[Marxism] The DSP's fresh approach to applying democratic centralism

[Haines Brown]

As for the DSP position on democratic centralism, I searched the
entire DSP site for that phrase (inexact procedure, I know, but it
surely would have exposed any real discussion of democratic
centralism), and had only four hits, none of which really discussed
democratic centralism per se:

1. One document assumes that discussion is basic to democratic
centralism and also unity in action.  This is all that is said other
than that democratic centralism is necessary to breath new life into
the DSP. While this implies two features associated with democratic
centralism, it is not a discussion of democratic centralism. It offers
the dubious proposition that organizational viability follows from
organizational principles.

2.  Next document is a discussion of James Cannon, and it is stated
that he supported democratic centralism. So this not a discussion of
democratic centralism either. Besides, I'm not sure that if this fact
is to praise or damn democratic socialism.

3. A Leninist party is said to implement democratic centralism to test
and refine the political line arrived at through discussion. I'm not
sure this is valid (it appears to represent revolution as the
realization of ideas rather than a contest over class power), and it
is not a discussion of democratic centralism in any case.

4. The International Workers League (LIT) holds the necessity of a
world party based on the principle of democratic centralism,
constituted at the national level by Leninist combat parties. And
further, the centralisation that was necessary at one particular
emergency for the Communist International doesn“¡¯t assist the building
of strong parties, able to think for themselves. This centralisation,
“¡°Cominternism“¡±, even with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, was a
hindrance. Off hand, this strikes me as self-contradictory, but in any
case it is not a discussion of democratic centralism, but whether the
principle of unity should extend to the international level (rejected
because author presumes an empiricist rather than Marxist definition
of the working class).

That's the sum total. The notion of democratic centralism is partly
defined only by implication, and it is not at all analyzed or
elaborated.

This is unfortunate for two reasons, I believe.

  One is that the concept has long been a source of division (starting
  with the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks), and so is in need of a
  systematic cogent defense and updating rather than just presumed and
  mechanically repeated.

  Second, the principle of democratic centralism is not just a way to
  reconcile democracy and unity in time of war or revolutionary
  struggle, for if it is explained rather than just defined it might
  well offer the basis of a new kind of (communist) society of the
  future (I'll not elaborate this point here).
-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM