But try to use the words democratic centralism today in broad circles. Many people who actually favor democratic centralism in one form or other respond in negative shock when the term is mentioned.
I noticed at the founding conference in Berkeley, California of the Committees of Correspondence how one keynote speaker made fun of the term "democratic centralism", to immense applause. I wondered just what people thought it meant that they should feel it was such a terrible thing. It is clear that the words now mean a Stalinist-like bureaucratic, top-down structure. The term's popular meaning has nothing in common with Lenin's views.
While this distortion of socialist, and Lenin's, ideas was developing in Stalinist organizations an interesting parallel development took place in the Trotskyist movement, which opposed and denounced the Stalinists for what they were.
The factual information on the crimes of Stalinism and truth about the internal regime in the USSR put out by the Trotskyist movement in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s is now accepted by almost everyone. In fact, all research has confirmed that the factual description of the internal reality of Stalinist society by Leon Trotsky was completely accurate. In judging Leon Trotsky historically this is quite important. Trotsky defended telling the truth to the world. He fought his whole life for what he saw as in the interest of working people worldwide, regardless of the consequences to him personally.
In the struggle against Stalinism the Trotskyist movement (by Trotskyist I mean supporters of Trotsky's views) focused its arguments on the difference between what Lenin had said and done and what the Stalinist were doing. Not to be confused with social democrats who denounced Stalinism but also Lenin, the Trotskyists emphasized heavily their support of Lenin. The Trotskyist of the late 1920s and 1930s could be characterized first of all by their heroic resistance with few resources to tell the full truth about Soviet "socialism" while still defending the original socialist ideal. Their other characteristic was their essential isolation from mass movements, and often little relevance in their countries' political life outside of issues involving the factional struggle stemming from the USSR's history.
Slowly a myth developed within the Trotskyist movement that to this day still has some support. That myth is that what Lenin did was gather a cadre around a "correct" program, build a hard, centralized organization and when the masses radicalized they were won over. Having won the masses Lenin's party was then able to take "power". A whole series of corollaries followed from this erroneous concept and, over time, became part of the Trotskyist dogma. One example of these corollaries was the belief that without a party like Lenin's working people could not take power. Of course, a party "like Lenin's" meant a party with a "correct program" well centralized, with internally disciplined cadre. The Trotskyists argued that only the Fourth International (Trotskyist movement) had a correct program. Therefore in their eyes success for the workers' movement, long-term, was directly dependent on the growth of the Fourth International. Any other possible development was essentially ruled out. During the 1940s, for example, almost every article written in the International Socialist Review, a monthly magazine of the North American followers of Trotsky, ended with the words "Only the Fourth International etc, etc."
Parties associated with the Fourth International, (in time there were a few Fourth Internationals) all referred to themselves as Leninist and each affiliated organization a Leninist Party. The conception which gradually became accepted within the Trotskyist movement of Lenin's party had very little to do with what Lenin had actually advocated in Russia and nothing whatsoever to do with what actually happened in pre-1917 Russia. It is crucial to review the ideological error that appeared within the Trotskyist movement around this issue and which consolidated the isolated (sectarian) existence and politics of these organizations into a culture and dogmatic set of political principles.
To fully discuss these concepts it is best to go back and outline what Lenin advocated and did. Lenin was a member of the broad workers' movement in Europe, called at the time the Second, or Socialist, international. That mass movement found some expression in Russia and eventually was quite influential among working people and the intelligentsia since it advocated an end to the Czarist dictatorship and the establishment of democracy, the end of feudal relations on the land, a land reform and an eight-hour day.
In Lenin's day all organizations associated with socialism were rife with debate. All kinds of views permeated the movement and various newspapers advocated one or other point of view. One wing of the movement was concerned that the power of the movement had made it possible for leaders to benefit personally. For instance trade union leaders or elected members of parliament, by working out deals or compromises with representatives of capital, could betray the interests of workers in return for privileges for themselves.
Such people were referred to as "reformist", meaning they sought only to gain some reforms within the framework of capitalism, rather than fight for a new, socialist society. Lenin began arguing that in order to fight against such a disorientation of the socialist movement and in order to challenge capital it was necessary to have a more solid movement, both organizationally and ideologically. He noted that natural leaders arise in the day-to-day struggles of working people and that the role of the socialist party was to organize these leaders into an organization to act as a pole of attraction, a class-struggle alternative.
