But even where parliament is elected by universal suffrage, the majority of the seats are invariably occupied by representatives of the bourgeoisie. Why does this always happen? The reason is obvious in view of what we have already learned. Let us suppose that the workers, who form the majority in the country, have the right to vote. But let us further suppose that all the wealth is in the hands of the capitalists, that they own all the newspapers and all the places where public meetings can be held, and that artists, printing presses, and millions of leaflets are at their service; that from all the pulpits the clergy advocate their cause; let us suppose, moreover, that the poor workers are engaged day after day in exhausting toil, that they have no meeting-places, that clever fellows circulate among them (agents of the bourgeoisie, lawyers, journalists, and other glib talkers) advocating what seem to be excellent watchwords, and thus confusing the workers’ minds; let us remember the enormous financial resources of the trust magnates, which enable them to corrupt the workers’ representatives — however honest these may have been at the outset — by offering comfortable jobs, by flattery in the daily press, and so on. Then we can understand why it is that even in such parliaments the majority always consists of the secret or declared agents of the bourgeoisie, of financial capital, of the bank kings.
It is, therefore, extraordinarily difficult for the working masses to elect any of their own folk as representatives.
Once a representative finds his way to parliament, the matter is finished; he can defy the electors; for three or four years his seat is secure. He is independent of them. He sells himself right and left. He cannot be recalled by the electors; the law makes no provision for anything of the kind.
Such is the state of affairs in a bourgeois democratic republic under parliamentarism. It is very different in the Soviet Republic. Here the parasites — the traders and the factory owners, the prelates and the