acted In three important ways: where the Maoists were in difficulties, the army 'seized power',
10. 'Popular mobilization is the basis of Chinese communist control throughout the whole spectrum of society ... the civil and military organization overlapped in membership; they had the dual purpose of mobilizing civilian support for the war and of arousing (he same support for the policies of the Communist Party." John Gittings, The Rule of the Chinese Army, London, J966, p. 48.
Political Conftict in the Oppositionless States   151
| thus helping the revolutionary elements; where the situation was in the balance, the army acted 'in order to make sure that everything would function normally under its control' and reimposed the triple alliance between army, cadres and revolu tionary groups; finally, where it was not necessary either to seize power or to assume control, the army placed its own dele-| gates within the parry organization still in power so as to assist the cadres and reorganize their teams.11
China stands at the opposite end of the communist ideological spectrum from Yugoslavia. Not only in its actual policies, but in its doctrinal stand the Yugoslav leadership has moved laway from the Soviet doctrine of the 'dictatorship of the pro Jetariat', and claims that Yugoslavia is about to enter into the | phase of the 'withering away of the state and the party'. The Chinese party has taken the opposite, dogmatist stand. Though i;in the past it had been opposed to Stalin on national grounds and to the CPSU on the issue of the independence of nationa parties within the communist world movement, it neverthet refused to accept the demotion of Stalin, and maintained tha his theory of how to run a communist state was the correct on
From a different point of view, China stands at the opposite end of the spectrum to Russia, namely on the question of th institutionalization of the revolution. In the Soviet Union, the communist state grew steadily out of the revolution, creating its own institutions, and shaping an enormous machine which covers all the activities of society. The latest Cultural Revolution in commumst China has underlined Mao's determinatioi to put the mythical 'people' above the state, and to govern nc by a state machine and its component structures but by th permanent rebellion of the masses in a process of constant renewal and rejuvenation. The Communist Party of Maoij China is opposed to any institutionalization of the revolutio in which it sees the death of the spontaneous power of the people.
These brief descriptions of the mechanism of power in som of the nationalist states and some of the communist states wer
J&l. See especially Chang Jeh-ching's article In Red Flag, 18 Fchroar Pjl967.
152 Opposition
necessary only in order to describe how these states are run and to distinguish between the various sub-types of governments in such states. All these states aspire to complete control of the activities of the societies which they want to 'mobilize*, for general intrinsic reasons, as well as for special, local reasons. But all of them fail to achieve this complete control. Political conflict re-emerges, and the history of the monolithic states is the history of their failure to control within a rigid framework the rich diversity and the constant transformations of social life. Finally, and to conclude this introductory note, it must be remembered that there is one striking difference between the nationalist states and the communist states from this point of view. The communist states expect to exert a more total control on the activities of society and on the life of individuals than the nationalist states. This is because they propose to transform not only the economy, not even only the society, but the basic nature of man himself. In addition, they also believe that in abolishing the political institutions of the regimes they have overthrown, they are fulfilling a historical mission, and that these institutions will never be reborn. Thus to take political opposition, with which we are here concerned, their bettef is that once it has been crushed, its time, as Lenin said, has run out. 'We want no more opposition*
conflicts of interests in oppositionless states
But is this so? Can a society live without any kind of opposition, and can one think of a political community without political conflict? Conflict political conflict above all, is of the very nature of the functioning of any kind of human community, regardless of whether it is open or hidden. Moreover, political conflict is generated at all levels and in all situations, wherever men have to live and work together. There are politics in a factory and in a university as well as in a communal council or a representative assembly. The two main motors of political conflict are the conflict of interest in the sphere of work, and the conflict of values in the sphere of beliefs.
Political C onflict in the Op portionless States 153 Work, in any kind of community, cannot be achieved without participation: coercion alone cannot produce lasting and .efficient work. And human beings cannot exist without express-ing their own beliefs about minor and major issues in the world in which they live. In the sphere of the conflict of interests, human communities fall into groups of a social, profes sional kind. In the sphere of the conflict of values, individuals aspire to share their opinions and beliefs with others. In order therefore to see how political conflict continues in the opposi-uonless states, one must look at three spheres of action in these communities, the economic, the social and me^poTitiai!
In the economic sphere, one must rememlseT'UTat whereas" coercion may be useful, as a method it works better in the initial stages of industrialization, when construction and production at any cost are the aim. But when a society has reached a certain level of industrial development, when it is necessary ■ rather to maintain and increase production, then coercion is \ no longer enough - indeed it can run counter to efficiency which becomes the first requirement! Efficiency cannot be obtained by coercion, but only by paxUcjpauonJ Among com-r munist states, Russia and the East European states have advanced well beyond the initial stage of industrial construction, jj.and their effort now is directed at attaining that degree of par-'ticipation which will lead to efficiency. China has made great [strides in the most sophisticated and expensive sphere, the nuclear one, but lags behind in the rest of her industry and in agriculture. Hence the conflict in China now arises between [the expert, interested in efficiency, and the revolutionary, who believes that everything can still be achieved by the forcible mobilization of the masses. Among nationalist states, the Euro pean ones, most of the Middle Eastern and Latin American and eyen of the Asian have reached a certain degree of indus atrial development, and specifically working classes have been "formed. In the African states* mobilization for industrialization £is still on the way. But most* of the rulers seem more inclined now to stress participation rather than sheer coercion (force labour, unattainable norms of production) which ultimatel leads to waste, inefficiency and social and political unrest
154 Opposition
Id Lh*Wial;sphere, the state, in its capacity as principal employer!tuisto obtain the goods and services without which society cannot function, or indeed survive, and which after a certain degree of development has been reached, must be obtained by participation. This is an iron law, and to disregard it brings immediate punishment. If the countryside does not deliver food to the towns, the urban workers go on strike, and if they strike, or even without striking, if their productivity declines, the whole national economy suffers. The state faces a number of separate social and economic groups of producers and consumers, social and professional groups, and other entities which play a part in the economic and social processes. These groups are permanent, in the sense that they reEorm themselves functionally. They are visible and articulate in pluralistic-constitutional states; they are leyrtay to distinguish and sometimes even suppressed in oppositionless stales, parti cularly in times of terror^But unlike political organizations which can be permitted or dissolved by a decision of the power holders, interest groups must, even in the interests of the power holders themselves, function in any conditions. The strength of the interest groups lies in their ultimate power to provide or withhold the goods and services needed by the power-holders. Their method of achieving their aims in their dealings with the power-holders as employers is that of bargaining. The power of bargaining is thus their basic political power.
The bargaining relationship between the party and the army is on the whole similar in nationalist and communist states, with this difference that in the nationalist states it is the army which dominates and employs the party as an auxiliary organization, whereas in communist states it is the other way round. Where the party dominates, the army is the main potential political enemy. Generations of Marxists have been brought up to fear Bonapartism and Thermidor. In the Soviet Union, as soon as it was safe to do so, after the end of the civil war, the army was put under strict political and educational control by the party, and it has always been watched with suspicion. On several occasions in Soviet history, when the party has been seriously split, or when it tried to reassert its power against that
155
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless Stales ,of the political police, army backing, if not direct help has been vital. Thus the army must know that in the end the party needs ^Nevertheless, the party's control over the army is so effective that it has never attained political autonomy.
In China, as already noted, the army and the party are closely interlocked. It may be that as a result of the 'Cultural Revolu-J,tion' of 1966-7, the army has emerged comparatively stronger, and the party comparatively weaker in prestige and organiza' tional power. Yet in no communist state so far has the army overthrown the revolutionary party. This has occurred in some Afro-Asian regimes, notably Algeria, Ghana and Indonesia, where the army ousted quasi-Marxist parties manipulated by charismatic leaders. But although the new rulers did not, at once or at all, alter the structure of the state established by the Iparty of liberation or revolution, it.implicitly and explicitly changed the character of the regimes.
