The reasons have been numerous, of which only two may be mentioned here. Socialists did not distinguish between the right of ownership and the control of economic power. Today the distinction has asumed great significance, for economic power can be subjected to public control and direction without resorting to large-scale nationalization. Such a procedure can secure abolition of exploitation without causing the springs of personal initiative to dry up as a result of bureaucratization. The second reason is related to the nature of power. Nationalization supplements the political power of the state with economic power, and since those who control the state are, by and large, subject to the usual human failings, corruption and inequality grow to larger proportions than in a civilized non-socialist society. Party bosses and the bureaucracy are the only beneficiaries of such a development.
This digression is necessary because few who swear by democratic socialism are clear as to how the two components of the slogan are related to each other. For example, in a seminar organized at Delhi about two years ago by the so-called Ginger Group of the Congress, a cabinet minister formulated the theme of the seminar as the examination of whether democracy was compatible with socialism or it would have to be discarded in order to hasten the advent of socialism. If this is how a cabinet minister of the Union Government understands democratic socialism, one can easily imagine the confusion prevailing in the mind of the rank and file of our political parties.
If one accepts the interpretation of democratic socialism offered in this paper, namely, a social order in which men and women can live in dignity and freedom, free from exploitation of any kind and united as equals in a co-operative endeavour for the realization of their human destiny—if we interpret democratic socialism in this sense, the method and content of the education of party workers would be radically different from what they would be if democracy were to be looked upon as a dispensable luxury of socialism. The latter position would imply indoctrination, not education, and is by now well-known from the experience of totalitarian parties abroad and at home. Here we are concerned with the question from the former viewpoint.
