Democratic centralism

[Idealism]

is this an ok definition?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
or would a vangaurd party(im talking about DC in the confines of M-L) be run more directly democratic, and from bottom up?
if the page i linked to is right truly it doesnt seem theres anything "democratic" about the communists who say its neeeded.

[LOLseph Stalin]

You might want to use this description: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/e.htm
Even better.

[Charles Xavier]

At a party convention/congress the cells/clubs of the party nominate delegates from their clubs at a ratio of like 1 for every whatever number of members. At the convention the members there vote on the party policy and leadership through a majority rules vote. Clubs/ the leadership can also call special or early congress/conventions. Every member has a right to voice their opinions on various issues but the party acts always as one. So if there was a debate to participate in the elections and the majority said yes, and you said no, you have to respect the view of the majority.

From there on the leadership of the party will carry on the mandate they were given at the convention and must strive to uphold their mandate to the best of their abilities.

The higher organs of the party hold the most sway their decisions lower organs of
the party must follow. So if say the Central Party leadership had a vote and said we must celebrate groundhog day this year, the ontario party leadership cannot go against the central leadership and say no we won't. However they can make recommendations and say "This is a stupid idea we shouldn't celebrate groundhog." IE freedom to criticize internally but still act out according to the higher level unless they say otherwise.

The best way to understand democratic centralism is to see it in action rather than talk about it in the abstract.

Basically, democratic centralism is that when you vote on something you follow the will of the majority regardless if you voted yes or no. Its democracy where people must respect it rather than where people have a choice whether or not to respect it.

The best way to summarize democratic centralism is. Majority rules, one party, one line.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think it can be described in seven words:

Freedom of discussion, then unity of action.

[Idealism]

what about cases where some power hungry ass got in power somehow in the party, would the "majority" be able to get rid of him (impeach?).
have there been any successful examples of this? (sorry if thats a stupid question)

[Q]

what about cases where some power hungry ass got in power somehow in the party, would the "majority" be able to get rid of him (impeach?).
Yes. The right of recalling representatives is a basic principle in the workers movement.

have there been any successful examples of this? (sorry if thats a stupid question)
Numerous ones. Have a search on google.

[Invincible Summer]

At a party convention/congress the cells/clubs of the party nominate delegates from their clubs at a ratio of like 1 for every whatever number of members. At the convention the members there vote on the party policy and leadership through a majority rules vote. Clubs/ the leadership can also call special or early congress/conventions. Every member has a right to voice their opinions on various issues but the party acts always as one. So if there was a debate to participate in the elections and the majority said yes, and you said no, you have to respect the view of the majority.

From there on the leadership of the party will carry on the mandate they were given at the convention and must strive to uphold their mandate to the best of their abilities.

The higher organs of the party hold the most sway their decisions lower organs of
the party must follow. So if say the Central Party leadership had a vote and said we must celebrate groundhog day this year, the ontario party leadership cannot go against the central leadership and say no we won't. However they can make recommendations and say "This is a stupid idea we shouldn't celebrate groundhog." IE freedom to criticize internally but still act out according to the higher level unless they say otherwise.

The best way to understand democratic centralism is to see it in action rather than talk about it in the abstract.

Basically, democratic centralism is that when you vote on something you follow the will of the majority regardless if you voted yes or no. Its democracy where people must respect it rather than where people have a choice whether or not to respect it.

The best way to summarize democratic centralism is. Majority rules, one party, one line.


I can see how that would be "efficient," but still.... ew.

[Charles Xavier]

I can see how that would be "efficient," but still.... ew.


Well think of it this way, equal rights for all people. Here in Canada, workers in Newfoundland have less rights than workers from British Colombia do.

In Manitoba employees who finish past I think its 12am the employer has to pay for transportation home. In Ontario they don't.

What does this got to do with anything? Universality, everyone has the same rights. not a worker in this region having less rights than a worker in that region.

This is what centralism is about, uniform implementation.

Freedom of criticism, you can debate a position, but once it is voted on you have to follow the vote. You can't say well I am right so you guys can go fuck yourselves I'm not going to help or actively undermine it.

If something is wrong you can debate it when it comes up again or even at the central conventions where the whole of the membership are involved.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What is described above, alas, is bureaucratic centralism. External criticism is key to ending the charade of false unity ("the party line").


Democratic centralism was not devised by Lenin. He took it from the SPD. The Russian experience, however, made changes to the application of the model.



Centralism is a broad term. It doesn't necessarily mean top-down or hierarchy. It also means discipline. It means unity. The unity we desperately need to overcome the policy of devide and rule created by capitalism. What does democratic mean? It's the openess of discussion, the right of the minority to become the majority, the right to form fractions within a certain movement, diversity in ideas, etc. all of which generates discipline and unity. When movements split it's mostly because the minority doesn't feel like it can defend it's ideas against the majority. It's mostly because of bureaucratic centralism. But bureaucratic centralism can also generate unity. Bureaucracies can surpress diversity. But this does not generate an independent workers' movement. Of course.

