Thoughts on democratic centralism

[A.R.Amistad]

I'm no opponent of democratic centralism, I'm a supporter. Bt being an at large member I don't get to see it in everday action. How does one enforce majority rule? If I am in a minority and a decision has been taken, what exactly must I do? Simple examples would be much welcome, I need this to show that
1. Democratic Centralist organizations do not necessarily destroy the individual (from an existential point of view)
2. I need help with some local ultraleft comrades who are hard to organize

[cb9's_unity]

My question is how do Leninists (in general, those who support democratic centralism) justify their being so many democratic centralist party's? Isn't the point to come together as a majority and then follow the popular decision.

Why should we still follow democratic centralism when it has proven over and over again that it divides revolutionary's?

[red cat]

I'm no opponent of democratic centralism, I'm a supporter. Bt being an at large member I don't get to see it in everday action. How does one enforce majority rule? If I am in a minority and a decision has been taken, what exactly must I do? Simple examples would be much welcome, I need this to show that
1. Democratic Centralist organizations do not necessarily destroy the individual (from an existential point of view)
2. I need help with some local ultraleft comrades who are hard to organize

You can either break away from your organization, or work according to its decision but keep discussing and debating with your comrades on the validity of the same. If the decision was wrong, then it will fail in practice and your proposal will be reconsidered.

[x371322]

Someone on here, I can't remember who so forgive me, but someone on here mentioned Democratic Centralism being a redundant term. The whole point of a democracy is to have some level of centralism. For example, when everyone votes to pass a law or policy, and it get's passed, then everyone is expected to follow that law, regardless of whether you voted for it or not. If just any dissenter was allowed to disobey that law because they voted no, then there would be no point in voting on it in the first place.

[A.R.Amistad]

Someone on here, I can't remember who so forgive me, but someone on here mentioned Democratic Centralism being a redundant term. The whole point of a democracy is to have some level of centralism. For example, when everyone votes to pass a law or policy, and it get's passed, then everyone is expected to follow that law, regardless of whether you voted for it or not. If just any dissenter was allowed to disobey that law because they voted no, then there would be no point in voting on it in the first place.

I agree entirely, but I just want to know I bit more of how its enforced in the party. I mean, say I argued for plan of action Y, but was outvoted by plan of action X. I still disagree with action X and form a faction in support of plan Y. How is it enforced that I "carry out" action X and what does "carry out" action X mean in practical terms? I'm not arguing against the idea, I just still need to know how it applies in practical use since I haven't got to see it in action. I support democratic centralism, I just want to know how to correctly apply it.

[ContrarianLemming]

thoughts on democractic centralism: always central, never democratic.

[CartCollector]

The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Social_Democratic_Labour_Party) held at Petrograd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg) between July 26 and August 3 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows:


That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected;
That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organizations;
That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority;
That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.

The problems with democratic centralism come from points 3 and 4. With point 3, this can lead to censorship of opposing viewpoints within the Party under the guise of "strict Party discipline", and it encourages groupthink, especially when party members are forced to only speak the party line to outsiders while keeping their own opinions to themselves. Eventually, to prevent the chance of being thrown out of the Party, new opinions formed by members are repressed. This is bad for democracy and the survival of the Party as it leads to ideological stagnation.
Point 3 is especially dangerous in countries ruled by one Party- once you take a position that's opposed by the One True Party of the Working Class and its Glorious Vanguard, you're through. Good luck trying to form a competing Party without getting shot, er, "subordinated to the majority."

Which brings us to Point 4. In democratic centralism, there is not direct democracy, but a hierarchical distribution of power through elected representatives. This can work fairly well when, in an example when the Party comes to power, local issues are taken care of by local sections of the Party, while countrywide issues are handled by the Central Committee. However, this is not what point 4 lays out. It says that higher bodies can do anything they want and lower bodies have to unquestioningly obey them. This is a recipe for disaster in a system that is intended to be democratic. What's to stop the higher bodies from taking complete control over everything? What's to stop them from abolishing democratic centralism and instituting an openly oligarchial dictatorship? Remember, the highest bodies have power over everything, including the military.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: free speech is necessary for any democracy that isn't a sham, and if you're going to have federalism, all federal bodies must have specifically enunciated powers that can't be removed by anything but the people that they affect. Powers shouldn't be allowed to be removed on a whim by some power hungry sociopath.