Theory and the question of organization (part 1)

Since its formation in 2020, the Tempest Collective has published a number of articles and discussions on the question of revolutionary organization. The collective argues that there is a crisis among the revolutionary Left due to its increased marginalization from the working class. In addition, there is a crisis among the Left generally, which has capitulated to the politics of liberal and social democratic politics internationally.

Accordingly, Tempest member Aaron Amaral has outlined his thoughts regarding how the question of organization today should be approached in a way distinct from, and critical of, other tendencies among revolutionary socialists.

This contribution is sympathetic to that outline, the Tempest project, the way it approaches the question of organization today, and the open disposition that permeates the collective. This article looks at the question of organization through its relationship to theory.

Organization in the abstract

There is a tendency among revolutionary socialists in the Trotskyist tradition1Although the discussion could be applied more broadly to Stalinist and Maoist groups, the audience for this contribution are those sympathetic to a “socialism-from-below” perspective. to treat the question of organization abstractly:2A flurry of analysis theorizing the party took place in the 1970s within the International Socialists tendency in Great Britain. See Chris Harman, “Party and Class,” 1968; Duncan Hallas, “Towards a Revolutionary Socialist Party,” 1971; Tony Cliff, Building the Party, 1975 and John Molyneux, Marxism and the Party,1978. Within the Trotskyist tradition see Ernest Mandel, “The Leninist Theory of Organization,” 1970 and Paul LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (Chicago: Haymarket Books, [1993] 2015). That is, apart from other important and even more decisive considerations for revolutionary socialists to grapple with today.

This is understandable: The one successful revolution where the working class took political power and held out for an extended period of time on a national level was the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolshevik Party, being a constituent part of the working class, was able to argue for working people and all oppressed to take power into their hands and fight to build a socialist society.

In contrast, all other revolutions have ended before the working class could take power, with such exceptions as the more localized and brief experiences of the Paris Commune in 1870-1871 and Catalonia in 1936-1837.

The conclusion is obvious: If a working class revolution is to succeed over the long term and with the pretension to extend globally, organization of that class into a political party is indispensable.

Digging a little deeper, organization is necessary because of the “uneven consciousness” that exists among the working class and oppressed.3Lenin, “I. Paragraph One of the Rules” in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (The Crisis in our Party) and Raya Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom (Columbia University Press, 1988), 180. On a given day, some workers may be pushed to act in a way that strengthens the collective solidarity of the class as a whole; others may remain simply indifferent or take a position against the class (kissing up to management, strike-breaking, or acting against particularly oppressed groups within the class). The lack of confidence within this class to organize a fight back and build a better world affects class consciousness; the latter likewise conditions levels of confidence.

Following the Bolshevik example, building a revolutionary party (a “vanguard party”) would help overcome the challenge of mixed consciousness. This would be an organization of experienced radical leaders who are formally organized as revolutionaries in a party organization (“cadres”) immersed within the broader leadership of the working class and oppressed who are not. By fighting all political reaction, they influence a broader section of the class in order to prepare it for revolution. It is only through the experience of a political organization over time where cadres gain the confidence as a collective to lead struggle among their class.

That organization is essential to the success of a revolutionary movement is undisputed here. What is disputed is this being an important question in-and-of-itself. The critical question today is not that party organization is essential but how it is constituted.

Placing organization in context

Certainly, if one were to look at the death of a revolutionary movement and perform an autopsy, it would confirm the long-held contention within the Trotskyist tradition and its offshoots on the indispensability of revolutionary party organization for the success of the movement and the lack thereof for its defeat.

But to then take that conclusion in isolation from other factors and to apply it to living movements of today would be the equivalent of the coroner assessing the death of a person to be a heart attack and concluding that living people now only need to concern themselves with the heart to maintain longevity.

It is the same with a revolutionary movement. Organization is critical; without it defeat is certain. But the success of a revolutionary movement involves other critical factors that merge with organization and are even more critical in determining the success of the organization itself.

The limitation of reducing the problem of revolution to one of organization is that it looks in a reverse historical direction, deducing what is decisive in revolution from what was unique in the Bolshevik Party. Instead what is needed is to understand how the Bolshevik party eventually formed. This requires looking forward historically from the conditions that were necessary for its formation.