In the nationalist states the party has been used as the main political and ideological transmission belt and, as has been Shown in Egypt, where there was no party, it had to be created. •A* in the prototype Kemalist revolution in Turkey, the army, as a body, after it had seized power, preferred to withdraw into the position of dominant power in the state, but not to have its hands tied, and its prestige and professional integrity too closely associated with direct political responsibilities. The officers who have made the coup usually remain in power, but they govern through existing state structures, and if the party is missing it must be added in one way or another. Political par ticipation, ideological indoctrination and propaganda agitation are indispensable in an operation of politica^mobilizatioirA' and can be achieved only by means of a party. But needless to say, Tn these cases the party created by the army remains a pseudo institution. It succeeds in fostering propaganda and i<leo1ogy. but without ever achieving real participation by the people, nor a real political influence of its own. It may however (having swallowed its own propaganda) develop feelings of frustration, and aspire tn play a more important part than it is allowed to do by the rulers as irTthe case of the Falange party in Spam The (artycreated by an army must face the competition of real poli-
] 56 Opposition
tjc^parties, only recently disbanded by the army; and it may 'Ig IIUIL 16 face the competition of a local communist party.
Whatever the balance between the two, the fact remains that the army can exercise a check on the party, and the party can exercise a check on the army when one or the other has the dominant position. Each needs the other: the party needs the army for its primary purpose of national defence, and reckons on it in moments of internal crisis or tension; the army needs the party to carry out the basic function of political mobilization, and reckons with it too in moments of internal tension.
The same process of two-way collaboration and bargaining necessarily arises between the party and the army and the other organizations, the political police, the trade unions, the state administration (federal or local), the procuracy, etc. The political police is potentially the most powerful Ofiall the structures in any kind of dictatorship. It acquires even more importance when one individual dictator uses it as his personal instrument. Both professionally and functionally the political police is the main persecutor of all kinds of opposition; it has a vested interest in convincing the power-holders that its basic politicalv action snould be directed towards the seeking rmt anH rtwtruc tion of opposition. Once the dictator is convinced that opposi-uonls rife within the regime, or the particular organization to which the dictator once belonged, be it party or army, the political police acquires overall control. The best known examples of a successful, or an attempted takeover of the state by the political police are the control exercised by the OGPU-M VD under Stalin in Russia; the alleged attempt of Rankovic and his political police to seize power in Yugoslavia in the 1960s, and Nkrumah's efforts also in the 1960s to use bis political police to break the resistance to his personal dictatorship in the army, the trade unions and even his own party in Ghana.
When Stalin, in the 1930s, decided on the policy of industrialization at all costs, and forcible collectivization, the coercive mobilization required to put this policy into effect turned the political police into his main instrument The party, the army, the trade unions, the state administration, all came under the ultimate control of the political police. Beria was in control
Political Conftict in the Oppositions States   \ 57 Jof the police for the last fourteen years of Stalin's rule, and fell toge her w.th his all-powerful apparatus, when (he dictator died in 1953. The party then reasserted itself and the political police became more a servant and less a master. The demotion ; of the political police from its dominant position led eventually |;to a reduction of the worst features of the rtgime: the total arbitrariness, state terrorism, forced labour, concentration camps which, as in a terrible caricature, become part of the process oflmobilizationwhen it is undertaken by the political police. In Yugoslavia ln 1966. Alexander Rankovic. one of Titos J closest associates, was forced to resign all his posts, both in the Jparty and in the executive, where he was in charge of the poli-I tical police. His resignation allegedly came about as the result I of the discovery of an attempt by the political police to take over the state and the party from inside.
In the case of Nkrumah in Ghana, things took an opposite turn, Nkrumah had not only allowed, but urged his small but I virulent political police to unearth and persecute his personal ■enemies in the party, army, trade unions, etc. Such a concentra-'. lion of enemies everywhere can become an obsession, and ads''vised by the zealots in his political police, Nkrumah, like Statin 'jin his later years, saw in every political group with whom he 'had to have dealings conspirators against his rule. As a result he filled the prisons and emptied the leading positions. In the lend, taking advantage of Nkrumah's absence from Ghana, the Earmy in association with the discontented in the parry, the ad-Iministration and the trade unions, took over power, and pre-Evented his return. Politically the army took over from the weakened party, and reduced the political police to the role of a secondary organization.
The trade unions are, for all intents and purposes, a struc-ture on their own. In both the nationalist states, and especially the communist states (dictatorship of the proletariat) they Eahould jfl tbfrNT p^ira,decisive role in the mobilization for (Bndustrializauon. But with the possible exception of Perdn's (Argentina, the trade unions have never achieved a dominant fstatus. On the contrary, in communist states, from the very Jception of the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
158 Opposition
the trade unions have been reduced to subservience and transformed from organs representing the interests of the workers into transmission belts down which the orders of the party are passed. As a result the trade unions tend to generate a specific type of opposition spirit of their own. which frequently describes itself with the words 'workers' opposition" - a movement of which the prototype gave serious trouble to Lenin and Stalin in Russia in the early 1920s. But whenever the 'dictatorship' eases up a little, the trade unions re-emerge almost always as the first organized body to react against the pressures coming ffofri the centre. Thus, in the conditions of pluralization now prevailing in Yugoslavia, the trade unions have of late played a considerable part in amending the economic plans and the general social and economic policy of the party. They have also criticized the party as a party from the standpoint of the trade unions as trade unions.
In communist states the local administration should be the main organism of power. The commune and its basic organ, the local council (soviet)', are understood to be the seats of power of the entire regime, and are in theory to become in future the backbone of the self-administration of society. A similar fiction is put forward in some nationalist states, as for instance in Pakistan, where the 'basic democracies' are regarded as the i foundation of the network of power in the state. Although it is true that local administration can exert effective pressure and even impede the. working of the central administration, on purely non-political matters, experience has shown that such organs of local administration are not allowed to deal with any but very subordinate tasks. Moreover within them, the 'will of the people* is in fact manifested very incompletely and with great difficulty. It is more often at the local level both in Yugoslavia and in Pakistan that the battle is engaged between representatives of the people and those of the state.
The three main social groups with which the power-holders have to bargain are the peasants, the workers and the intelligentsia. - r -■-^•^ The relationship between communist states and me peasantry and nationalist states and the peasantry has some fundamental
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States   159 features in common, but ideologically it is totally dissimilar. I Since both nationalist and communist states seek modernization, naturally one of the targets of this modernization must be agricultural production and agricultural life. Land reform may | have to be undertaken, processes of production must be speeded up and agricultural over-population must be absorbed. The mechanization of agriculture, and the absorption of over-►pulation through industrialization are therefore also common both types of state. Collectivization has been accepted in ost communist countries, and has been contemplated in some nationalist states. But it nationalist states, ideology has often absorbed some aspects of populist thinking and thus tends to regard the peasant as the incarnation of "the people' and the guardian of the national tradition, while io communist states the industrial proletariat is set up as the model of mankind of he future, and tEeTwUrker becomes the incarnation of the ople. In some countries, of course, notably China, the peasants are considered as a principal revolutionary class.
