Throughout the history of socialist movements and ideas, the fundamental divide is between Socialism-from-Above and Socialism-from-Below.

Hal Draper (1914-1990) var en amerikansk sosialist som var medlem av ulike partier og grupper, bl.a. Socialist Workers Party og International Socialists, men endte som uavhengig sosialist.

Draper sto for en slags tredje vei mellom stalinisme og kapitalisme, med fokus på grasrotorganisering. Dette fokuset ble utkrystallisert i teorien om “sosialisme nedenfra” som ble utviklet i pamfletten “The Two Souls of Socialism” (1966).  Draper foretar en historisk gjennomgang av den sosialistiske tradisjonen og hevder at en kan skille mellom to tradisjoner, Socialism-From-Above og Socialism-From-Below. De to tradisjonene skiller seg i synet på massenes evne til egen frigjøring:

What unites the many different forms of Socialism-from-Above is the conception that socialism (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control in fact. The heart of Socialism-from-Below is its view that socialism can be realized only through the self-emancipation of activized masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized “from below” in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors (not merely subjects) on the stage of history. “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves”: this is the first sentence in the Rules written for the First International by Marx, and this is the First Principle of his lifework.

I ettertid kan man kanskje si at denne dikotomiske framstillingen av to motstridende tradisjoner er overdrevent forenklet, og det er klart at det f.eks. var åpenbare  historiske forhold som gjorde at folk støttet stalinismen. Samtidig er det fremdeles slik at en del ikke har tatt det oppgjøret Draper mente var nødvendig, så denne teksten har nok sin misjon også i dag. Ikke minst når det gjelder forholdet mellom ledelse og grasrot innad i partiene.

Vi avslutter med et utdrag fra siste del av teksten:

Although we have been considering a particular line of apologia, the two points which emerged do in fact apply all over the world, in every country, advanced or developing, capitalist or Stalinist. When the demonstrations and boycotts of the Southern Negroes threatened to embarrass President Johnson as he faced an election, the question was: which side are you on? When the Hungarian people erupted in revolt against the Russian occupier, the question was: which side are you on?When the Algerian people fought for liberation against the “socialist” government of Guy Mollet, the question was: which side are you on? When Cuba was invaded by Washington’s puppets, the question was: which side are you on? and when the Cuban trade unions are taken over by the commissars of the dictatorship, the question is also: which side are you on?

Since the beginning of society, there has been no end of theories “proving” that tyranny is inevitable and that freedom-in-democracy is impossible; there is no more convenient ideology for a ruling class and its intellectual flunkies. These are self-fulfilling predictions, since they remain true only as long as they are taken to be true. In the last analysis, the only way of proving them false is in the struggle itself. That struggle from below has never been stopped by the theories from above, and it has changed the world time and again. To choose any of the forms of Socialism-from-Above is to look back to the old world, to the “old crap.” To choose the road of Socialism-from-Below is to affirm the beginning of a new world.