It also demands a broader view of Leninism. Natalia Tylim is quite right in her recent observation:

[T]here is a misunderstanding of the Leninist tradition, or what is meant by “Leninism.” Leninism is a rich and adaptive political tradition, but it has too often become defined as a fetishized organizational form: a bureaucratized democratic centralism. At heart, Leninism is defined by something most of us will probably find uncontroversial: that organizations should have democratic decision-making and centralized action. This notion didn’t start with Lenin. But what came to define the Leninist political tradition was a bizarre form where unity of action too often gave way to an unhealthy and uncritical unity of thinking.

Leninism, like Marxism, can be understood as the dialectical unity of three elements: revolutionary theory, organization, and strategy/tactics.

For revolutionaries today theoretical inquiry involves a scientific understanding of the functioning of capitalism in general as well as analyzing it concretely in a given historical period (“conjuncture”) and geographical space. For example, how do we understand the post-WWII economy, the neoliberal period, and the post-2008 economy? How do we understand these periods in the Global North and South? How do we understand the relationship between exploitation under capitalism and its institutional oppression along the lines of race, sex, gender, and disability?

Theoretical inquiry also entails analyzing social classes within capitalist society, how it shapes the working class, and looking at its forms of resistance, particularly among especially oppressed groups within it.

Theory is gray; it is an abstract approximation to reality that needs continual verification and updating. From the general outlines of theory and the intellectual work that substantiates, modifies, or negates it, one can develop a “perspective” that informs a plan of action (a strategy and corresponding set of tactics) around which revolutionaries and the broader working class movement can discuss, implement, and assess in order to strengthen their collective resistance. In the parlance of the socialist movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a more fully developed perspective that had the pretension of influencing a broader working class movement—by winning them to a specific set of demands or goals—was referred to as a “program.”

Organization is the vehicle through which the theory and strategy/tactics (“practice”) are fused. The habitat for keeping the three elements of theory, organization, and strategy/tactics growing and developing together is a developing working class movement, and deep connection with it.

An attempt at a concrete answer: Looking forward historically at the formation of Bolshevism

Before Vladimir Lenin became an organizer, he was a revolutionary thinker. He spent his early years studying the works of Marx, Engels, Georgi Plekhanov, among others.4Lenin wrote to his sister on December 13, 1894, inquiring about her ability to obtain a copy of Capital Volume III for him. See VI. Lenin, “3. To his sister Maria” (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1977). Leon Trotsky, Trotsky On Lenin (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2017), 176.
This theoretical knowledge shaped his first critical work The Development of Capitalism in Russia. This study required long hours of poring over data regarding agrarian relations of production.

This scientific analysis proved to be a crucial intervention into the Russian revolutionary movement of the 1890s5Neil Harding’s central insight is the extent to which Lenin’s theoretical grounding around the question of Russian capitalist development shaped his political and strategic framework in these early years: Neil Harding, Lenin’s Political Thought, Volume 1, (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2009).
. Embedded in the analysis was the position that although capitalism was a progressive force, penetrating the countryside and undermining feudal relations, the newly nascent capitalist class had to be opposed. On the one hand, this differed from the Narodniks who denied the viability of capitalist development in Russia. On the other hand, it challenged liberal conceptions of capitalist development that excused the violent and oppressive impact of capitalism on working people because of its progressive features (raising the level of productivity and uprooting feudal relations).

The backdrop to the formation of a revolutionary party in Russia was the rich theoretical tradition of Marx and Engels, their comradely connection with Russian revolutionaries, an insurgent working class movement shaped by the violent transition from agrarian to industrial life, and the existence of mass socialist parties throughout the capitalist world of Europe.6Lars Lih, Lenin Rediscovered: in Context (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008), 3-22.

