ABSTRACT
Socialism and democracy are mutually related-intrinsically and essentially. There can be no true socialism without democracy, and there can be no real democracy without socialism. The lesson of so-called ‘actually existing socialisms’ is that socialism cannot be achieved in the absence of democracy. Marx’s characterisation of the bourgeois state as dictatorship of class should be analysed and debated in the light of historical experience. Marx conceived socialist transformation as a revolution against the state. He used the Paris commune as a model of a workers’ state, workers’ democracy. Political democracy also entails democratic culture and right to information and free expressions. It will be based on free access to information and the ability to take part in public discussion.
