Democratic centralism is the organisational principle of communist states and of most communist parties to reach dictatorship of the proletariat. In practice, democratic centralism means that political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of revolutionaries practice democratic centralism to select leaders and officers, determine policy, and execute it.[1]
Democratic centralism has primarily been associated with Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyist parties,[2][3] but has also occasionally been practised by other democratic socialist and social democratic parties such as South Africa's African National Congress. Scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism was implemented in practice in the Soviet Union and China, pointing to violent power struggles, backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige in those states.[4]
Socialist states, such as the former Soviet Union and present-day China, have made democratic centralism the organisational principle of the state, and the political power principle being unitary power.
Democratic centralism is a form of organisation that Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, and other democratic centralists abide by, both when having seized the government and also while trying to seize it. Most communist parties have a democratic centralist structure.
In party meetings, a motion (new policy or amendment, goal, plan or any other kind of political question) is moved (proposed). After a period of debate, a vote is taken. If one vote clearly wins (gaining a share of 60% or above among two options, for example) all party members are expected to follow that decision, and not continue debating it. The goal is to avoid decisions being undermined by participants whose views are in the minority. In the development of socialism in the Soviet Union and China, it was implemented in response to rapid political developments, which required faster mechanisms of decision-making.
Before an issue has been voted on and carried out, discussion and criticism is permitted in all forms. Once a resolution is being carried out, discussion and criticism which may disrupt unity in performing the action is forbidden, to ensure that the action is not derailed.[5] In several socialist states, related practices were also adopted to ensure freedom of discussion, such as Mao's "Don't Blame the Speaker".[6]
Some Trotskyist and orthodox Marxist perspectives describe "deficient" forms of democratic centralism as "bureaucratic centralism," often those espoused by Marxist-Leninists. According to these views, bureaucratic centralism de-prioritises democracy, and thus fails to serve the interests of the proletariat.
The text What Is to Be Done? from 1902 is popularly seen as the founding text of democratic centralism. At this time, democratic centralism was generally viewed as a set of principles for the organizing of a revolutionary workers' party. However, Vladimir Lenin's model for such a party, which he repeatedly discussed as being "democratic centralist", was the German Social Democratic Party, inspired by remarks made by the social democrat Jean Baptista von Schweitzer. Lenin described democratic centralism as consisting of "freedom of discussion, unity of action".[1]
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 organization.
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.[8]
After the successful consolidation of power by the Communist Party following the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin, instituted a ban on factions in the party as Resolution No. 12 of the 10th Party Congress in 1921. It was passed in the morning session on 16 March 1921.[9] Trotskyists sometimes claim that this ban was intended to be temporary, but there is no language in the discussion at the 10th Party Congress suggesting such.[10]
The Group of Democratic Centralism was a group in the Soviet Communist Party who advocated different concepts of party democracy.
In On Party Unity, Lenin argued that democratic centralism prevents factionalism. He argued that factionalism leads to less friendly relations among members and that it can be exploited by enemies of the party. Lenin wrote of democratic centralism that it "implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party."[11]
By the Brezhnev period, democratic centralism was described in the 1977 Soviet Constitution as a principle for organizing the state: "The Soviet state is organized and functions on the principle of democratic centralism, namely the electiveness of all bodies of state authority from the lowest to the highest, their accountability to the people, and the obligation of lower bodies to observe the decisions of higher ones."
For much of the time between the era of Joseph Stalin and the 1980s, the principle of democratic centralism meant that the Supreme Soviet, while nominally vested with great lawmaking powers, did little more than approve decisions already made at the highest levels of the Communist Party. When the Supreme Soviet was not in session, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet performed its ordinary functions. It also had the power to issue decrees in lieu of law. Nominally, if such decrees were not ratified at the Supreme Soviet's next session, they were considered revoked. However, ratification was usually a mere formality, though occasionally even this formality was not observed.[12] Thus, decisions made by the Party's top leaders de facto had the force of law.
The democratic centralist principle extended to elections in the Soviet Union. All socialist countries were—either de jure or de facto—one-party states. In most cases, the voters were presented with a single list of unopposed candidates, which usually won 90 percent or more of the vote.[13]
The Third International, in contrast with the First and the Second Internationals, held the Soviet Union in a central position and functioned as one big body instead of many independent communist parties in different countries.[14]
Article 3. The state organs of the People's Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial, and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate. The division of functions and powers between the central and local state organs is guided by the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local authorities under the unified leadership of the central authorities.[19]
Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam is organized according to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. According to the regulations of the Party, democratic centralism is performed following these rules:[20]
Party leadership bodies at all level are chosen by voting. Practicing the collective leadership with individual responsibility.
Highest Party leadership body is the National Congress. Regional leadership bodies are the corresponding representative assembly. Between the two congress events, the executive leadership body is the Central Committee, regional executing leadership bodies are the Party Committees.
A regional committee has to report to and take responsibility before the Party assembly at the same level and the committees at the below and above level. It has to periodically report its situation to the relevant Party bodies and perform criticism and self-criticism.
Party members and bodies have to obey the Party Resolutions. Minority has to obey majority, bodies at lower level has to obey the ones at higher level, individual has to obey the whole team, the Party bodies have to obey the National Congress and Central Committee.
The draft Resolution can only be passed when over half of the corresponding assembly members approve. Before voting, all assembly members have the rights to debate and express their own opinions. Members of the minority groups have the right to reserve their own opinions, but they have to fully obey the Party Resolution and are not allowed to sabotage the Resolution. The authoritative Party bodies should conduct a research about the minority opinions and are not allowed to discriminate against the "minority" members.
