Re: Party structure - reply to Tom O'Lincoln on organisation

["Einde O'Callaghan" <einde@xxxxxx>]

Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
> In reply to Tom:
>
> I said:
>
>
> > > Lenin might have talked about democratic centralist theories
>
>
> You asked:
>
> Did he? I'd be grateful if comrades could tell me where.
>
> Reply:
>
> I did not say that Lenin used the term "democratic centralism" very much,
> this term came into popularised use from about 1920.

Actually Luxemburg used the term in 1904 when discussing the split in
the Russian movement. Trotsky used it quite a bit in the documents
included in "The First Five Years of the Communist International". He
also used it in his discussion of the split in "Our Political Tasks".
Gramsci and Bordiga also used the phrase when discussing organisational
principles.

And yes, Lenin did actually use the phrase (quite often) - for example,
in the document "Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" in 1918 and
in an article called "Terms of Admission into the Communist
International" in 1920 and in teh discussion of the national question in
1916 and in "Left-Wing Communism" - and its used several times in "State
and Revolution".

It was also the name of one of the opposition groups in the RCP(B) at
the time of the ban on factions. It was also used to describe the regime
within the communist parties during the Comintern debate on organisation.

Stekloff even used the phrase to describe the regime within the First
international in his "History of the First International". Riazanov also
uses the term in his book on Marx and Engels.

In total there are 171 hits for the phrase in tne Marxists' Internat
Archive according to Google. To replicate my search enter
"site:www.marxists.org and "democratic centralism" (including the
quotation marks) into the Google search box.

Einde O'Callaghan


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