The participation of workers in production is secured in Jugoslavia by self-management in workers' councils. This is e most advanced form of industrial collaboration attempted a communist state. Communist parties in all the other communist states have so far refused to attempt such a policy for a number of reasons. The most genuine of these reasons is the ear that the party would lose control of industrial production, estern studies of the working of workers' councils in Yugo-ivia" conclude that where these exist, the party representa-ves are in a more difficult position, and can be outvoted. But thout some extension of workers' participation, in this form r another, industrial production would lag behind; absentee-m. strikes and sabotage are the reaction of the workers when riven too hard by the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. In Ei Germany in 1953 and in Poland in 1956, the workers took tl ead in the general revolt against the communist party. Tm
12. Sec for instance J. U. Dunlop. Industrial Relations System,,, Nl brk, 1959; Adolf Sturmtihl. Workers1 Councils. H.rvtrd. 19«; Albert eister, Socialisme et autogestion. Yexpirienc* yougoslavt. rtro. i* _ . Kolaj*. Worker,- Councils, the Yugoslav Experience London, IW.
160 Opposition
the problem for the party in these regimes is how to secure increased participation of the workers in economic and social administration, without allowing the natural opposition of the workers to reform. In the nationalist states, where the working class is not placed on a pedestal as it is in the propaganda of the communist states, the opposition of the workers is partly channelled through the socialist trade unions, and partly through communist parties (more often than not illegal), which because they are not in power can afford a demagogic policy of incitement. Although the bargaining power of the working class is much inferior in the underdeveloped nationalist states, and much more restricted by the dictatorship of the party in the communist states than in pluralist-constitutional states, where the trade unions are a serious political force, yet both these types of state have to reckon with the intrinsic importance of the workers as producers, and admit the necessity of bargaining with thenar***-*-^
Finally the intelligentsia is the most influential layer in both the communist and the nationalist states. In its capacity as technical intelligentsia, it mans the top echelons of the state, from the high-powered experts on the planning commissions to all the categories of executive in administration and industry. As the creative intelligentsia, it forms the active nucleus of public opinion in both categories of state - and from within such opinion-forming institutions as the universities, academies! and institutes of higher learning, journals, theatres, it exercises , an influence on the policy of the regime. The regimes themselves are moreover directly connected with the intelligentsia in that the highest positions, political or otherwise, must be given to members of the most highly educated layer of society.
With this we come to the point where the realm of the conflict of interests merges into that of the conflict of values: the realm of dissent. Here analysis must also include the factor of public opinion. Some of the more salient aspects of the relation between the intelligentsia and the power-holders in the oppositionless states will be touched upon later, in connection with the manifestation of dissent. What is important to note here is that in both the sphere of the conflict of values and in
| Political Conflict in the Opposition!*, Statu 161
that of the conflict of interests, both the creative and the tech-meal mtelhgentsia acting as leaders of public opinion, seem to f be presstng forward towards one principal aim: institutions I Uon- By 'nstttutjonalizauon is meant in this context the process ■ of growth of institutions sanctioned by the law, which would each contribute in some way to the control of the authoring by society, and which together would form a system of order based on legality. In all capacities members of the intelligentsia are intrinsically opposed to arbitrariness. They are from the functional point of view in need of institutional order, and indeed of political institutionalization.
The process of political institutionalization led in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the emergence of parliamentary systems incorporating the political opposition. How the I process is working now, in communist and nationalist states, is what we propose to discuss in the following sections. So far, however, we have reached the conclusion that however powerful the dominant structures in this type of oppositionless state, such regimes are nevertheless subject to checks and controls by the social and economic forces with which they have to barg
^CONFLICTS OF VALUES IN OPPOSITIONLESS STATES
If one assesses:public opinion in a nation in accordance with the amount of awareness it can have of a situation, and in terms of the pressure which itcanjsxeicise, one can state that public opiniocfof this kind exists in most contemporary com-; munist and nationalist states, to a greater or less degree. The difference in degree is conditioned by whether public opinion is only emerging, as in most underdeveloped nationalist states, \ or re-emergSig as for instance in Spain or in the Eastern European communist states. But even where public opinion is re-emerging, it is now formed by new social elements, who have risen to a certain status with the new regime, and thanks to this are able to. acquire sufficient information to form an independent judgement. The leading part here is played by the intclli-fgentste which forms the hard core of public opinion in both types of state. They often have a deep sense of loyalty to the
162 Opposition
regime in the establishment of which they have played a part, but they nevertheless are moved by their duty as leader, of public opinion to press for necessary reforms and changes.
One reason why some, if not most sectors of public opinion in the oppositionless states favour the existing regime is the pride and interest they take in policies which can be seen as national achievements. Such support increases even more when one of the governments concerned is, or can appear to be jhrejtfejQed by or in open conflict with a-foreign power: Soviet Russia among the communist states; Britain or the USAamong nationalist states. When this happens, a new two-way now of confidence sets up between the government and public opinion, and mutual concessions can safely be made.
But what ultimately arouses public opinion against either nationalist or communist dictatorships is precisely the fact that they are dictatorships. Conditioned as it may be by the vested interests of the niters, and responsive as it may be to the nationalist arguments they employ, .public opiniQn_cannot but press for further order, legality and freedom to dissent It demands the establishment of permanent institutions to watch over the execution of the laws, and the appointment of impartial officers to adjudicate in the relations between state and society. In the long run, this amounts to increasing institutionalization, and eventually to-thT^eparation of powers. In-stitutioualizalion and the separation of powers are necessary jn the realm of the conflict of interests in order to broaden the processes of decision-making. In the realm of the conflict of values, they are equally necessary to^ ensure even a limited expression of dissent and to ventilate, even if indirectly, the inherent difference of views. Thus, in states where no political institutions exist to give vent to opposition, non- or quasi-political institutions are used by public opinion to aggregate the voices of dissent and to channel them into a broader debate. Generally speaking, the process of aRfirfjg|tinn which k the st phw jr) fhi. pftpjfoftaKnn oj dissent, centres arouno Churches, universities, the army, journals, clubs, or popular ties. In both communist and nationalist states, the Churches are known to exercise a strong political influence;
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States 163
in both they are bound to demand at least nonspecific freedom, basic to their function, namely the freedom to worship (though not necessarily of course freedom of worship). Since -in all communist states, and in some nationalist states, they must struggle to survive, they are inevitably the main adver-;saries of the modernizing regimes. Moreover, when taking a stand in defence of one particular freedom, the Churches soon find that they become associated with claims for other freedoms and for freedom in general. To this must be added that the philosophy of the Churches, often traditionalist and conservative, and always concerned with the other world, is intrinsically opposed to the philosophy of modernization at all costs which underlies the mobilizing states. In communist countries ;where the regimes are militantly atheistic, the antagonism between Church and state is only too clear. The majority of the communist regimes would much preiixJp_cJose the Churches ;completely, and thus lance these abscesses which mar the per feet state of prophylaxis in which they would wish to keep the people. But they are deterred from such a course by fear of the popular reaction. The opposite is in a sense also true: it is fear of the repression to which the people would be submitted which prevents the Catholic Church in Poland, or the Protestant Church in Germany from opposing their respective regimes more openly.