After a period of experimentation with study circles and workplace agitation in industrial centers7For summaries of revolutionary Marxist activity in Russia during this time see Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 13-34 and Cliff, Building the Party, 35-57., revolutionaries like Lenin argued for a party organization that could merge socialist politics with the most explosive strike movement in Europe.8Arguments for a party began as early as 1897. See VI. Lenin, “The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, 1897,” Collected Works: Volume 2 (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1972), 323. VI. Lenin, “Articles for ‘Rabochaya Gazeta’: Our Immediate Task, 1899” Collected Works: Volume 4 (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1964), 215-220, and VI. Lenin, “A Draft of our Party Programme, 1899,’ Collected Works: Volume 4 (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1964), 227.
However, this was not done hastily. A period of clarification and discussion among socialist groups throughout Russia was required to hash out some of the pressing strategic questions in the movement. This later became known as the Iskra period (following the name of the paper of Lenin, Plekhanov, Julius Martov, and Pavel Axelrod). This discussion, held over a period of years, led to the convening of the Second Party Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).

Some of the critical questions discussed during this period were: What was the level of capitalist development in Russia? Which social class had the leading role in the future revolution? How should revolutionary workers as the leading class organize alongside the peasantry in a predominantly agrarian country? What is the relationship between political and economic struggle? How could the struggle for economic demands be broadened politically so as not to duck the question of overthrowing the autocracy?9Le Blanc and Cliff give good summaries of this period: see Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 35-70 and Cliff, Building the Party, 59-84. Lih challenges the assumption Le Blanc and Cliff maintain regarding the centrality of “economism” to the discussion among revolutionaries of the time, despite Lenin’s emphasis in What is to be Done? (WITBD): See Lih, Lenin Rediscovered, 217-278. However, even Lih’s work does show that there still did exist a lack of clarity among Russian Marxists on the relationship between “economic” and “political” struggle (see pages 279-334). Also, it is important to note Lenin’s organizational conclusions in WITBD work are a product of discussions around a number of questions debated among Marxists since the mid-1890’s. For a good summary of these theoretical and strategic discussions see Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 21-26.

Looking at the forward motion of the Russian revolutionary movement at its inception, one can see that a national party organization in Russia followed having a solid theoretical foundation that described Russian reality accurately enough and which informed critical strategic questions of the movement. Other important elements to the process of party formation were Russia having a powerful workers movement, the existence of mass socialist parties internationally, and a period of time to discuss differences.

Looking at history past: Lenin’s later reflections on Bolshevism

Lenin’s pamphlet Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder? was prepared in anticipation of the Second Congress of the Communist International, an international gathering of socialists who were trying to figure out how to organize revolution in their respective countries following the example of Russia. In this pamphlet Lenin summarized what elements made Bolshevism successful as a party of revolution. He starts by explaining what is most apparent to the outside observer:

The first questions to arise are: how is the discipline of the proletariat’s revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism. Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and—if you wish—merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people—primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people. Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct. Without these conditions, discipline in a revolutionary party really capable of being the party of the advanced class, whose mission it is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform the whole of society, cannot be achieved. Without these conditions, all attempts to establish discipline inevitably fall flat and end up in phrasemongering and clowning. [emphases in original]

What was most apparent in the mature Bokshevik party is the organization, discipline, and sacrifice of party members, its ability to merge with a movement of the working class and beyond, and the masses’ learning through their own experience that the party’s ideas are sound.

Lenin then continues to explain the foundation on which such an organization is developed:

On the other hand, these conditions cannot emerge at once. They are created only by prolonged effort and hard-won experience. Their creation is facilitated by a correct revolutionary theory, which, in its turn, is not a dogma, but assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement. [emphasis added]

Here theory is a fundamental element facilitating the development of an organization from its early stages into a mature party and has value insofar as it merges practically with a revolutionary movement. The quote, taken in its entirety, articulates a dialectical unity between theory, organization, and strategy/tactics.

For Lenin, the organization question was always contextualized within the theoretical ideas that shaped the strategic and tactical debates of his day that the revolutionary movement brought to light.

In 1921, the Communist Party tasked Nikolai Bukharin with compiling a history of the party. Such a history would necessarily include a summary of the critical debates around which the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks disagreed. Responding to an inquiry from Bukharin, Lenin wrote a note listing the debates he found most important.

What is interesting about this list is that the question of organization only comes up once: in a reference to the 1903 Congress around the definition of membership to the RSDLP. The rest refer to debates regarding theoretical, strategic and tactical questions within the movement.

