Democratic centralism trotsky biography
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II. Strategy and Tactics in the Imperialist Epoch
Leon Trotsky
The Third International
After Lenin
(Part 4)
The Question of the Internal Party Regime
The Causes of the Defeat of the Opposition and its Perspectives
The Question of the Internal Party Regime
The organizational questions of Bolshevism are inseparably bound up with questions of program and tactics. The draft program touches this subject only in passing by referring to the necessity of &#;maintaining the strictest revolutionary order of democratic centralism.&#; This is the sole formula defining the internal party regime, and, besides, it is quite a new formula. We were aware that the party regime rests upon the principles of democratic centralism. This presupposed in theory (and was also carried out in practice) that the regime of democratic centralism implied a full opportunity for the party to discuss, criticize, express dissatisfaction, elect, and depose, just as it involved an iron discipline in
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Democratic centralism
Organisational principle of socialist/communist states and of communist parties
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 bygd 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 bygd other democratic socialist and social democratic parties such as South Africa's African National församling. Scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism was implemented in practice in the Soviet Union and China,
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Trotsky on building the party
Leon Trotsky and the Organizational Principles of the Revolutionary Party was originally written during an internal crisis in the American Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The authors, Diane Feeley, Paul Le Blanc, and Thomas Twiss were writing in response to the erosion of democracy within the organization and the swing towards complete adoption of the models of social change and revolution being put forward in Castro’s Cuba. With dissenting members being harassed and discussion of the shift almost nonexistent, these three committed revolutionaries set out to assemble a document which would put forward not just a defense of inner party democracy, but to begin to distill the lessons on building organization assembled by Leon Trotsky throughout his decades as a revolutionary.
While the context in which the book has been written has long since passed, and its defense of democracy within the SWP ultimately unsuccessful, the writings they assembled—essent