The Socialist Parties: A Collective Problem (part 2 expansion and corrections on the original)

If you have not read my first entry on this subject you can find part one here where I try to explain the reason why democratic centralism naturally degenerates in bureaucracy. I wrote part one when the topic was very personal to me and I made some simple minded errors that make me disgraced to admit I had ever written it. Instead of deleting it and pretending I never wrote it I would like to make corrections and expand on why democratic centralism often becomes corrupt. A comrade that has been around for a while showed me one of the major errors of that article and I will address all the problems with my first article first.


In the first entry I wrote: "Even Trotskyist use the democratic centralism model in most of their parties but when a party or country degenerates to bureaucratic centralism the trots call that party/country Stalinist. Of course a Trotskyist is never going to pass up a chance to jab at Stalin but in reality it was Lenin's model of democratic centralism that is/was incorrect."- I would like to be clear that I was wrong in this statement because the fact is that parties who have degenerated from DCism into dictatorship of the leadership are not following real Leninism. Lenin called for open detailed debate and that the party would then chose the best course of action. What happens in most parties in the US is that their leader or leaders make all the choices and the rank and file are expected to follow suit or else they are party traitors. And do not be fooled I have heard this story multiple time from members of Trotskyist, Hoxhaist, Maoist, ML and any other party. But I wanted to clear myself for my mistaken ideas of attacking Lenin's style dcism when it is not a historical figures fault but it differs on a party to party basis. I would like to reiterate that this is not a form of "Stalinism" but is a dialectal problem and should not be so simply brushed off.


I also said: "When a party starts there are usually a few members who are more dedicated than others or do more work than other members. This rightfully earns this said person a certain amount of respect among the founding members and new members. So they are elected to a seat of power. The problem is that as time goes on the people who started the group want to make sure things are run the way they want and that they stay in charge. So what ends up happening is that the original members end up with multiple seats or too much power."- I was mainly wrong in writing this in that corruption doesn't have to start at the beginning. It can also happen after a certain wing takes over main seats in the party. The person who is the leader will assign people that follow his line or people that will parrot everything they say to the point that democracy is not even needed in the party because everyone 'already agrees' but in reality this is corruption. What will then happen is that any one in the party who challenges the leadership on party lines or tactics, the leadership will say that you are disrespecting the choice of the party when in reality you may just disagree with the leaders who have no desire for real line struggle.


"we may need to do away with democratic centralism all together."- I think this statement was a result of my emotions I fear because we do need democratic centralism. But there needs to be more emphasis put on the democracy of the many. A small central committee made up of all like minded people shouldn't control a whole party. I think this is the reason that the corruption problem lies within most parties CC's.

A suggested solution: Central Committee's should be made up of people of different ideas and backgrounds. If you have healthy debate and different representatives in the CC I believe this could help eliminate the corruption problem most parties face. There is no reason why then people who are all friends and who all believe in the same exact line should all be on the CC. There should be a wide variety of ages on a CC also. Young people are more militant and adventurous when it comes to politics and older comrades seem to be more reserved and calculating (in a good way). We need a healthy mix of the two, not one or the other extreme.


I wrote at the end: "Obviously this writer knows he doesn't have all the answers but I am sick of seeing hundreds of intelligent individuals walking around parroting what their leaders, elders and party tell them to."- this I still believe and yes it still makes me sick.


I still have a deep mistrust of democratic centralism but this does not mean that I do not think it can not be properly implemented. I still think that communal democracy could be a good substitute or should be intertwined with democratic centralism. I am still a strong supporter of local chapters, cells or whatever they are called in a party having more power over their locals than the national party. As I said in my last post: "Communal socialism would be better because how is some one in LA or DC or NYC suppose to know what we need in Mississippi or Illinois or Colorado etc? Only the people from those areas know exactly what they are producing and what they need. Each area would be more personally in charge of themselves and thus wouldn't feel the constant oppression of the centralized state." I still uphold this view.