The relationship between theory, organization, and tactics in Lenin’s assessment of the Second Congress

Even in the case of the 1903 Congress, Lenin’s views on organization should be contextualized. As explained above, Lenin’s emphatic plea to build a party in Russia was buttressed by an international socialist movement within the working class of the industrialized nations of Europe alongside a particularly explosive working class strike movement in Russia. Lenin knew Russia lagged behind its neighbors in terms of explicitly political and revolutionary organization of the movement.10For a discussion of Lenin appreciating the depth of the working class struggle in Russia and the concern of revolutionary organization lagging see Lih, Lenin Rediscovered: in Context, 3-22. To read Lenin’s appreciation of the working class strike movement in Russia see, “A Draft of Our Party Programme,” “Another Massacre,” “A valuable admission,” “A Talk with the Defenders of Economism,” “The draft of a new law in strikes,” and “An era of reforms.” For Lenin’s positive view regarding working class receptivity to organizing around political questions see “A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social Democracy,” and “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation.” in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (The Crisis in our Party).

Lenin’s argument for a strict definition of membership was to consolidate, under an autocratic government, the gains of a long period of theoretical development in the Russian and international European movement.11Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation” in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, (The Crisis in our Party). (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), 407.
During the Congress Lenin was willing to concede on the issue of having a more strict membership definition. It was only toward the end of the Congress when a looser editorial board was undemocratically forced through that Lenin took a principled stand opposed to how the democratic decisions of the Congress were undermined. The party was born in a split between two tendencies.

Another reason why Lenin argued for a revolutionary party to have strict membership guidelines was to ensure the intellectuals didn’t hamper the revolutionary ideas and activity of the working-class party. A “flabbiness” on the part of intellectuals was materially rooted in the individualistic nature of their professions and social life. This wasn’t anti-intellectualism on Lenin’s part. He knew their worth in writing, editing, speaking other languages, etc. One of the challenges Lenin faced following the Second Congress was that most of the intellectuals who were active in the socialist movement joined the Menshevik tendency in the split.12Lenin, “A Letter to A.A. Bogdanov and S.I. Gusev.” But this was a difficulty Lenin would rather face than squandering a historic opportunity to bring the quality theoretical ideas fermented over decades to a militant Russian movement hungry for ideas with an organization matched for the task.

Lenin treasured the theoretical work that laid the foundation for elaborating a program of action. He did not want to let all that work, built over decades, slip away. Based on the objective conditions regarding the maturity of the Russian and international working class movement, and the subjective development of theoretical work over the previous decades that would inform coordinated action, Lenin believed the time was ripe to form an all-Russia revolutionary party whose members were held together by a discipline of mutual accountability.

In contrast, the Mensheviks had attracted a milieu with an anti-theoretical disposition. To argue their assessment of the congress, the Mensheviks selectively quoted a report from a sympathetic group and yet omitted the section of the report that slandered Plekhanov and Lenin as mistaken “theoreticians” needing “practical” correction.13Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation,” 408.[footnote] Paradoxically, the Mensheviks did this despite having privileged theory over practice generally, thereby dodging the question of establishing a definite form of party organization.[footnote]Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation” 405.

Lenin characterized the Party Congress generally as a struggle over “each of [the party’s] more or less noticeable components in matters of programme, tactics, and organization.”14Lenin, “R. A Few Words on Dialectics. Two Revolutions,” 415. A program is the theoretically-informed distillation of a party’s objectives or demands,  around which the working class organizes. It informs a given strategy and set of tactics. Without theory there is no program. Regarding the relative importance of one component to the other, he argued that “questions of organization, … are, … less fundamental than questions of tactics, let alone of programme [emphasis added].”15 Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation,” 404.

Although Lenin believed theory to be more fundamental relative to organization and tactics generally, this did not negate the indispensability of each in the revolutionary process or the need to emphasize the importance of one component in a particular moment.

To illustrate this, Lenin employed a linguistic metaphor. Just as program, tactics, and organization (listed here in order of importance according to Lenin) were essential components to the revolutionary process, the alphabet, etymology, and syntax were equally indispensable for language. Even though syntax was relatively less fundamental to language than the alphabet or etymology, this did not mean syntax was less essential to language and that one should applaud their having failed a test on syntax.16Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation,” 386. Similarly, that organization was less fundamental than program and tactics in a relative sense did not mean that one should feel justified in not taking organization seriously in the political moment of the Second Congress.