In other words, centralism doesn't mean that federalism or certain types of decentralization are impossible.

[Charles Xavier]

what about cases where some power hungry ass got in power somehow in the party, would the "majority" be able to get rid of him (impeach?).
have there been any successful examples of this? (sorry if thats a stupid question)

First there are safe guards in the constitutions, for example someone cannot be expelled from the party unless they commit an offense that would surmount to that IE police agent, provocateur, etc. So the leadership cannot just say, well I hate those assholes I'm going to expel them from the party, and summarily expel them from the party. Now lets say you actually did something off colour, borderline

Now it is a rare thing to happen but normally it is the club level that makes a recommendation for expulsion from the party and the central party can only do so in extreme circumstances


Using my party's constitution as an example theres two ways to appeal 1 a hearing within the party a committee formed to deal with the expulsion in question and determine if it is valid you would be presented the evidence against you and make you case, now say they uphold the expulsion, the central convention can determine whether the expulsion was valid a vote of the majority can determine whether or not someone is to be expelled.
To see our constitution on disciplinary procedures.
http://www.communist-party.ca/docs/constitutionbody.html#a9

Now what if some assholes got put in power and the whole party hated them.
Does this happen?

Yes this happened in our party during the early 1990s when some revisionists tried to take over the party and make it into a social democratic party, now they did due some damage.

What to do? Democratic centralism has safeguards in place, its the central convention/congress. Now in our constitution, theres two ways a convention can occur, 1. on its scheduled date 2. A special convention can be called. where when a sizable amount of clubs determine it nessicary they can put forward a committee to organize a special convention immediately.
What is the convention/congress
1. the convention/congress is the highest body of authority
2. its descisions must be upheld.
3. It is the general meeting of all members or delegates of the party clubs

When a convention is called the general membership determine the fate of the bad leadership/policies and make dramatic changes.

[Idealism]

oaky so therer's safe gaurds for people not to get kicked out. But how is it made sure that the party is not exclusive originally? how is the minoirty heard in such a centralized party?

[Tower of Bebel]

I think that only the (dialectical) relation between (self-)organization and (working-)class struggle, between (revolutionary) theory and practice - the praxis -, can "guarantee" the application of democracy according to the needs of the different minorities and according to the (limited) capabilities forced upon us by concrete circumstances.

[Charles Xavier]

okay so there's safe guards for people not to get kicked out. But how is it made sure that the party is not exclusive originally? how is the minority heard in such a centralized party?

The minority opinion is protected as when someone is speaking they have the right to the floor, no one can interrupt them, we used Roberts rules of order to do so. More info on roberts rules,
http://www.robertsrules.org/


But once something is voted on the minority voice must submit itself to the will of the majority.

The party does not have factions so there is really no minority/majority, everyone is equal. Their opinions have just as much a right to be heard as the opinions of the elected leadership of the party a member of 6 months has equal say as a member of 20 years.


Well for one, we are a revolutionary party, as long as one can uphold the constitution and program the party will have no reason to exclude someone. If the party is exclusive originally and are excluding people on despite them showing themselves to be committed revolutionaries chances are the party will not last.

Trade Unions more or less follow democratic centralism.

However the vast majority of work is done on a local club/cell level where the most discussions happen. Clubs are usually anywhere from 3 people(i think thats the minimum grouping to have a club in my party) to 20(usually after 20 members the club will be divided into two club) if there is a lot of clubs in a regional area a city/town-wide committee will be formed to coordinate activities of the clubs.

[Invincible Summer]

External criticism is key to ending the charade of false unity ("the party line").

That's what concerns me about "democratic centralism" - the apparent requirement to follow the "party line."

Could you please elaborate on the "external criticism" bit?

[Charles Xavier]

That's what concerns me about "democratic centralism" - the apparent requirement to follow the "party line."

Could you please elaborate on the "external criticism" bit?


Well say you had a good idea for a campaign, there were some dissenting opinions, so a vote came and your good idea passed. But then several people started openly campaigning against the party while still being party members calling your idea stupid and counter-revolutionary. They made their own press releases and said this guy sucks.

I mean whats the point of democracy if you're only going to follow it if you agree with it. Whats the point of even voting? If something is voted on you follow it. You don't get to pick and choose democracy.

Internal criticism of policies and ideas are okay, but external criticisms of the party is not. One party one line. Freedom of discussion, but unity in action.