Another problem I see is that the rank and file members of a group or party dogmatically defend their own submission to these kind of fake democratic centralism's. I think this half stems from a kind of sub-understanding of what real democratic centralism is and the other half can be contributed two ways. One; the dogmatic nature of communist who think just because Lenin said or wrote something and their party quotes him out of context that the must be right. And two; the party or group itself twist the ideas of democratic centralism to mean that rank and file members listen and are subordinate to their leaders and to self criticize or try to create a line struggle is against what Lenin taught and thus you are a naughty commie and need to be punished.


I think it may be time to start having Marxist Leninist debate nights between groups so as to force people to be theoretically involved and to force people to think outside of their parties little box. I for one can not stand when you are having a debate with someone from a party/ORG about their political line and all they do is shove their fingers in their ears and repetitively say the same thing their parties site says over and over again.


There is no reason why a group with less than 300 members should all be subordinate to 7-15 people. That is ridiculous and no one can make a strong enough claim to me that this is in any way democratic. Which brings me to my next point which is when the dogmatics after being out debated say 'well you have a liberal/bourgeois idea of democracy'. Democracy is a word that cannot mean but one thing. If we use word parts here it means "rule of the people" (google it if you don't believe me) so how can you call your group "democratic" centralist if you don't use democracy? In fact you are using a bourgeois definition of the word if you are defending a few people ruling over the greater number of people in your group. As this is how the bourgeoisie use the word democracy is to say that a few rule over the masses.


In short I think we need a open national debate on democratic centralism and what it means and how to use it properly. I think the true idea of democratic centralism has become lost and distorted to benefit a few leaders when it is meant to benefit the greater populace in a group.


I would really love to see some comments and peoples ideas at the bottom of this page. It is time to start discussing things of this nature.




Written by; Dustin Slagle

On the Question of Allowing Factions in the Party.

I'd like to start by mentioning that I am referring to factions with in a party who's guiding system is Democratic Centralism. There are many sides to this argument and many differing reasons why one supports or does not support factions with in a party.


Most believe that factions within a party will only lead to an inevitable split within that party. There is no evidence to suggest that this would happen but there is no evidence to the contrary. I would like to take this subject from an objective stance. I would love to have comments on this post and see what others think on the subject.


One down side could be that important issues could cause a split or if a hot button issues is decided by only a few percentage like 55-45% on a vote it could cause anger and division among the party.


On the other hand, greater inner democracy could create a feeling of unity within the party and energize some members that would otherwise be down heartened with the bureaucracy of the normal democratic centralist party. I for one would enjoy a party where I could express my individual ideas behind closed doors with other members of my party that shared my same ideas. Then take those ideas to the central committee to be voted on at a congress. It would make me feel more empowered and give me a greater feeling of duty to the party.


Something that comes to mind when I think about a party that would allow multiple factions in it; is that with factions openly encouraged the party could grow larger. For example if a party let everyone in that adhered to any form of Marxist Leninist theory than everything from Leninist to Stalinist and Maoist could join the party. As a Maoist in this country at this time there is no party that truly represents my ideas as a Maoist. I would not and will not join a party that will not allow me to be openly Maoist and express my Maoist ideas and theories. I would join a party if I could openly propagate and advocate a Maoist line with in the party.


However I do not think this idea could work with all the communist tendencies, I do not see a world where Maoist and Trotskyist could be in the same party and peacefully exist. I think an attempt to do so would be a waste of time and resources.


I will touch a little more on this subject in an upcoming post that will be about "A Unified Communist Party of America."

The Socialist Parties: A Collective Problem

It is no secret that all the socialist parties seems to share one common trait; bureaucracy. As a person who has been a active socialist for some 6 years plus now, and has many friends in the communist movement. One story seems constant to me, the story of un-democratic bureaucracy ruling over the party. Or to put it plainly bureaucratic-centralism. To someone who may not know what this means, it means that instead of the majority choosing how things are run there are a few (leaders) members who make all or most of the decisions and the majority is expected to parrot (follow) the decision. If the bureaucracy has reached a high level than any criticism of the leaders decisions are usually treated as treason or you are simply purged from the party.


Democratic centralism is suppose to be where the majority chose what to do in a certain situation or the majority decide what stance the party will take on certain issues. And the people in the minority are expected to follow and defend the choice. A common slogan is "freedom of discussion, unity of action."