Lenin argued that the Mensheviks retreated to the general view that program was more important than organization to justify not having a specific form of organization that matched the seriousness of the political moment. He called Martov and Axelrod “opportunists in questions of organization” because they failed “to produce … any definite statement of principles that could be ‘fixed by statute’; … but they would prefer to devote themselves first to ‘general problems of organization.’”17Lenin, “Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism In Questions Of Organisation,” 404-5. In other words, the question of organization was posed in abstraction from the political moment.

The centrality of theory for Lenin

Lenin’s analysis of capitalist development in Russia did a couple of things. It distinguished the revolutionary socialist and working class position from the Narodnik and bourgeois liberal positions. It also helped sharpen debates and discussions with the Menshevik tendency within the RSDLP.

The corollary to the analysis of the weak development of capitalism relative to Europe and the fact that the state was organized to protect the interests of the nobility was that the future revolution would be a bourgeois one. At least up to this point, the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks agreed. However, the differences between the two tendencies were the strategic and tactical interpretations of that theory. The Mensheviks argued that because the future revolution would be bourgeois, the liberals would have to lead the revolution. Strategically and tactically, this meant following the liberals’ lead so as not to frighten them, and even if the liberals didn’t want to lead.

The first evidence of liberal-friendly tactics revolved around the Zemstvo campaign in 1904. Following that, it was the 1905 revolution.18For the nature of this strategic and tactical dispute with other Social Democrats see Lenin, “Zemstvo campaign and Iskra’s plan” and “The working class and bourgeois democracy.”
Regarding those related to the 1905 revolution see Lenin, “Should we organize the revolution?,” “Social Democracy and the Revolutionary Provisional Government,” “The revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,” and “On the Provisional Revolutionary Government“ In both cases, the liberals shied away from an open fight to overthrow the autocracy. This led Lenin to insist on an alternative strategic objective for the working class: the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. This would be workers, in alliance with the peasantry, assuming political power and in a revolutionary manner implementing reforms typical of a democratic nation. Of course, the natural organizational conclusion from the theory, strategy and experience in the movement was maintaining political independence from liberal strategy, tactics and organization.

Following the 1905 revolution, this revolutionary strategy informed the Bolshevik tendency’s tactical approach to the Duma elections. They insisted on electoral independence from the liberal Cadet Party whereas the Mensheviks sought tactical alliances.

A strategic posture of independence from liberalism also helped Lenin, some Bolsheviks, and some Mensheviks argue against a position that advocated strictly legal methods of struggle under the autocracy. Under conditions of a precarious semi-legality this would have effectively liquidated the party (“liquidationism”).19LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 159.

Facing left, a section of the Bolsheviks confronted the ultra-left positions of the ultimatists and otzovists. These tendencies disagreed with a sustained electoral presence in the Duma and argued for employing exclusively illegal methods of struggle. For Lenin, to cede a political platform to the liberals without challenge meant the left would also assist in the “liquidation” of the party.20LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 141-9

To summarize, the strategic and tactical disputes within the RSDLP during the pre-war years were sharp because they rested on a well-developed theory of capitalist development in Russia, the bourgeois nature of the revolution, and a militant revolutionary movement that sharpened the differences of the disputes in bold relief. Without the theory as a foundation, or pedestal, and the movement putting those ideas to a stress test, the strategic disputes would not have taken place as sharply as they did, hampering the revolutionary movement and its organization in a working-class party.

It was the Bolsheviks’ superior grasp of theory to inform a strategic and tactical approach to the revolutionary movement from 1904 to 1910 that enabled its organization to preserve itself against liquidation and become well-rooted enough to win over the bulk of the working-class leaders in the 1911-13 strike wave—a qualitative advance in building the ranks of that tendency within the RSDLP.21Eric Blanc, Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882–1917), (Chicago: Haymarket Books), 126–27.

With the capitulation of the Social Democratic parties of the Second International to their governments at the outbreak of WWI in 1914, the revolutionary movement evaporated politically overnight. Lenin returned to study the foundations of the Marxist method distinct from the opportunist socialism of the German SPD.