However, on some major issues, such as for instance collectivization in Poland, or family status in East Germany, the Churches have not refused to act as the spokesmen of the people on non-religious issues. The pulpit is still a power. The Roman Catholic Church stood out as the only advocate of the peasantry in Poland when the government attempted to enforce the Stalinist collectivization of the land. Again, on an I exclusively political issue, namely that of foreign policy, the Roman Church openly declared itself in favour of a change ■■off attitude towards Western Germany. It thus became the mouthpiece of those Poles who believe that Poland shoul not remain forever within the exclusive orbit of Soviet Russia Finally the Church in Poland has also succeeded in achievin direct pohtical representation through the independent politic;
164 Opposition
group called Znak. Ever since the elections of 1957 the group has had about five deputies in the Sejm who, although they recognize the 'hegemony' of the Polish Workers' Party, nevertheless oppose some of its policjejLjC^rounds of principle,
in all dictatorial countries thfc umvcrsitieSlaTe the main cata-lysere of opposition. The term universiTjTnere comprises both the institution itself, and the teaching staff and student body. In Indonesia as in Brazil, in Hungary as in Southern Rhodesia, the universities in all contemporary opposilionless states have constantly been in the forefront of political action, and serve as we most active centre of aggregation. Their dual character makes this inevitable. On The onT~trand they are institutions which, like the Church, require one indispensable freedom if they are to function at all - in their case the freedom to study. This implies, within the limits of the scholarly approach, freedom of choice of attitude, of sources of documentation and of discussion and interpretation. Universities cannot fulfil their tasks without this internal'functional freedom. On the other "hand, students represent the most constantly rejuvenated group of the intelligentsia, and consequently they inject into the body politic a fresh dose of enthusiasm and restlessness. In pluralistic-constitutional states this surplus of political interest and energy is usually channelled into the existing organizations, parties or movements. The students are only one, if a particularly buoyant, group of citizens participating in the political life of the country. But in dictatorial states jwherepolitical opposi-tion cannot aggregate, or fails to channel, opposition trends of opinion, students' movements acquire a supplementary and much more important dimension. They emerge as the group which, because it is young and bears less responsibility, can take the risk of leading public opinion against existing policies. In such situations one invariably sees a displacement of political activity. When parliaments are closecfto the public discussion 7>f real issues, these same issues are invariably debated in the precincts of the universities.The narrow, but indispensable freedom required by scholars widens when all other channels are blocked, to take in discussion of all topical problems. The political debate which the government has
Political Conflict in the Opposilionless States 165 tried to suppress in public reopens in the sanctuaries of learn-ing. The classic example of such a national debate - indeed of a revolution - starting from within a university remains the case of the students" Petftftl circle, in Budapest. By staging scholarly' debates for ever widening audiences, on all aspects of communist party policy, the circle succeeded in formulating in a few weeks the programme for a rapidly crystallizing opposition, and In galvanizing around it large sectors of the Hungarian people.
The search for an outleneAaVopposiu<HHelements also to group themselves around periodicals and journals which, because of their scholarly character, or their apparently safe editorial policy, escape the general ban tgjJM Jfiiačgad publications common to all dictatorships. The policies of such journals can be quietly transformed from within, and when they begin to make direct or indirect allusions to issues which
i the regime itself does not ventilate, they gather a following among those who think of the same problems in the same terms. Here the classical example is that of the Polish journal,
[Pojirostu. Between 1955 and 1957 it became the main catalyser of the movement which transformed the Stalinist and Soviet-controlled Polish communist regime into the nationally self-assertive regime of Gomulka. The role the journal played is illustrated by its enormous public success and increasing circulation during this brief period. Even more significant perhaps
! is the way in which its editor attracted public notice and sympathy, to the extent that in the first elections held under the new regime he collected more votes than the most popular
" leaders of thej>aiiy.
lndeed'personaljties of \ll kinds, and from all walks of life, can become^heJuXUS-of-íne political hopes of a public opinion in search of spokesmen. Bishops, writers, artists, scientists, actors, sportsmen, journalists, and, last but not least, generals and politicians, if ever they take even a modest stand against
the government, may find themselves pushed, whether they
wish it or not, into the position of leaders of public opinion. But for others, the position they have been pushed into can
prove an embarrassment. A university professor who may have
166 Opposition
opposed some particularly inapposite government instruction within his own sphere of responsibility may well not be willing to be drawn into some student manifestation on other, more political grounds. But he may be unable to resist, and this is more often than not how this anonymous opposition finds its leaders.
In all these categories of individuals, those most likely of course to become lasting leaders of an opposition movement are the generals and the politicians. Much has already been said of the part which an army can play in an oppositionless state. The point to note here is that an outspoken or courageous army officer has an exceptional chance of acquiring personal popularity, Whether they deserve it or not, the armed forces tend to have a reputation for integrity and dedication to the nation. The knowledge that they also possess the means -arms - with which to seize power encourages the discontented to see in them potential saviours of the nation, prepared to step out of their functional role into the sphere of general politics. In most Latin American, Asian and African countries, and in many European countries, public opinion turns instinctively lo the military leaders when they are disillusioned with the politicians. In communist countries, such as Poland or Bulgaria, military leaders have of late also shown sonic polilical aml>i tions. The army leader is seen against the background of the institution to which he belongs. It is therefore comparatively simple, when one leader fails to live up to what public opinion expects of him, to transfer the feeling of trust to another military personality.
In the claustrophobic atmosphere of an oppositionless state the politicians who are likely to attract the notice of the public are usually those who are reputed to have suffered from the displeasure of the dictators because on some occasion they have voiced some criticism of government policy. Gomulka in Poland, Nagy in Hungary, Busia in Ghana, Milovan Djilas in Yugoslavia, Dionisio Ridruejo in Spain had all once been comrades-in-arms of the dictators. But they had all fallen from grace and even landed into serious personal trouble when, disillusioned with the policies pursued by the r6gimes, they put
Political Conflict In the Oppositionless States forward alternatives of their own. In most of the opposition!*, states, the embryo opposition attaches itself to or finds a spokes man in a fallen former leader in the government. The reason is not far to seek. For when the political leaders of previous regimes are exiled or in gaol, and opposition on the broader Issues is crushed, only new opponents from within the inner ; circle of power are able, for a short while, to make their voices heard.
In the oppositionless states where a certain stability has been achieved, and some kind of routine established, some of the leaders in the party or in other organizations come to be identi-fied with certain specilic views, and sometimes seem even represent some sectors of public opinion or some inter groups. Such an identification can lead to ephemeral allian or more permanent fusions between leaders and groups w
: share certain opinions and ambitions. This is how factions created, ranging from the clandestine conspiratorial facti
f within communist parties to the more open factions whi
h emerge within more mature communist and nationalist mov ments alike. In such cases even pseudo parliaments can beco:
1 the arena for the taking of sides, and public opinion is alrea alive to the fact that different leaders or groups will expr< different opinions. A kind of institutionalization of politi
, attitudes takes place which might be the prelude to a pro institutionalization of opposition.
In order to analyse on a more concrete basis these hast sketched processes of the manifestation of dissent in oppo, tionless states, it is proposed to examine here in more det the evolution of two states, one nationalist: Spain; and o communist: Yugoslavia. Each one Is the most advanced
! its own type, and in each one a conscious effort is being ma to bring these processes into some established, indeed insUt tional, order. In each the issue at stake is whether the tin institutionalization of opposition can be evaded hy somr « Veneris evolution of the one-party state itself. In both countri discussion of this acute problem has ranged much further more profoundly than elsewhere. In all likelihood other na alist or communist states will be faced with the same problem
168 Opposition
and will pass through similar phases in the search for institutional stability.
TOWARDS THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF OPPOSITION?
Spain and Yugoslavia have been chosen here as case studies for the comparative analysis of what may prove to be the final phase in the evolution of the oppositionless state from the politics of coercion to the politics of participation. Though Spain is" a prototype of the contemporary nationalist state, and Yugoslavia of the contemporary communist state, and thus their respective ideologies are completely antagonistic, nevertheless they have sufficient features in common to make a comparative study worth while.