The goal was to help mobilize the whole working class, to unite the class in action. The starting point of Lenin's conception was the existing mass movement. That was just taken for granted in his days. Everyone was talking about what a movement or organization clearly competing for the support of the masses of workers should do.
Lenin's concept of a "party" has no meaning without a mass base. Certainly small groups could appear in a country to begin work to establish the ideas of socialism among their working people but such groups to Lenin were simply propaganda groups such as had existed in Russia in the 19th century.
Lenin's attitude towards such groups, how they should be structured, how they should organize, always depended on their specific circumstances. In the world Lenin functioned in, that was prehistory. He was arguing about what to do once the working class as a whole had its own independent movement both economically (unions) and politically (party).
The concept of a "correct program" abstracted from the actual process of a living mass struggles is the opposite of Lenin's method, which saw the program as something that evolves, itself a process, defined by not only a mass movement but, in Lenin's situation, a mass movement involved in revolutionary struggles. Lenin and all those around him generally had a materialist view of ideas and recognized that they reflected material events.
In the period of revolutionary upsurge in Russia from 1903 to 1918, in which Lenin's ideas of organization and party building were formed, there was no such thing as an abstract "correct program". The party's program clearly evolved. It was a process. It was repeatedly changed and modified. Looking back to that period you can see how fast positions taken by Lenin's party changed, how the organization was in continuous debate. Differences were the norm, not the exception. Major mistakes could be overcome because the power of the developing mass movement helped Lenin's organization readjust.
One example was Lenin's opposition to the soviets, (workers' councils). With hindsight we can see that Lenin was sectarian in counterposing building a party to the councils. This position had serious negative effects in the struggles of the 1905 revolutionary explosion and its aftermath. Leaders in Lenin's party opposed him, positions were taken and carried out against his positions, ideas were publicly debated about these differences when legally possible.
Lenin's error was compounded when the revolutionary upswing of 1905 went into decline and he insisted the movement was not yet in decline. Quickly, as reality indicated otherwise, Lenin reversed his positions, including on the Soviets, which after 1906 he claimed should be supported.
Lenin's party, having tens of thousands of followers deeply rooted in the mass movement, rose and declined in active membership rather sharply depending on events. For instance, in 1912, after the defeat of the 1905 revolution, not a single unit of Lenin's party was still in existence or at least holding meetings in Moscow, the largest city of Russia.
Of course, that did not mean that thousands did not continue to agree with Lenin's party, but the repression made it difficult for its supporters to meet. The party that Lenin, the individual, participated in, which became known in history as the Bolshevik Party (meaning the Majority Party in Russian) had little, if any, similarity to what is often today called a Leninist party.
The idea that a group of a few hundred people who are not in the leadership of any mass movement, much less integrally involved in leading the working class as a social force, can be referred to as a Leninist party and having a "correct program" would never have crossed Lenin's mind. In 1918 Lenin would refer to such an idea as clowning.
By the 1940s, however, within the Trotskyist movement a conception had taken root that no matter how small or disconnected from the workers movement a group might be, if it had the "correct" program and a cadre, it was a Leninist Party and would eventually "win".
This was the "proven" Leninist way. What the Trotskyist movement did as a whole was drop the direct involvement with the living mass movement as a prerequisite for the development of a party. Thus "program" was separated from its social roots. In effect, program was separated from practice. Ideas were separated from their material basis.
In doing this, an idealist error, philosophically, was introduced. The first point of any program that has any meaning, and certainly one in which the word "correct" could in anyway be used, is one that has shown that a leadership link has been made with the working masses. Otherwise correct program begins to simply mean comments about the world, past history, predictions of events for the future, and so on.
The actual mass link is itself part of the premise of a program. For instance, recognizing in one's head what really happened in the history of the USSR is a good and useful thing. But it is not a program. Stating general outlines of the realities of capitalist society is useful, but it is not a program. A program is a living, complex process relating to the ongoing struggle that permeates our class-divided society — a struggle that is occurring now at this moment in a million different forms and at a whole spectrum of levels.
The rise of splits
But in this framework what then happens when two leaders disagree? Once you are functioning in this sectarian framework there is no way to resolve differences, and given that the very existence of the organization and its future success is believed to be tied to this ever-important "correct program", differences become very threatening.