He delved into reading Hegel from a materialist perspective. Doing so enriched his dialectical materialist understanding of the world. During the war period he studied changes to capitalism which resulted in his work Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. This work helped inform strategic debates among revolutionaries around supporting the right of nations to self-determination in the face of imperialist oppression. It also informed his strategic argument for “revolutionary defeatism.”22LeBlanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, 206. This meant that socialists should support the defeat of their own government in the war and was critical in arguing a “no support” position for the Provisional Government during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin understood that the international scope of the war and its crises produced the conditions for international revolution to follow.

He also studied the question of the capitalist state and how socialists should approach it strategically. This culminated in The State and Revolution. Although not published until after the October revolution of 1917, Lenin’s notes were instrumental in helping shape the argument for the Bolsheviks, at the head of the soviets, to take state power.

Of course, one could look at “organization” as the central question that distinguished the Bolshevik tendency from all others during the revolution of 1905, the Duma elections of 1906-7, the arguments against liquidationism from 1908-11, and debates on how to approach the imperialist war and capitalist state from 1914-17. Lenin certainly did criticize the Menshevik tendency for a lack of serious approach to organization. Aside from ceding political leadership to the liberals, he criticized the Mensheviks for failing to take minutes of a party congress.23See Lenin, “A Third Step back.” This may seem a trivial point, but not for Lenin, who took Party Congresses very seriously. See Nadezhda Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, (Moscow: International Publishers, 1970), 89. It is important to note that Lenin’s account of the Second Party Congress (One Step Forward, Two Steps Back) would not have been as convincing without minutes. Lenin continually challenged the “softs” (later “Mensheviks”) to counter his account with reference to minutes and not impressions and gossip.

Historical work that grapples with the changing political questions of the movement through the lens of organization is useful as long as the political questions are adequately contextualized.24LeBlanc takes this approach in his work Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. Similarly debates and discussions with other socialist and radical groups today will be more informative if in disputing different conceptions of organization, the theoretical and political underpinnings of those conceptions are illuminated.

What about “democratic centralism”?

Discussion of what kind of revolutionary organization is needed naturally brings up the question of “democratic centralism” as a method to reach decisions and act collectively as a group. Lenin and the Bolshevik Party are often referred to as putting this method to practice, although it is a term Lenin did not use frequently. It was mostly referred to during the 1905-1906 period, which involved a revolution pushing the two factions of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) together culminating in the 1906 Unity Congress. 25LeBlanc, 116-25.

The way democratic centralism was implemented depended on a specific political context. For example, in one contribution to a debate regarding to what extent members should be allowed to criticize Party Congress decisions, Lenin used the 1906 Duma campaign as an example: every member should be allowed to criticize the party decision to participate in the 1906 Duma elections before the campaign begins but not after since that would disorganize the RSDLP election effort.

“Democratic centralism” is not an important question on its own. For example, in 1903 Lenin did not simply criticize Mensheviks for not respecting a model of democratic centralism following the Second Congress. Instead, the substantive criticism was political: Menshevik backtracking on political positions rooted in a theoretical foundation democratically agreed upon. Likewise, when the pressures of the 1905 revolution pushed Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to unify as one party in 1906, it was the movement that created unity, not abstract references to a democratic centralist model of decision making. A few years later, Lenin refused to let “democratic centralism” keep him in a united RSDLP with those who would have destroyed the party through exclusive use of legal and liberal methods under a repressive autocracy (“liquidationism”).

Likewise, in a discussion with fellow revolutionary Anatoly Lunacharsky, Lenin assured him that in the event the Mensheviks came out with a majority mandate in the 1906 Unity Congress, they would not submit to the discipline they would demand of the Mensheviks if the tables were turned. If we look at this strictly through the lens of organization, Lenin becomes a disingenuous and undemocratic manipulator. However, as Paul Le Blanc points out, the priority was preserving the theoretically-informed revolutionary program of the Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin would not dilute this program under a formalistic arrangement of democratic centralism with majority Menshevik control.26Le Blanc, 119.

This applies as much to Lenin’s method within the Bolshevik tendency (and later Bolshevik party), when he thought it was heading to political ruin. He did not bind himself absolutely to majority opinion in the party with which he didn’t agree. This was evident in 1907-8 when Bogdanov and the ultra-left tendency held a majority in the party and rejected legal methods of struggle.27Le Blanc, 141. In 1917, he threatened to resign from the Central Committee if they did not consider posing the question of insurrection.28Mieville, 253-4. His last political act in 1923 was to form a bloc with Trotsky—violating the party ban on factions—in order to fight the bureaucratic degeneration of the party.29Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 99-103.