There are at least four major differences between the two countries which must be taken into account when comparing their systems. Historical!y^Spain is an old state with an imperial traditior^/YugjDsJavia is a new state, many of whose peoples have until not so long ago been under foreign domination. Spanish conservative political philosophy has a long tradition, and Spain's principal institutions (the monarchy, the army, the Church, the universities) have preserved an almost unbroken continuity. Yugoslav political philosophy is concerned with building in the future what was not achieved in the past. As a result the two countries have developed different brands of nationalism. Spain is not afraid of outside aggression, or the danger of foreign domination; its nationalism is 'introverted', dwelling on its internal debate. Yugoslav nationalism is extraverted, turned against the danger of domination by a foreign power - hence its anti-imperialist militancy. The fourth difference derives from the political philosophy of the actual r6gime in power in each country. The Franco regime has abolished the pluralist-constitutional institutions which existed in Spain, but has not yet replaced them by a system generally accepted as permanent and legitimate. It can only project into the future a return to dynastic institutions and the permanent establishment of the existing no-party state. The Tito regime,
169 led
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States   11 inspired by socialist ideology, claims that it has establishec those organs of self-administration which should in theory bring about the withering away of the state. It looks to a future based on these newly created social institutions.
There are also however similarities between them. Both states are multi-national; and both face a succession problem; both countries have reached a stage of economic development accompanied by pronounced pluralist social structures which can no longer be contained within the simpler mould of the early monolithic state. What is more, this economic and social development has its own dynamic force. An even more_rapid pace of development cannot be achieved without institutionalizing a degree of social and political participation which has become necessary to secure the efficient running of the economy. Development also entails increasing collaboration with international and especially European economic systems, which in turn brings about further institutionalization.
Both Spain and Yugoslavia are faced with the problem of devising a formula which would save them from falling back respectively on to the one-party system or the multi-party system. The regimes are aware that the daynfjhe dictatorship of the single party is over, and that they could not survive for f long should they revert to these methods of government. But they are also fully aware that their chances of survival in power in a multi-party system are even less. Politically and ideologically both regimes are therefore contemplating the possibility of a no-party political system, f It 2s this dilemma, easier to follow in these two cases, which can be extrapolated for the other oppositionless states. For in both countries the discussion has been characterized by an exceptional degree of lucidity and self-analysis. Naturally enough many outside observers find it difficult to take Spanish or Yugoslav political life seriously. The frequent changes in political procedures can be regarded as mere ruses designed to conceal the fact that the rulers intend to carry on as before -though in view of the alleged impotence of the opposition I they can now afford to open a few safety valves in the 6th wise closed system of the dictatorship. It may even be
ther-that
170 Opposition
were it not for the fact that both dictators are by the law of nature approaching the physical end of their term of rule, the 'mixture as before* would be the most favoured prescription for all dictatorial or semi-dictatorial states. ~ First of all, it should be noted that both,.la Spam and in Yugoslavia the opposition forces enjoyed enough freedom to state their demand clearly, namely that political opposition should be Institutionalized together with all those institutions which precede and accompany it and without which it cannot function.13 This demand has not been publicly made in any other such state. Neither in Soviet Russia, nor in the more absolutist nationalist dictatorships such as the UAR has the opposition enough strength to embark on a dialogue with the government on such an issue. But in Yugoslavia, Milovan Djilas in articles published in the Communist League's own Press, and then the writer, Mihajlov, and the review Praxis have all stated the necessity of the re-institutionalization of political opposition, or the establishment of a second party -and discussion on this question has taken place in party congresses and within parliament. In Spain the same demand has been put forward by Dionisio Ridruejo and Professor Enrique Tierno Galvan. In both countries the point has been made that social and economic pluralism must be accompanied by a certain amount of political pluralism. This is the crux of the argument, and two recent statements made in each country are significant from this point of view. There is one capital point in the process' of democratization which is heralded', wrote
13. Thus Enrique Tiemo Galvan wrote ra L* Monde, 22 July 1964: 'In Spain a legal opposition  does not exist, although paradoxically the government had tried on some occasionTfb use the d« facto opposition as if it were a representative organization ... the opposition is necessary institutionally and psychologically and it is unforgivable that there should not be a democratic government with a plurality of political parties.' Similarly, Zanko Vidovic*. a Yugoslav parly theoretician, wrote in Kn\l-levne Novlne, 22 July 1967; 'This state must be ruled by on assembly of freely elected representatives, mediators of people's authorities or -to be more exact - mediators defending the rights of citizen and man. Democracy is possible only if the mandate is inviolate. This means that a deputy can be replaced only by the people who gave him his mandate, i.e. by his voters.*
rolMc$ Conflict in the Oppositions States 171 VEl Alcdzar, a Catholic publication on 30 March 1967 'the * recognition in law of political pluralism. This recognition would sweep away from our national horizon any S \ orm of totahtanatusm*. In the Yugoslav publication, Nade-|/n/e Informative Novine, a number of articles by university | teachers were published on these same problems, in which Dr |Tadid of Belgrade University wrote as follows: 'I do not see |otherwise how socialist pluraUsm could stop short of the mulu-Iparty system, which, for various reasons, is not for us.* More recently the journal Gledista (Belgrade. August-September 1967) published an article by Prof. Stevan Vracar who ask directly the question: 'Would it not be more natural to hav : two parties both of which would fight for socialism? In such |case the majority party, as the ruling party, would face
Wganized opposition?*    — ......1        * 1 1 ■■
It is in the light of this dialogue that measures recently taker in both regimes must be understood. The forces of opposition .demand the re-institutionalization of political opposition so | to harmonize economic and social pluralism with a corresponc aJng political pluralism. The governments take some grudging Jhalf measures in that direction, in the hope of proving that , social pluralism can continue and develop even in a no-par Bregime. This leads us to two questions: why have government agreed to do what they have so far done in this directr615TAn< what exactly have they done, and how much more should they
The reason why governments have allowed themselves to Ik- pushed along this road is simply a change- in thr internal BUlancq of_jower between the forces favouring the govern-fment and those favouring a return to non-dictatorial policies. If one analyses the societies in the two countries, the same ten social and professional groups can be found in both. Of these, ! seven, though not the same seven, should in principle be sup-Iporters of the regime, and three are reckoned by the regime t Ibe hostile. But in the last ten years or so, even those seye [groups which have strong vested interests in the continuatio ?of the regime have shown a tendency to bargain with it 1 [their support. Some of these groups are themselves d<
172 Opposition
divided with one wing leaning towards the existing regime, and the past, and the other towards the future and the opposition.
The ten social and professional groups are the following: thelarmedJOESfr which for national reasons, especially in countries with separatist problems, tend to back the centralistic state. But in Spain, where the armed forces have played a much more prominent part in politics than in Yugoslavia, their leaders are divided too along the main political division14 into 'revisionists' and 'continuists*. In Yugoslavia the organization of the army was remodelled in the wake of the measures of decentralization taken after the demotion of the political police. The army too was decentralized and a distinction was drawn between the operational forces, which remained under federal command, and the territorial forces, which came under the command of the individual republics. Politically this has had the result of splitting the officers between those who side with the opposition in advocating further decentralization, and those who support a centralizing policy by the government. (It is incidentally amusing to note that the conservative element in the Yugoslav army is led by the group of communist officers who distinguished themselves in the Spanish civil war fighting against Franco, and who are known as Spanci, 'the Spaniards'.)
In both countries the party is on the defensive. But here it must be stressed that the situation of the party within the regime is very different in the two countries. In Spain the party, the Falange, was never fully in power as it was and to some extent still is in Yugoslavia. It was one among many forces which supported Franco during the Civil War, and though it emerged as a single party, it was never a ruling party, governing absolutely by means of coercion as the Yugoslav Party did between 1945 and 1952. The Falange Party never imposed its exclusive ideology on the National Movement as a whole and now the whole idea of the party has been sunk in the new definition of the Movement, built up around the Falange, which has been embodied in the new Spanish law of 26 June 1967. In Yugoslavia the party also projected a broader image of itself when it adopted the name of the League, and attempted
14. See further dd. 184-5.
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States 1
to govern with a wider participation of the people. The Sev jenth Plenum of the Central Committee on 1 July 1967 saw a further move towards transforming the party from a 'controlling' into a 'guiding' organization - a trend set out in the Draft Theses for the Reorganization of the League of Communists in Yugoslavia (27 April 1967), which were discussed at the Ninth Congress at the end of 1968. Both parties have thus been I subjected to a public redefinition of their aims and purposes land must inevitably feel the pull of contrary tendencies.
