What Is Democratic Centralism?

Democratic centralism, often defined using its slogan “freedom of discussion, unity of action”, is an internal party policy intended to enable theoretical debate without compromising the party's ability to take united revolutionary action. Specifically, restrictions are placed on any debate related to on-going revolutionary activity. Typically, but not always, this manifests itself in debates before the execution of any strategy, and a vote on the strategy that is to be taken. After said vote, all members are expected to abide by the winning decision. The intention of this system is to eliminate the chance of the party being divided in its actions, and to reduce vulnerability to ‘divide and rule’ by counter-revolutionary forces.

The severity of restrictions on debate vary by time and by party. In his 1906 essay, Lenin discusses the need for fewer restrictions on debate and criticises the RSDLP (at this time containing both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) for stifling discussion, stating that debate within the party should even be public, with only extreme exceptions:

During the elections (as in Baku today, for example), no member of the Party anywhere has any right ’whatever to call upon the people to abstain from voting; nor can “criticism” of the decision to take part in the elections be tolerated during this period, for it would in fact jeopardise success in the election campaign. Before elections have been announced, however, Party members everywhere have a perfect right to criticise the decision to take part in elections.

Contrast this with the 1921 Bolshevik party statement on party unity where, despite the defeat of the White Army, the Bolshevik party takes extreme measures to restrict debate. Even open factionalism was abolished, forcing factions to operate informally:

However, even before the general party discussion on the trade unions, there had come to light within the party certain signs of factionalism, i.e., of the appearance of groups with platforms of their own and with a will to close ranks to a certain extent and create their own group discipline.

It is essential that all class-conscious workers clearly realize the harmfulness and inadmissibility of any factionalism whatsoever which inevitably leads, in practice, to less friendly work and to repeated and intensified attempts by enemies of the ruling party who have attached themselves to it under false pretenses, to deepen the divisions and use them for purposes of counter-revolution.

Its Use Today

Under siege socialism, where the Soviet Union was isolated in a capitalist world due to the failure of the international revolution, restrictions on freedom of discussion increased as Stalinism took hold. The success of the Bolshevik revolution and the restrictions on admission to the Third International resulted in many non-Russian revolutionary parties adopting similar theoretical positions to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Today all Leninist parties, including the three major Trotskyist parties in the UK, all operate with a form of democratic centralism where public debate is heavily controlled. An exception is typically made in the case of small local branch meetings that are sometimes open to members of the public. Newspaper publications from all of these organisations are limited to repeating the same party position, with almost identical wording but in different contexts, on every page. Submissions by party members are usually edited to comply with the party’s accepted positions and wording, meaning that submissions from different members are lacking in the variety of tone and writing style that you would expect from articles written by different people. There is typically little to learn by reading more than one issue of most parties’ papers.

Why Democratic Centralism is Inappropriate Now

The historical degradation of “freedom of discussion” has been catastrophic for the theoretical robustness and development of revolutionary socialist parties. For Stalinist (“Marxist-Leninist”) parties, the collapse of a Soviet Union posed an insurmountable obstacle as their existing theory proved incapable of explaining how such an extreme catastrophe (in their eyes) could occur.

The Trotskyist parties can rely on a few more decades of theoretical development relative to the Stalinists due to the work of Trotsky until his death in 1940, and have hence not undergone the same collapse as the Stalinist parties. Nonetheless, the use of democratic centralism for such an extended period of time means has resulted in a limited party elite being responsible for theoretical debate, typically those who have spent significant time being taught preformulated Trotskyist theory and have shown that they are unlikely to seriously challenge the interpretations they are taught. The requirement to adhere to the present theoretical interpretations before being permitted to engage in meaningful debate makes it unsurprising then that these parties form typical socialist “gerontocracies”.

An extreme example of this is visible in the Socialist Party (CWI), formerly Militant. In its early days of the 70s, it had a strong youth wing whose members had significant independence and responsibility within the party. During this period Militant’s achievements include temporarily winning control of the Liverpool Council and playing a significant role in the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign. Today its candidates struggle to win a single percentage point of votes in local elections for TUSC, despite a decade of austerity-driven mass immiseration. Its leading theoreticians, who maintain a monopoly on meaningful debate within the party, brush aside genuine challenges to their positions using reductive theory. Youth members join and leave at an alarming rate, those who should be a source of insight into the dynamic realities of capitalism have no say in the party’s policy until they are proven to adhere to its existing positions. This reduces the purpose of theoretical knowledge to opportunistic ladder climbing, instead of its vital role in developing an up-to-date understanding of society and giving new members the opportunity to contribute their interpretations and experiences. Not only does this create a set of party policies that do not reflect the state and attitudes of working people, it denies new members the opportunity to develop their understanding of political theory through meaningful challenges to party positions.

Despite their limited understanding of Marxism, the political opinions of new members reflect the current state of political consciousness and are reflective of the current mechanisms through which working people interact with capitalism. The widespread popularity of identity politics is not some bourgeois propaganda victory, but should be recognised in the context of the extreme detachment between workers and industrial production in a service based economy. For those who do not interact with physical industry, the essential contradictions of capitalism are difficult to perceive beyond the idealistic struggles between aesthetically distinct groups of people. A political party with relevant, adaptive theoretical knowledge would take advantage of the insight granted by new members to increase the robustness of its analysis and understand what slogans and strategies can resonate with working people.

What Now?

Democratic centralism played a vital role in the Russian Revolution, enabling the Bolshevik party to act decisively during critical moments, whilst facilitating the debate and adjustment of tactical positions to match the realities on the ground. However, the use of democratic centralism by revolutionary parties for decades has rendered their analysis irrelevant and hopelessly detached from the ground realities. And it denies party members the right to meaningfully debate their position, robbing Marxist theory of its liberating potential.

Without a strong understanding of the economic and social state of society, any revolutionary party will be incapable of reliably strategising a way out of the nightmare that is currently life for many working people. Through modern democratic centralism, a political ‘old guard’ has a stranglehold on communist theory which must be broken in order to avoid further descent into a new age of barbarism.