In other words, Lenin did not accept the discipline of “democratic centralism” in certain situations when not convinced of the ideas and direction. He did not say, “My party, right or wrong.” For Lenin, an organizational form of democratic centralism was not an absolute. What was absolute for Lenin? To accurately grasp the reality of a political situation with a basis in sound theoretical ideas.

Why is this important today? Revolutionaries should not anticipate the political commitment of others to an organization based on adherence to a model of democratic decision-making or an abstract commitment to building a centralized revolutionary party of the working class for the future. Instead, the ideas, and the way they inform practice in the current political moment, are what should do the convincing.

Certainly, if fundamental disagreements on questions of principle exist and cannot be resolved, people will (and should) part ways. If there is broad agreement on principles and fundamentals but a disagreement on a tactical approach in a movement campaign, discussion should be maximized, a vote taken, and immediate assessment and re-evaluation following the action (like the 1906 Duma campaign example). But the latter type of process presupposes substantial political agreement to begin with and substantial experience working within a working class movement to test those ideas.

Of course, the discussion here is strictly one of an organization of revolutionaries. This is not to excuse a leader like Lenin or other Bolsheviks undermining the democratic decision-making of bodies organizing the working class, such as unions, councils, factory committees, etc. following the seizure of power in October 1917.30For examples of undemocratic practices of the Bolshevik Party once in political power see Sam Farber, Before Stalinism: the Rise and Fall of Soviet Democracy (London: Verso, 1990). Lenin should be subjected to the critical method that he employed throughout his life.

Also, all of the above is not to suggest that Lenin was always right before 1918. His initial account of agrarian relations in the countryside underestimated the remaining social force of the village commune for the peasantry.31Paul LeBlanc, October Song: Bolshevik Triumph and Communist Tragedy, 1917-1924 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017) 29-54, 255-292. To read Lenin’s reassessment of the staying force of feudal relations in the countryside see The Agrarian Programme of Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907. Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution32Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution: Results and Prospects, (Seattle: Red Letter Press, 2010).
ended up describing the nature of the unfolding revolution in 1917 more accurately than Lenin’s “Revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.” Bukharin’s Imperialism and the World Economy offered an alternative theoretical presentation of imperialism to Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin maintained unqualified support for every movement for national self-determination for oppressed nations.33The sharp debate between Luxemburg and Lenin was rooted in their respective surroundings. Luxemburg lived for an extended period of her life in Poland, a country oppressed throughout its history. Experiencing first hand the liberal politics of the Polish bourgeoisie, she tended to emphasize criticism of the nationalism of the small nation as a dead end for the working class and oppressed. Lenin on the other hand, being from an oppressor nation tended to emphasize support for national self-determination to combat “Great Russian chauvinism.” Nonetheless, this position was later modified during discussion in the Communist International on the importance of distinguishing between revolutionary movements of the working class in smaller nations and colonies and bourgeois liberal movements, and lending political support to the former but not the latter.34John Riddell, Workers of the World and Oppressed People’s, Unite! Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920. The Communist International in Lenin’s time. (New York: Pathfinder Press, 2013), 279.

The quality of theory, and the strategic and tactical conclusions derived from it, are not based on their absolute accuracy but on their being a close enough approximation to reality to serve as a guide for working class emancipation. Accordingly, it would be ludicrous to assume ideological homogeneity on theoretical questions prior to organizing in the movement. Theoretical development within an organization can help discern what general political principles are deal-breakers for establishing unity within and between organizations. Healthy debate and discussion is continually encouraged to assess these ideas in light of the reality they are interpreting and helping to guide.

For Lenin, theory only proved useful in its connection with movement. Over the course of his life, Lenin actively listened to the rank-and-file worker and party member to form his opinions on the state of the Russian movement.35See Krupskaya 55, 57-8, 67. After noting the indispensability of Lenin for the development of the Russian Revolution after February but also dismissing any contention of his infallibility, Trotsky noted, “In educating [the party] he had educated himself in it.”

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”