From this point of view it is interesting to note the extent I to which any loosening of the otherwise tight political control achieves in the eyes of those who benefit from it the value of a jnewly acquired institution. The most outstanding example of Uhis process was the importance attached in late 1966 in Yugoslavia to the principle of voluntary resignation of members of rthe League if they disagreed with it* policies or some of them.. This principle was enshrined for the first time in the Draft iTheses of 27 April 1967, which stated that 'A member of the ^League has the right to defend his views openly. ... This in-■eludes the right to submit his resignation from executive and 'other functions if he does not agree with the decisions he would ^have to implement.' In any society based on free association such a right does not have to be expressed. But for communists fin Yugoslavia this was a new institutional conquest, long coveted and long refused by the leadership. It is still a distant ideal ■for many members of other communist parties in power.
The Church is one of the mainstays of the regime in Spain, ,and one of the organic adversaries of the regime in Yugoslavia ^especially the Catholic Church, dominant in Spain, and singled |put for persecution in Yugoslavia). But in Spain in the 1960s jjthe Church is no longer solidly behind the regime. Broadly speaking two trends can be detected. There is still the old, conservative hierarchy, very often advanced in years and out of ? touch with current Catholic social thought. And there is another wing, formed by many among the younger clergy and fCatholic intellectuals, who see the need for social reform in Spain, and perceive the dangers of too close a political identi-fication of the Church with the existing regime. Many of th
174 Opposition
have co-operated with the opposition in pressing for the institutionalization of a full political life. A group whose policy is more difficult to define is that of the lay religious order, Opus Dei. Its members collaborate actively with the government particularly in the economic field; at the same time the Opus Dei is at the forefront of the group of revisionist technocrats who believe that the government should move towards more political pluralism.
Students, and to a great extent university teachers, are in the thick of political agitation in Spain, but not in Yugoslavia, where student activity has mainly been concerned with regional dissent - Croat and Slovene students lead the movements for national emancipation. In Spain student protest has taken the form of challenging the official student representative body or Students' Union. By means of sit-in strikes and street demonstrations they have urged their claim that the official union should be abolished and replaced by a freely elected non-official representative body. The official union gradually lost more and more prestige and authority, and one of the essential pieces in Spanish state control was thus dismantled. The politically active students (and they do not constitute a majority of the student body) are in fact divided among various opposition trends: socialists, communists, anarcho-syndicalists, Christian democrats and liberals; but as a pressure group they have shown a solid front against the government, and their activity has in some ways served as a model for the far more fundamental and important activity of the workers.
One of the most sensitive problems in both Spain and Yugoslavia is that of the representation of the workers. Although on the surface the political context may seem very different, in reality the problem reduces itself in both countries to the question whether the government will be able to continue to control the large and active working class, or whether it will have to yield to its demand for independent representation. In both countries the trade unions are split between those who wish to continue in association with the regime and those who demand complete independence. Whereas in Yugoslavia the workers' councils are one of the new levers of the new
r 175
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States apolitical system allegedly being constructed, in Spain workers' commissions are only the most advanced and overt form of opposition against the state in general and the official trade unions in particular. In both countries the unions were originally taken over by the regime in order to control the workers. But as economic pluralism developed, so the trade Bunions were forced from within to take a more independent line towards the government. In Yugoslavia and in Spain the official trade unions, acting as an official pressure group, have j since 1965 on several occasions amended economic plans or ^industrial legislation. But this has not been achieved without an bl internal struggle. The official leadership in both countries is on ; the whole pledged to continue collaboration with the government (in Spain the trade union leaders are among the 'continu-ists*), as distinct from the rank and file, who are attracted by the prospects of direct action offered by the workers' councils or ^commissions. The Yugoslav workers' councils really do offer rscope for direct participation in the management of a-plant or Sa factory. In Spain the comisiones obreras founded horizontally tin the individual industrial units, and therefore by-passing the vertical trade union representation, form the most effective ji'and powerful centres of industrial opposition, and threaten, ■ as do the students, the very foundations of the labour organization of the Franco r6gime. The managers in Yugoslavia and the technocrats in Spain f form a social-pofitical layer on their own. They act as pressure [groups in favour of decentralization and liberalization, and k of the overall reduction in the power of the state and particularly of the party. (In Spain the Opus Dei and the Falange are at loggerheads.) In both countries they are revisionists. The men ultimately responsible for running the economy prefer lat the state should give up the pretence of controlling econo-uc life, and in turn accept to be controlled by new institu-ional safeguards. From this point of view they are the natural Ues of the opposition.
In Yugoslavia farmers are in complete social and econo-uc opposition to the regime. At first they had to struggle igainst the policy of coUectivrzation; subsequently they res.sted
176 Opposition
the policy of the exaction of compulsory norms of delivery of produce, which formed part of the state's economic planning. The agricultural population of this essentially agrarian country has now transformed itself into a separate sector of the nation (the only non-specialist sector in the Yugoslav economy), and acts as a powerful pressure group on the central and the local administration. In Spain, farmers who own their land (and of course landlords in general) tend to support Church and state. But the poorer or landless peasants and agricultural day labourers are more inclined to adopt the slogans of communists and socialists and oppose 'the government of the exploiters'. The landless labourers of the south were in the past a fertile recruiting ground for the anarchist movement, but its following today is difficult to assess.
The central administration is in both countries a useful government instrument. But one of its pillars, the political police, has lost power - in Spain more gradually, and mainly through an increase in legality, in Yugoslavia more abruptly as a result of the crisis which led to the resignation of Rankovic" and the dismantling of the formidable apparatus of the UDBA. The centralized economic administration has lost power as economic decentralization progresses. Local administration (taken here to mean both regional and federal, and including in Yugoslavia the organs of self-administration) is by contrast a channel for pressure towards further decentralization, and the reduction or abolition of the powers of the central government. In Catalonia or the Basque provinces, in Croatia or Slovenia, there are centrifugal forces within the provincial administration, pressing for further regional devolution. As for the peoples' councils of the communes in Yugoslavia, to the extent that they can achieve a genuine development, they show a tendency to enlarge their attributions, to attempt to influence superior organs of decision-making and to acquire greater independence from central control.
Intellectuals are of course the spearheads of movements of dissent against the governments in both countries. And even in the more relaxed political climate prevailing in recent years, they have still frequently been the victims of trials and persecu-
Political Conftict in the Oppositionless States 177 tions. Both regimes pay special attention to the Press and to political journals. The governments have tended of late to rely more on television and to a lesser extent radio as their own media of information. They have moreover considerably improved the supply of information in the official Press. But nevertheless a sharp eye is kept on the printed word. In Spain the freedom of the Press has been limited again by a new penal law in 1967. In Yugoslavia, Mihajlov aroused the anger of the government when he announced his intention in 1966 of publishing a new periodical, and a prosecution which had been allowed to .lapse was reopened against him. Publication of the journal ;prax«,whichTito himself had described as an opposition organ, was suspended several times. Yet generally speaking, as the [climate of legality became more settled, and under the pressure of public opinion, journalists were able to exercise more professional independence, and the official Press improved as well.