Within the Trotskyist organizations a culture developed which formally claimed to allow differences to exist but in reality crushed any dissent. While the roots were very different, the forms in which dissent was crushed in Trotskyist groups had many similarities to how Stalinist groups crushed dissent. Of course, in Trotskyist groups dissidents were expelled, not shot.
Differences in sectarian groups inevitably led to splits. After a split, two organizations, each with its own "correct program", often confronted each other. The logic of this process was the proliferation of sects and cults. That process exploded within the Trotskyist movement.
The evolution of some of the groups became quite bizarre. Splits occurred in ever-growing numbers as groups became less and less involved in the living movements of their own countries. In fact, all social movements and mass struggles were more and more seen simply as recruiting arenas for the cult/sect with the correct program.
Cadres became the defenders of the Holy Grail, and usually there was in each group just one "Lenin of today" who could interpret and adjust the "program". If the "correct program" was maintained the masses would some day come. A sort of religious "our day will come" corollary developed to the correct program.
One such cult was that of Juan Posadas. I had the opportunity to meet Posadas in 1960 in Havana, Cuba. This, man was clearly certifiable. He believed he could communicate with his dog. When the dog died the Posadista Central Committee sang the internationals at his grave. Posadas also believed he could communicate the situation in Vietnam to his six-month-old grandchild. In later years, when the child was five, he was added to Posadas political bureau for his enlightening views.
Posadas advocated nuclear war and other utterly insane views. His origin was in the Trotskyist movement and he had hundreds of followers, primarily in Latin America. I understand there are still a few Posadistas in the world although Posadas passed away some time ago.
Moreno in Argentina was another quite colorful, but slightly more rational cultist with thousands of supporters. In England you had Healy, a man clearly deranged, who believed anyone who disagreed with him had to be an FBI agent. Yet he also had thousands of devoted followers, including the movie actress Vanessa Redgrave.
While the three mentioned above may have been somewhat extreme expressions of this phenomenon, in general all groups calling themselves Trotskyist had elements of sectarian and cult-like existence by the 1960s.
Also, amazing as it might seem, while these organizations produced endless written materials on all kinds of political phenomena, almost nothing can be found seeking to explain this astounding phenomena of the cultification of Trotskyist organizations. If you look closely you will see some of the same processes at work, although in a less extreme form in other sect/cults like that of the Lambertist in France or the ISO out of England.
The one group that I had an opportunity to experience personally was the development of the Barnes cult in the United States SWP. The SWP today is completely disconnected from reality. Its cult leader holds a series of bizarre political positions evolving in a manner quite similar to Moreno or Posadas.
The question is, why did groups, whose origins are in the struggle against Stalinism, evolve in this direction? This includes every group in the world influenced by James Cannon, with the exception of the DSP in Australia. What are the material roots of this phenomenon?
Since the DSP was originally formed in association with the North American SWP, it is of value for the DSP to look clearly At the origins of the sectification of the North American SWP.
The SWP did not become a sect because of Barnes the individual. Barnes himself is a product of what was wrong in the SWP. In my opinion the problem goes back to the isolation of the SWP from roots in the mass movement and involvement in living struggles. The idealist error I have mentioned above become codified in the outlook of the SWP beginning in the 1930s. Its sect-like nature was already evident in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but became more pronounced as time went on.
With the recruitment of a new generation in the 1960s the SWP faced a crisis. Its participation in the antiwar movement around Vietnam brought it somewhat closer to involvement in a living struggle, an important encounter with reality and the political tempo of the nation, something it had not really experienced since the labor struggles of the 1930s, in which the SWP did have some important participation.
The impact and conflict of its sectarian idealism and its materialist involvement in a struggle created an interesting reaction in the culture of the SWP. Its older leadership, especially that of Farrell Dobbs, but also others such as Tom Kerry, felt threatened. Others, such as Joe Hansen and George Breitman, had mixed feelings. I believe some were starting to understand the sectarian nature of the SWP, especially Joseph Hansen.
Barnes was the youth "leader" hand-picked to fight against the introduction of reality and potential de-dogmatization of the SWP's sect-like existence. In the 1970s Barnes began a conscious campaign to rid the SWP of its infection by people not molded into sect-like thinking. In private discussion Barnes spoke openly of the need to drive out over 50 per cent of the membership of the SWP.