[Idealism]

Well say you had a good idea for a campaign, there were some dissenting opinions, so a vote came and your good idea passed. But then several people started openly campaigning against the party while still being party members calling your idea stupid and counter-revolutionary. They made their own press releases and said this guy sucks.

I mean whats the point of democracy if you're only going to follow it if you agree with it. Whats the point of even voting? If something is voted on you follow it. You don't get to pick and choose democracy.

Internal criticism of policies and ideas are okay, but external criticisms of the party is not. One party one line. Freedom of discussion, but unity in action.
/
isn't that basically anarchism? i mean anarchists, while in favor of consensual democracy, aren't going to let a small minority get in the way of revolutionary processes either.

[Idealism]

I think that only the (dialectical) relation between (self-)organization and (working-)class struggle, between (revolutionary) theory and practice - the praxis -, can "guarantee" the application of democracy according to the needs of the different minorities and according to the (limited) capabilities forced upon us by concrete circumstances.

could you make that less confusing?

[Charles Xavier]

/
isn't that basically anarchism? i mean anarchists, while in favor of consensual democracy, aren't going to let a small minority get in the way of revolutionary processes either.


No its democratic centralism. Its a organizational principle which Lenin brilliantly put in place. It is one of the major contributions Lenin put towards Party building.

We communists are not against consensus, we do not want to have a vote that will split the party and make everyone enemies, which is why many motions are amended before going to a vote. We do expect though if something is voted on that it is followed. But consensus is secondary to democracy. We want ideally we want everyone to agree on a motion but sometimes its not possible.

Where would the Bolsheviks be if on the question of insurrection, the party members who were against that option did not contribute and acted against the party.

[Idealism]

are all decisions voted upon, or are leaders elected to do so?

[Charles Xavier]

are all decisions voted upon, or are leaders elected to do so?


Well the convention gives the leaders their mandate. A plan of action is written up and voted upon and party leadership has to follow that plan of action to the best of their ability and upholding the program and constitution.

The leadership is a committee not one person and they will make the day to day decisions on a central level, not all decisions are centrally done though. Most decisions made are on club/cell level.

it is impractical to have a general meeting of all members of the party so they have a say in the day to day actions because of the number of people and resources required to hold a general meeting, which is why there is an elected leadership. If the leaderships is doing a bad job an emergency convention can be held to kick them out of the leadership. But that happens rarely.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well say you had a good idea for a campaign, there were some dissenting opinions, so a vote came and your good idea passed. But then several people started openly campaigning against the party while still being party members calling your idea stupid and counter-revolutionary. They made their own press releases and said this guy sucks.

I mean whats the point of democracy if you're only going to follow it if you agree with it. Whats the point of even voting? If something is voted on you follow it. You don't get to pick and choose democracy.

Internal criticism of policies and ideas are okay, but external criticisms of the party is not. One party one line. Freedom of discussion, but unity in action.

You're talking about an action here. I'm talking about so-called "party lines" of a more theoretical nature. External criticism of party action is one thing, but external criticism of a generally theoretical "line" is another.

For example, the SPD had the enormous privilege of having lively debates on the question of national liberation itself, between Karl Kautsky on the one hand and Rosa Luxemburg on the other. These debates were quite public, most notably through the Marxist theoretical newspaper Die Neue Zeit (edited by yours truly ;) ).

[Idealism]

when you say "central committee" and "leader" is it leader in the authority or delegate sense of the word?

[Tower of Bebel]

could you make that less confusing?
First, there is no perfect democracy. There can only be democracy according to concrete circumstances (like police oppression for instance), and according to organizational structures (if there's only one newspaper or one website you'll find it difficult to publish your criticisms).

Second, you can have all the democratic principles and structures you want, it wont necessarily lead to democracy. Both regular members or the party's leadership can distort or replace any democratic functioning through alternative interpretations of the guidelines. The only thing which more-or-less guarantees democracy is the class struggle itself. Because the working class can only exercise its rule through the fullest democracy (proletarian democracy) the workers' class struggle will force any genuine proletarian party to operate on a genuine democratic basis. That's why we need a dialectical relation between party organization and class struggles. We need a dialectical relation between the party's theory (agree upon by the majority of its membership) and the practice of day-to-day struggle (so the minority and majority of the party can see for themselves who was right and who was wrong concerning the practical application of a certain theory).

[Charles Xavier]

First, there is no perfect democracy. There can only be democracy according to concrete circumstances (like police oppression for instance), and according to organizational structures (if there's only one newspaper or one website you'll find it difficult to publish your criticisms).