To these social and professional groups which can exercise pressure on the regime one must add the national or regional roups if one is to achieve a complete picture of the pluralistic ressures which have now arisen. In Yugoslavia the Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians react increasingly [against the so-called Serbian oppression of the Belgrade government. Similarly in Spain the total lack of regional autonomy jand even the persecution of the regional languages has led to an increased resistance against the centralizing government of Madrid in Catalonia, the Basque Provinces and to a much smaller degree even in Galicia. Both governments are deeply concerned with this problem, and well aware of its connection ^with the political opposition. *If those who are talking about a [contrast of opinions are in fact searching for political parties.' said Franco in Seville on 27 April 1967, 'let them know that thi -will never occur. And it cannot, because it would mean the de istruction and dismemberment of the fatherland.'Both in Madri and in Belgrade the view is frequently expressed that in conditions of internal tension prevailing, the re-formation political parties would in fact amount to the formation of sep 'atist parties, Basque, or Croat, which would lead to secession. Finally the mai* political trends of opposition are in S"
178 Opposition
the socialists, the Christian democrats, the liberals, the monarchists and the communists; while in Yugoslavia they are the agrarians, the social democrats, the liberals, and probably also the Christian democrats.
It is with these converging forces of opposition that the governments in Spain and Yugoslavia respectively have had to engage in dialogue. In these circumstances one can see more clearly why the solution they adopted was to allow a considerable degree of institutionalization, stopping short, however, at the political opposition or a multi-party system. The dilemma facing these governments is whether poh'tical^stitutio^naliza-tion has a momentum of its own, which will carry it forward to the institutionalization of political opposition; or whether the governments can stop and control it at a given point; that is, whether given greater assurances of legality, greater possibilities of exercising a check on government power, and a more open expression of dissent (contraste de pareceres, in the official terminology of the new Spanish fundamental laws), the government can bring this process to a halt in the backwaters of the no-party, apolitical societies.
Greater assurances of legality have been provided by a rehabilitation of thejudjciary (that is of the civil courts of law as against the speaaTcourts of the dictatorships - military courts in Spain, and in Yugoslavia the special organ common to all communist countries, the prokuratura). At the same time the political police had to some extent been subordinated to the ordinary law courts, a measure which has done a lot to calm the nerves of populations accustomed for years to the technique of the 'knock on the door* in the middle of the night, This does not of course mean that citizens in either country enjoy perfect security and legal protection. The police handling of students* and workers' strikes in Spain has often been very brutal. But it does mean that the period of state terrorism is over, and the political police is now unlikely ever to become the main state organ as it was under Hitler or Stalin. The rehabilitation of the judiciary has been effected at the expense of military courts and special procedures; a greater respect is now shown to the persons of judges and their functions, and
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States 17 they are now, in principle, irremovable. In Yugoslavia the pn cess has been crowned by the institutionalization of the constitutional court which started to function in 1964, and whose rights overshadow those of the government. Although it is not | clear to what extent individual citizens can appeal directly to the , constitutional court against the state or its organs, in its short life the court has occasionally given judgement against the government notably in matters of abusive expropriation, where the state has been ordered to return confiscated property.
This rehabilitation of the judiciary has been accompanied [;in both countries by an open debate on the merits and the neces-| sity of the ^ej^aration of powers in a constitutional state. This ; constitutes a particular problenffor Yugoslavia, for nof only is [the regime, like the Spanish one, by definition 'organic' and {'unified', but one of the basic tenets of communist political is the abolition of the separation of powers allegedly epical of the bourgeois class state. Here all powers are united in the hands of the sovereign people, at the same time legislator, administrator and judge, acting as a 'corporation in action*. The new Yugoslav constitutional doctrine, in contrast with that of all other communist countries, now acknowledges the separation of powers and, in practice, leads to greater independence )f the legislative and the judiciary from the previously omnipotent executive.
The crux of the entire process of re-institutionalization in Uhese two regimes, the most advanced in their 'agonizing reappraisal*, lies in fact in the reactivation from within of the jislature. The functioning of parliaments has been reorga-5bth states, in Yugoslavia with the 1963 constitution, j and in Spain in the Organic Law of November 1966 (both of [which have since been adjusted and further defined in subsequent laws and amendments). The Spanish Parliament, or |Cortes, has six hundred deputies; one hundred, from now, are >to be elected by 'heads of families and married women* as representatives of the family. The remaining five hundred depu-include the members of the government; one hundred an * ifty representatives of the trade unions; fifty representatives o le municipalities of each province; the heads of the supr
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courts, and the national councillors.15 Thus a mixed parliament has been created in which a minority is elected, but the majority is ultimately appointed by the executive - for this is what official representation of the trade unions or the municipalities amounts to.
The Yugoslav Parliament or Federal Assembly is composed of five chambers -
1. The Federal Chamber (the political chamber) composed of one hundred and twenty elected deputies and seventy members of the Council of Nationalities who are delegated by the republican assemblies.
2. The Economic Chamber.
3. The Educational and Cultural Chamber.
4. The Social and Health Chamber.
5. The Pou'tical-administrative Chamber, each with one hundred and twenty members, which brings the total to six hundred and seventy.
It is the Parliament which in principle elects from within itself the Federal Executive Council (which is the Council of Ministers, elected for four years). In the pre-1963 Federal Assembly, the Federal Executive Council cumulated in its hands the legislative and executive powers and governed directly. The most remarkable change which has occurred in the country's constitutional life has been the differentiation effected in the work and the attributions of the Federal Assembly as against the Federal Executive Council. The Assembly has asserted itself to the extent that it has rejected or amended a substantial number
The list of national councillors may be of interest to those who do not know the details of the organization of the Spanish regime, since it gives a deep insight into the institutional representation which it entails. They are: fifty elected councillors; one for each of the fifty provinces; forty councillors appointed by Franco; twelve councillors representing the basic structures of the national community: four for the family, four for the local corporations, and four for the trade unions. Even were the deputies genuinely elected as opposed to indirectly nominated by the executive, ft is interesting to see how far the concept of representation here has moved from the representation of the individual typical of constitutional-pluralist democracies. """"
Political Conflict in the Oppositions States 181 of bills and decrees of the Executive Council, and has shown much greater initiative in proposing legislation. This change in the balance between the two organs rendered possible such an event as the resignation of the communist government of Slovenia in 1966, when the communist Slovene Parliament defeated a government bill.
It is clear that in both countries the institutionalization of parliament as the centre of power is only just beginning. As long as the majority of deputies are in reality nominated"(by devices to be discussed below), and as long as the principles of accountability and responsibility of the government to parliament are not fully established they cannot legitimately be described as seats of power. But it is worth noting that once the process of institutionalization is set in motion, it tends to focus on the parliament, around which naturally and functionally the entire political process of a pluralist society must gravitate. Thus in different circumstances a situation arises not unlike that which occurred in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when pohtiea^mstitu^^hau^ation began in what were to become the pluralist-constitutional societies of Western Europe.
One is thus brought back Tf* thf in^'t11^'™! of paruamjntary elections, and to the general theory of representation. If parliament is to be representative, it must draw its responsibility from mandates derived from electors. An appointed parliament is only responsible to those who do the appointing, and thus it is in a subordinate relation to the executive. Both in Spain and in Yugoslavia until recently, parliament was composed of some six hundred carefully selected and appointed people. In Spain this was achieved directly, since until \%6 all six hundred deputies were drawn from specific sectors of society: trade unions, municipalities, national councillors, etc., without any element of direct election. In Yugoslavia, elections were vitiated at their very roots by the fact that candidates had to be nominated beforehand at Voters' meetings of the working people', which were summoned by the presiding officer of the Communal Assembly. These meetings nominated candidates for the Communal Chamber, but only lists of nominees for the
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Republican Chamber and the Federal Chamber of the Federal Assembly. After electoral commissions had pruned the lists of nominees the final result was, until 1965, that the list was composed of one candidate for each seat. In the last elections for the biennial replacement of half the deputies in the Federal Assembly in some republics more candidates than seats were actually put forward (Serbia presented fifty-two candidates for twenty-five seats, Croatia eighteen for thirteen and Bosnia Hercegovina fourteen for ten seats). In so far as the voters* meetings were then held under the auspices of the Socialist Alliance, the number of candidates was remarkably high; and since the League's candidates did not receive the automatic confirmation to which they were accustomed, the elections were characterized by an element of competition which had been totally lacking before.
