Democratic Centralism: The need for a party

| | imported blog post Saturday January 05, 2013 15:18 by Bristol Socialists

In the light of ongoing events on the left, we link here to some material on the questions of organisation, party democracy and left unity that readers of our blog may find interesting, and we welcome debate around these issues.

Democratic Centralism by Peter Taaffe, 1996 - http://marxist.net/namechange/nameframe.htm

Published in Militant Labour Members Bulletin No.16, 'A discussion on Democratic centralism', 18 March 1996.

This discussion took place in the UK section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), which at that time went by the name Militant Labour. This discussion on democratic centralism was followed immediately by the discussion on the name of the party, which dominated the following four members' bulletins (17 - 20) during 1996. It led to the decision to change the name from Militant Labour to Socialist Party in early 1997.
The Class, The Party and the Leadership by Leon Trotsky, 1940 - http://marxist.net/trotsky/cpl/index.html

This article is an unfinished work written by Trotsky and first published in 1940. It nevertheless forms a very valuable text.