BERGONIA
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The
Eight Principles
of the Democratic
Front and the Revolution
"At least we found eight things we can agree on."
The diamond of eight stars
on the national flag signify the Eight Principles of the Bergonian
Revolution. In the 1920's the various parties and groups
comprising the Democratic
Front raised a banner of eight stars to signify their agreement on
eight fundamental programmatic principles-- more platform for electioneering
than theory.
The eight-point platform was a broad outline of
those principles the various revolutionary parties could all agree on.
These radicals employed their
nation's traditional four-pointed star, eschewing the five-pointed star as a symbol
of everything Western, which to an extent was hypocritical, since so much of
their theory and vocabulary had been imported from Europe. Indeed
European socialism and anarchism had a more attentive audience in Bergonia
than they did in the United States, with culture and politics totally
derived from Europe. The radicals' use of the four-pointed star
was not too much a pretense, indeed as much a simple, direct expression of
national identity, since the national flag already
displayed a single four-pointed star. These principles are (as set out in standard from on leaflets & posters all
throughout the Revolution during the 1920s):
Liberty:
"Personal liberty belongs to every man and woman to speak and to
write, to organize and petition authority, to choose work, life and
travel according to individual conscience and taste, with no state or workplace
censorship." Equality:
"There
shall be no ruling class. All men and women shall have equal claim
to the the good life, and equal access to power. All races,
creeds, communities and
religions
deserve both equality and autonomy, and no language
or religion shall be suppressed."
Democracy:
"All authority in
every part of society shall be subordinate to democratic selection and control. The people
and workers shall either govern directly or choose their governors."
Socialism/Syndicalism:
"The common good shall direct all policy, and the means
of production will pass out of private hands, and into the
cooperative hands of the
workers and farmers, who shall enjoy the
full fruits of their labor."
Decentralization/Federalism:
"Local power is better than national
power. Plural power is better than a single party.
Divided
power is better than consolidated power."
Education and Science:
"All the people shall
obtain education in the arts and sciences at
free schools and universities, and science shall guide policy." Religion The Bergonian revolutionaries of the DF tended to be short on theory
(very short, compared to Marxists), but thick on practicality. The
eight principles were all the official doctrine that the DF parties had
collectively, other than the "principles of strategy," approved unanimously
by the DF annual convention in 1924 in a manifesto, summarized as
"revolutionary goals, leftist pluralism, multiple fronts, coordinated
action, open-mindedness, force if necessary," by Dherein. "It is not enough to get the capitalist hand out of our wallets and the
jackboots of the conservative state off our necks. We have to keep the
thieving hands and bruising feet from returning to curse us in the future.
Following the eight principles will give our revolutionary society
purposeful form, and give the people some assurance against backsliding."
-- said Tranton Asceleri, first chairman of the DF, DF's presidential
candidate in 1930, and first Minister of Economics under the revolutionary
government. The anarchists with reservations agreed to the Eight
Principles at the time of their coalition with the DF in 1928, but the Communists refused to do so-- they could not stomach
the language in Number #7 that accepted Religion.
They were blind to how their atheism created for the workers' movement an unnecessary enemy.
BERGONIA
"The eight principles do not summarize a delicately balanced,
comprehensive social theory, but only a rough recipe for socialist society.
We will use them as eight yardsticks and eight anchor points as we build
our socialist house." -- said Catlere Amar, the first DF Speaker of
Congress, a brave woman who during fighting in her hometown of Leakin,
Letlari, took up a rifle position on the second floor of headquarters and
answered gun fire from hostile Army troops.
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