The Party bodies are allowed to make decisions within their assigned authority, however the decisions are not allowed to violate the general principles and policies of the Party, the state's laws, the Resolution of the Party bodies at the higher levels.
Laos
The Lao People's Revolutionary Party which governs the nation of Laos applies democratic centralism. The party's centralised and hierarchical organisational structure is based on democratic centralism, which was conceived by Vladimir Lenin.[21][22] This structure entails that lower party organs obey the decisions of the higher ones, such as the LPRP Central Committee.[22] It also entails a ban on internal party factions.[22] In the end, every decision-making organ has to be guided by the principle of collective leadership, a process that emphasises collegial decision-making, in contrast to one-person dominance.[22] LPRP General Secretary Kaysone Phomvihane, in a speech to the 5th National Congress in 1991, stated "that our Party's democracy is a centralised one. Therefore, we must strictly implement the principle according to which the minority must yield to the majority; the lower leading organisation execute the upper leading organisation's orders. The whole Party follows the Central Committee."[23]
Article 5 of the Constitution of Laos states that the state and its organizations "function in accordance with the principle of democratic centralism".[24]
↑ Cabestan, Jean-Pierre (2024). "Organisation and (Lack of) Democracy in the Chinese Communist Party: A Critical Reading of the Successive Iterations of the Party Constitution". In Doyon, Jérôme; Froissart, Chloé (eds.). The Chinese Communist Party: A 100-Year Trajectory. Canberra: ANU Press. ISBN9781760466244.
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a far-left faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917, and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party's ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, is known as Bolshevism.
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. Lenin's ideological contributions to the Marxist ideology relate to his theories on the party, imperialism, the state, and revolution. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism.
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism, Leninism, Marxism, and the works of Karl Kautsky. It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.
A politburo or political bureau is the highest political organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in non-communist parties, such as the Political Bureau of Hamas. Politburos are part of the governing structure in most former and existing communist states.
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term "communist party" was popularized by the title of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As a vanguard party, the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the socialist movement in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction and the Menshevik faction. To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism which allowed the centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries. Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. His relations with Lenin have been a source of intense historical debate. However, on balance, scholarly opinion among a range of prominent historians and political scientists such as E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny, Richard B. Day and W. Bruce Lincoln was that Lenin’s desired “heir” would have been a collective responsibility in which Trotsky was placed in "an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted ".
Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comintern after its Bolshevisation, and the communist states within the Comecon, the Eastern Bloc, and the Warsaw Pact. After the peak of Marxism–Leninism, when many communist states were established, the Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states; however, Communism remained the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and to a lesser extent, North Korea. During the later part of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states.
The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia. They advocated for the transfer of national economic management to trade unions. The group was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, Sergei Medvedev, Alexandra Kollontai and Yuri Lutovinov. It officially existed until March 1921 when it was forced to dissolve by the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and semi-clandestinely until the subsequent 11th Congress in 1922, where its main exponents teetered dangerously on the verge of being purged for fractionist activity. In some aspects, it was close with the German council communist movement, although there is no information about direct contacts between these groups.
The Bulgarian Communist Party was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1990, when the country ceased to be a socialist satellite state of the Soviet Union. The party had dominated the Fatherland Front, a coalition that took power in 1944, late in World War II, after it led a coup against Bulgaria's tsarist regime in conjunction with the Red Army's crossing of the border. It controlled its armed forces, the Bulgarian People's Army.
The New Communist movement (NCM) was a diverse left-wing political movement during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. The NCM were a movement of the New Left that represented a diverse grouping of Marxist–Leninists and Maoists inspired by Cuban, Chinese, and Vietnamese revolutions. This movement emphasized opposition to racism and sexism, solidarity with oppressed peoples of the third-world, and the establishment of socialism by popular revolution. The movement, according to historian and NCM activist Max Elbaum, had an estimated 10,000 cadre members at its peak influence.
The 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during March 8–16, 1921 in Moscow, Russia. The congress dealt with the issues of the party opposition, the New Economic Policy, and the Kronstadt rebellion, which started halfway through the Congress. The Congress was attended by 694 voting delegates and 296 non-voting delegates.
Communism is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.
In 1921, factions were banned in the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) according to democratic centralism. Vladimir Lenin described the ban as temporary and had criticised a proposed amendment for a permanent ban as "excessive" and "impracticable". The ban was seen as temporary by contemporaries during the period.
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.
Under a variety of names and within a number of organizations over at least 17 years, the group around Harry Turner, or Turnerites was a presence within Trotskyism in the United States.
People's democracy is a theoretical concept within Marxism–Leninism that advocates the establishment of a multi-class and multi-party democracy during the transition from capitalism to socialism. People's democracy was developed after World War II and implemented in a number of European and Asian countries as a result of the people's democratic revolutions of the 1940s.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat, or working class, holds control over state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional phase from a capitalist to a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution, and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.
Trade Union Debate was a political discussion that took place between late 1920 and the spring of 1921 within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, concerning the role and function of trade unions in Soviet Russia. At a time when the Soviet government was transitioning from the extreme centralization of War Communism to a more mixed economic policy under the New Economic Policy (NEP), trade unions became the focus of an ideological struggle within the Party. The debate highlighted divergent views on whether trade unions should maintain autonomy from the state or be directly integrated into the apparatus of the state.
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