Democratic Centralism - Before Stalin

Before Stalin

The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) held at Petrograd between July 26 and August 3, 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows:

1. That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected;
2. That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organizations;
3. That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority;
4. That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.

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, 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.

The doctrine of democratic centralism served as one of the sources of the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks supported a looser party discipline within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, as did Leon Trotsky, in Our Political Tasks, although Trotsky joined ranks with the Bolsheviks in 1917.

After the successful consolidation of power by the Communist Party following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin, instituted a ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party as Resolution No. 12 of the 10th Party Congress in 1921. It was passed in the morning session on March 16, 1921. Supporters of Trotsky sometimes claim that this ban was intended to be temporary. But there is no language in the discussion at the 10th Party Congress suggesting that it was intended to be temporary.

The Group of Democratic Centralism was a group in the Soviet Communist Party who advocated different concepts of party democracy.