Democratic centralism: myth and reality

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

John Reed's "10 Days that Shook the World" continues to provide new
revelations on how the Bolsheviks functioned as opposed to the formulaic
understanding of "democratic centralism" that continues to stunt the growth
and influence of a hundred different sects from various ideological
traditions. A while back
(http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2002w39/msg00154.htm), I
reported that according to Reed Lenin had a vigorous public debate with
Kameniev and Riazanov in the pages of the Bolshevik newspaper about whether
to take power or not.

Today I discovered that after taking power, there were divided votes among
party members over key questions such as whether to expropriate the
bourgeois press. On November 17th, at a mass meeting, Lenin called for the
confiscation of the capitalist newspapers. Reed quotes him: "If the first
revolution had the right to suppress the Monarchist papers, then we have
the right to suppress the bourgeois press."

And then, without skipping a beat, Reed reports:

"Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist
Revolutionaries was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was carried by
34 to 24. Among the minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov and Lozovsky, who
declared that it was impossible for them to vote against any restriction on
the freedom of the press."

What a dramatic contrast to my understanding of "democratic centralism"
that I learned in the Trotskyist movement. I have vivid recollections of
"fraction meetings" before some national antiwar conference. Somebody like
Gus Horowitz (Hi, Gus) would speak to the gathering and explain how
necessary it was to support a Nov. 11 date for a demonstration, as opposed
to some alternative date backed by "our opponents". We would be assigned to
cover various workshops where we would "motivate" Nov. 11th. At plenary
sessions, it would be important to watch for the votes of our "floor
leaders". God forbid we should accidentally not raise our hands when they
would. The implication is that we would be taken out to the woodshed and
spanked by a party leader.

Needless to say, the Bolsheviks did not function this way. One of these
days, I might try to find the time to study how what "democratic
centralism" meant in practice during the period leading up to 1917. I am
quite sure that not only did it look a lot different than what we have
today, but it was more effective. As a rule of thumb, working people are
unlikely to trust organizations that operate under a kind of robotic
discipline. If revolutionary organizations cannot capture the kind of
fractious but *united* spirit of the original Bolshevik party, then they
will never get anywhere.


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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