But why and where does this problem come from? I will attempt to answer these questions in this entry. Some people simply write it off as Stalinism, but this not only lacks in-depth analysis but also blindly ignores dialect materialism. The fact is that most all revolutionary (and non-revolutionary)socialist parties suffer from this to one degree or another.


Why did this problem develop?: This is no easy answer. Since democratic centralism started a long time ago it is hard to pin point exactly when it went wrong. So I will go with something that should be fairly obvious. Even Trotskyist use the democratic centralism model in most of their parties but when a party or country degenerates to bureaucratic centralism the trots call that party/country Stalinist. Of course a Trotskyist is never going to pass up a chance to jab at Stalin but in reality it was Lenin's model of democratic centralism that is/was incorrect. This writer personally believes if Lenin was alive today he would say the same thing. One thing communist seem to ignore is that we should always be advancing and moving forward. Of course it was not Lenin's fault it turned into a bureaucracy as I believe he would have called for a different approach if he would have seen what democratic centralism was to become.


In reality democratic centralism naturally leads to bureaucracy. When a party starts there are usually a few members who are more dedicated than others or do more work than other members. This rightfully earns this said person a certain amount of respect among the founding members and new members. So they are elected to a seat of power. The problem is that as time goes on the people who started the group want to make sure things are run the way they want and that they stay in charge. So what ends up happening is that the original members end up with multiple seats or too much power. New members of a party may take years to realize the level of bureaucracy in their party, especially if the party lets its new members vote on the small things giving the member a false sense of inner democracy.

Some parties claim they use democratic centralism yet they just tell their members the party believes this about China or that about China (just an example) and expects the new members to parrot these stances even though the party never held a vote on the issues. Usually a parties "Central Committee" decides on the parties stances on issues, but why does a small group think they should decide what is the best stance for a party? Well since these people are nominated by other party members some people parrot that this is real democracy, but is it? No, this is another fault of democratic centralism today. A small number of older members just ends up running the party and making all the major choices.


The biggest problem that develops after this stage is when a member offers a criticism of the parties theoretical line or stances on a certain issue, they are usually treated as a traitor or are accused of not following democratic centralism. What happens next is that when the party should take his/her criticism seriously and figure out the best way forward theoretically, instead the criticizer is kicked out of the party.

Parties that claim to use dialect materialism should always be open to changing a position on an issue or international situation. If a party/org kicks one of their members out of for criticizing the theoretical line then that party does not follow dialect materialism and should not claim so. A party can expect its members to defend the parties choices but if the party does not include all or most party members in the decision making process then it is not following true democratic centralism. My point being that it is hard to up hold democratic centralism in the first place.

I'm not the kind of person to just write a criticism without offering some kind of alternative or a way to fix the said problem.

So how do we fix this bureaucracy with in democratic centralism? Well dogmatism in a communist might say we need to reform it. But the fact of the matter is we may need to do away with democratic centralism all together. Ive had many discussions with people about democratic centralism and no one has shown me a way to reform democratic centralism that would eliminate the bureaucratic element.

Since it does not seem possible to reform democratic centralism we must resort back to our revolutionary roots and find something new. This brings to mind something that has been tried before but was dismantled by the right wing of the CPC. Communal democracy and a communal run planned economy.

I do not personally believe that there has ever been a better example of true democracy in either a country or a party that represented the masses to the fullest. Plus we know from experiences that democratic centralism run on a national scale quickly turns sour and eventually ends up oppressing people who speak outside of what the party says it is okay to speak out against. Communal socialism would be better because how is some one in LA or DC or NYC suppose to know what we need in Mississippi or Illinois or Colorado etc? Only the people from those areas know exactly what they are producing and what they need. Each area would be more personally in charge of themselves and thus wouldn't feel the constant oppression of the centralized state.

Obviously this writer knows he doesn't have all the answers but I am sick of seeing hundreds of intelligent individuals walking around parroting what their leaders, elders and party tell them to. It is time for the communist to start using dialect materialism correctly again, it is time for a revolution!

Written by: Dustin Slagle

(I plan to expand on this)