The new system which had been introduced in Spain under strong pressure from public opinion now allows the election of a sixth of the deputies by representatives of the family, namely heads of families and married women. But a limitation has been introduced into the choice of candidates, since according to the Law of the National Movement, of 26 June 1966, candidates must beforehand state that they accept the principles of the National Movement. Moreover large industrial towns and small agricultural districts were allotted the same representation - one deputy. This gives the candidates of the Falange a clear advantage. By July, the parties^ofjhe opposition had announced their intention to combine in support of opposition candidates so as not to split the vote, and oppose a umtědfront to the privileged candidates of the Falange. By September, however, they had withdrawn in view of the adverse conditions established by the regime. The results of the single-list elections show that some 'opposition'-minded personalities have been elected after all.
The pressure for a fairer system of electoral representation is paralleled and strengthened by pressure for the institutionalization of some forms of regular opposition, and specifically of more than one party. Here both the Francoite and the Tito-ist regimes adopt a shrewd defensive attitude. They have
Political Conflict in the Oppositionless States   18
abandoned the idea of a monolithic party (which in any ca was never explicitly or implicitly endorsed by Franco) in f av our of the concept of 'movement* or 'alliance' - broad organ! zations within which Spaniards and Yugoslavs respectively can work out their common political aims by thrashing out firs their differences of view (contraste de pareceres) in a spirit o national solidarity. Within the movement or the alliance, the Falange and the League are intended to continue to provide the hard ideological core, but these broader organizations are not and are not intended to be parties. It follows that then will be no parties at all, and both states will become no-party states. In such a system, the demands of public opinion for th establishment of political parties can be dismissed as obsoleti and politics can be looked on as belonging to the discredited past.
This effort at compromise carried out by the leaders in both countries has by no means met with universal approval. Party stalwarts denounce it as a dangerous adventure, and a sign ingratitude.16 Public opinion and the leaders of the oppositio denounce it as a mere palliative which cannot replace the nec sary institutionalization.
It appears in fact that the idea of a 'movement' appeals t public opinion only in so far as it succeeds in being a different
16. In Spain the Falange has fought a tenacious rearguard batde to b rehabilitated as the main political channel through which all the di sen ting voices in society could be heard. (See the interesting discussion < this point in the columns of the party newspaper, Arriba, in March 1965 The law of 26 June 1966* which makes the candidature for the hundn family seats depend on express endorsement of the ideological principles of the movement (which only the Falange accepts in their totality) h rightly been regarded as a victory for the Falange. It has even been de cribed as the 'institutionalization' of the Falange. In Yugoslavia the mc outspoken criticism of the slow dissolution of the party has come fr. abroad from the Sanhedrin of the Soviet bloc and particularly from 1 Soviet Union. On 20 February 1967, Pravda denounced the YugosU doctrine and stated that on the contrary, 'with the completion of th transitional phase in the socialist countries, the need for the deliberat leadership of the social process, and consequently for ensuring the leadin role of the Marxist-Leninist party, not only does not pass away t increases'.
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organism from the official party, and can therefore be considered in terms of candidates and leadership as a rival party. The debates at the congress of the Socialist Alliance in June 1966 in Yugoslavia were particularly significant from this point of view. The organizers of the Alliance were bombarded with questions aimed at establishing whether it would be merely a new organ through which the crippled League would continue to exercise political leadership, or whether it would dissociate itself from the League and become a different body. No answer to this question was given, and the participants then lost interest in the Alliance. The implication was that the League should first define its own future role and the role of the Alliance would then stand out more clearly. Thus the question of what part the League was to play in the future remained in doubt.
In the meantime factions within the governmental spheres became to some extent the nearest substitute for multi-party-ism which can emerge in the non-institutionalized political life of both countries. This is a recurrent phenomenon in all similar "situations. Factions have arisen in modern political history as the spontaneous organs of political differentiation within regimes which do not allow the latter to be institutionalized. Factions are the substitute for parties in centralized political regimes, and more often than not they precede the formation of political parties in periods of pre-institutional activity. In England, France and the United States in the eighteenth century they preceded the formation of the first political parties.
InSgain^the two main factions are the 'revisionists' and the 'continuists'; in Yugoslavia they are known as the 'revisionists' and the 'dogmatists', bř^the centralists and the decentralizes. Theycontinuists' stand for the permanence of the Franco regime with necessary improvements and greater flexibility - a kind of Francoism without Franco. Most of the groups with vested interests in the regime belong to this faction: the Fal-ange Party, the leadership of the official trade unions, top military personnel, the conservative wing of the Church, and some right-wing political factions, other than the monarchists. Indeed the continuists oppose the restoration of the monarchy, and the
Political Conflict in the Oppositions States slogan 'Franquismo sin Franco' implies a continuation , the present anomalous regime of a kingdom without a kin* The natural leader of this faction was the elderly retired general, Agustin Mufioz Grandes, formerly Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, and the principal candidate for the post of Prime Minister established by the law of November 1966 At the same time in his capacity of Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, he was the constitutional successor to Franco, should the Caudillo die before a successor had been appointed! But General Mufloz Grandes was dismissed from this post i July 1967; the 'continuists' thus lost a great advantage just the moment when the Falange had been re-institutionalized the centre of the movement. The^reyisionists' stand for a wid( range of reforms in the economic, social, and above all politi cal sectors. In principle they favour the restoration of the mon archy as being the least divisive solution. But they see in th restoration above all the hope of a more constitutional publi life. They comprise such groups as the technocrats, the Opu. Dei, the monarchist parties and the Christian democrats - anc in general they are on better terms with the\real opposition socialists, liberals and communists, than the co
The Yugoslav centralists or dogmatists stand for the con tinuation of the communist state and party (the League) unti the organs of self-administration and self-management have proved decisively that they can run society. The^hard core was formed by the Serbian wing of the party headed until iyo! by Rankovi<5. But they also include the party die-hards of the League, the army generals, the central administration the political police, and some of the leaders of the trade unions. Thk^evisionists can be found in the federal and local administrations, m the leadership of the workers' councils, and in the regional groups: Croats, Slovenes, etc., and in the rank and file of the Socialist Alliance.
In the earlier years of these two regimes, the factions carried out their struggle in the obscure corridors of power of the die tatorsbips, the anterooms of the dictator and the councils o ministers or meetings of party central committees. The outcome was decided before the issues were placed befor
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congresses or plebiscites. But now it is clear that the struggle is waged in public, more often than not in parliaments. By their very existence, however atrophied, parliaments have served two useful political functions. They have facilitated the coalescence into broader groups of otherwise scattered trends and opinions. And they have stimulated public^ debate, thus providing it with greater articulation and clearer motives. Parliaments have thus given to these obscure struggles of sub-groups and subsidiary ideas the sounding board they needed to grow into the organized conflict of ideas between the two wings of the political life of the dictatorship. Until new political personnel enter them by means of revised electoral systems the Cortes and the Skupcina have functioned as parliaments of factions and helped to institutionalize the new procedures from with! them.
CanrJnstitutionalization stop there? Can the parliaments of factions be sufficient within no-party states to express the pro-found differences of views and interests which lie under the forcibly pacified surface of political life? Or is this only a phase, longer or shorter, which under the pressure, of public opinion, new electoral institutions and submerged opposition, will end in the full re-institutionalization of political parti and the rehabilitation of parliament and opposition-in-parliament? /