Second, you can have all the democratic principles and structures you want, it wont necessarily lead to democracy. Both regular members or the party's leadership can distort or replace any democratic functioning through alternative interpretations of the guidelines. The only thing which more-or-less guarantees democracy is the class struggle itself. Because the working class can only exercise its rule through the fullest democracy (proletarian democracy) the workers' class struggle will force any genuine proletarian party to operate on a genuine democratic basis. That's why we need a dialectical relation between party organization and class struggles. We need a dialectical relation between the party's theory (agree upon by the majority of its membership) and the practice of day-to-day struggle (so the minority and majority of the party can see for themselves who was right and who was wrong concerning the practical application of a certain theory).

Agreed 100%.

It was through stubborn class struggle we got our party back from the revisionists


when you say "central committee" and "leader" is it leader in the authority or delegate sense of the word?



Its not 1 person who is the leader, officially for elections Canada purpose we have a leader, but he cannot make decisions by himself he has a committee he is responsible to. We have a central committee who is representatives from all over Canada who make decisions on a regular basis and an executive committee who is basically nominated from the Central Committee to do the day to day work of the party, they are responsible to the central committee.

I hope itdoesn't sound too complicated because its very straight forward in practice.

However the party refrains from micromanaging at the club level. The clubs carry out the party work and do their own activities.

[Idealism]

how is this state of leaders ever meant to transfer into a free, classless, statelss, society?

[Charles Xavier]

how is this state of leaders ever meant to transfer into a free, classless, statelss, society?


Well I am talking about party organization, not society as a whole.

The transition will be the final revolution. One cannot really answer that question as it has not come up in practise theres no scientific understanding merely guesswork. But when the state no longer needs to exist, when the working class has no threats to its rule. It ceases to have a state.

[Idealism]

but how is it working class rule if there are leaders and centralized committees? its their rule not the working class isnt it?

[Charles Xavier]

but how is it working class rule if there are leaders and centralized committees? its their rule not the working class isnt it?


I am talking about party organization, not societal organization.
The committees are responsible to the general membership. The leaders and central committees are workers themselves their commitment is to the working class.

And if the party fails to live up to its responsibility as a vanguard of the working class it is up to the working class to abandon them.

[Idealism]

I am talking about party organization, not societal organization.
The committees are responsible to the general membership. The leaders and central committees are workers themselves their commitment is to the working class.

And if the party fails to live up to its responsibility as a vanguard of the working class it is up to the working class to abandon them.

it was in my understanding that right after the overthrow of the last regime, the party runs the society, and they have the "mandate" to do whatever they want. And wasnt it lenin's idea to have "professional revolutionaries? in which case they would cease to be workers.

sorry if this is just a misunderstanding on my part.

[Charles Xavier]

it was in my understanding that right after the overthrow of the last regime, the party runs the society, and they have the "mandate" to do whatever they want. And wasnt it lenin's idea to have "professional revolutionaries? in which case they would cease to be workers.

sorry if this is just a misunderstanding on my part.

No they only have the mandate to serve their class interest else the people will not support them.

Professional Revolutionaries are usually not paid and if they were paid they are wage workers. They are from the working class. And I don't see there being three classes, workers, owners and party members/professional revolutionaries.

I am a member of a communist party, I also work for a living, do I cease to be a worker?

But anyways you are going off topic.

[Idealism]

No they only have the mandate to serve their class interest else the people will not support them.

Professional Revolutionaries are usually not paid and if they were paid they are wage workers. They are from the working class. And I don't see there being three classes, workers, owners and party members/professional revolutionaries.

I am a member of a communist party, I also work for a living, do I cease to be a worker?

But anyways you are going off topic.

thank you, i think i have an oaky understanding of the party organization. but i have a new question if youre willing to answer. Say you have a capitalist society, and a strong enough communist following to overthrow the regime of the state, how is the revolution to happen in terms of marxist-leninism?

[Charles Xavier]

thank you, i think i have an oaky understanding of the party organization. but i have a new question if youre willing to answer. Say you have a capitalist society, and a strong enough communist following to overthrow the regime of the state, how is the revolution to happen in terms of marxist-leninism?


It depends theres nothing cut and dried.

It will all depend on where the working class is sufficiently organized to complete such a transfer of power. Be it a guerrilla struggle, through parliament, through the army, insurrection, it isn't something that one can plan in advance. Look at the transformations that occurred that took down the monarchy and put the bourgeois in power. There was many different ways.

[Black Sheep]

from wiki


#4Decisions of upper structures are mandatory for the lower structures.

Fuck no. ( i think )
The upper structure proposes, you vote, if it passes by majority vote then it is mandatory.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I suppose you have a beef with central/executive committees here, but the primary motive for that fourth point is to assert the authority of typically representative party congresses.

[Charles Xavier]

from wiki


Fuck no. ( i think )
The upper structure proposes, you vote, if it passes by majority vote then it is mandatory.


The highest structure of the party is the general membership convention. There is regional ones like ones for Ontario, and central ones Canada-wide. The central convention is the highest structure of the party.