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35-449: Revolutionary Communist Organisation can refer to: Revolutionary Communist Organisation (Austria) , linked to Revolutionary Workers League (Oehlerite) Revolutionary Communist Organisation, Nepal See also [ edit ] Revolutionary Communist Party (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

70-641: A group headed by David Atkins that merged into the Bordigists , and the Revolutionary Communist Vanguard . The Revolutionary Workers League was active inside a number of trade unions, particularly the United Auto Workers . They succeeded in having one of their members Zygmount "Ziggy" Dobrycinski elected as head of Local 205. However, when the RWL began to make demands for the "politicalization" of

105-726: A number of splits, both of organized factions and individuals. A small Marxist Workers League left early in 1936 and quickly rejoined the Trotskyists. Joseph Zack then renounced Marxism completely, and founded a new group called the One Big Union Club . The majority of the group apparently renounced Trotskyism at its third Plenum in October–November 1938. However this caused a spit between Oehler, who believed that Trotsky had degenerated from Marxism in 1934, and Stamm who felt that Trotsky had degenerated in 1928. Others reasons given for

140-405: Is a form of organisation that Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, and other democratic centralists abide by, both when having seized the government and also while trying to seize it. Most communist parties have a democratic centralist structure. In party meetings, a motion (new policy or amendment, goal, plan or any other kind of political question) is moved (proposed). After a period of debate, a vote

175-607: Is also stated in Article 3 of the current constitution of the People's Republic of China : Article 3. The state organs of the People's Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial, and procuratorial organs of

210-631: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Revolutionary Workers League (Oehlerite) The RWL originated as a tendency within the Workers Party of the United States , which had been formed by the merger of the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) and A. J. Muste 's American Workers Party in December 1934. Some within

245-667: Is permitted in all forms. Once a resolution is being carried out, discussion and criticism which may disrupt unity in performing the action is forbidden, to ensure that the action is not derailed. In several socialist states, related practices were also adopted to ensure freedom of discussion, such as Mao's "Don't Blame the Speaker". Some Trotskyist and orthodox Marxist perspectives describe "deficient" forms of democratic centralism as "bureaucratic centralism," often those espoused by Marxist-Leninists. According to these views, bureaucratic centralism de-prioritises democracy, and thus fails to serve

280-598: Is taken. If one vote clearly wins (gaining a share of 60% or above among two options, for example) all party members are expected to follow that decision, and not continue debating it. The goal is to avoid decisions being undermined by participants whose views are in the minority. In the development of socialism in the Soviet Union and China, it was implemented in response to rapid political developments, which required faster mechanisms of decision-making. Before an issue has been voted on and carried out, discussion and criticism

315-794: Is the organisational principle of communist states and of most communist parties to reach dictatorship of the proletariat . In practice, democratic centralism means that political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party . It is mainly associated with Leninism , wherein the party's political vanguard of revolutionaries practice democratic centralism to select leaders and officers, determine policy, and execute it. Democratic centralism has primarily been associated with Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyist parties, but has also occasionally been practised by other democratic socialist and social democratic parties such as South Africa's African National Congress . Scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism

350-748: The First and the Second Internationals, held the Soviet Union in a central position and functioned as one big body instead of many independent communist parties in different countries. The Leninist practice of democratic centralism was introduced during the Republic of China era to the Kuomintang in 1923. It was allied with the Chinese Communist Party during the Warlord Era and received support from

385-624: The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War , the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin, instituted a ban on factions in the party as Resolution No. 12 of the 10th Party Congress in 1921. It was passed in the morning session on 16 March 1921. Trotskyists sometimes claim that this ban was intended to be temporary, but there is no language in the discussion at the 10th Party Congress suggesting such. The Group of Democratic Centralism

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420-588: The Revolutionary Communist Organisation (Austria) , both groups close to Oehler. The outbreak of World War II led to a severe decline in the group. Its youth section, the Young Workers League appears to have been wound up in about 1940, the international disbanded in 1946, and The Fighting Worker ceased publication in 1947, although an attempt at a relaunch was made in 1950. Democratic centralism Democratic centralism

455-758: 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. The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) held at Petrograd between 26 July and 3 August 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows: After the successful consolidation of power by the Communist Party following

490-606: The Communist Party. When the Supreme Soviet was not in session, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet performed its ordinary functions. It also had the power to issue decrees in lieu of law. Nominally, if such decrees were not ratified at the Supreme Soviet's next session, they were considered revoked. However, ratification was usually a mere formality, though occasionally even this formality was not observed. Thus, decisions made by

525-613: The French turn. The RWL originally thought of itself as an "opposition" within the official Trotskyist movement, in the same manner as Trotskyism originally conceived of itself as the "Left Opposition" within the Comintern. They focused, in their early years, to recruiting within the Trotskyist ranks, and may have created the "Marxist Policy Committee" within the Trotskyists' Socialist Appeal Association for that purpose. The group went through

560-581: The German Social Democratic Party , inspired by remarks made by the social democrat Jean Baptista von Schweitzer . Lenin described democratic centralism as consisting of "freedom of discussion, unity of action". 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

595-550: The Leninist principle of democratic centralism. According to the regulations of the Party, democratic centralism is performed following these rules: The Lao People's Revolutionary Party which governs the nation of Laos applies democratic centralism. The party's centralised and hierarchical organisational structure is based on democratic centralism, which was conceived by Vladimir Lenin . This structure entails that lower party organs obey

630-401: The Party's top leaders de facto had the force of law. The democratic centralist principle extended to elections in the Soviet Union . All socialist countries were—either de jure or de facto — one-party states . In most cases, the voters were presented with a single list of unopposed candidates, which usually won 90 percent or more of the vote. The Third International , in contrast with

665-724: The Revolutionary Workers League, sometimes called RWL (Revolt) after its periodical. They had small groups in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere. After an attempted merger with the Fieldites and some Socialist Labor Party dissidents failed, the Stammites disbanded in 1941. Other groups to split from the RWL included the Leninist League , led by George Marlen, a second Marxist Workers League led by Karl Mienov,

700-799: The Socialist party, but wanted to bring them into the WP as a group, rather than have the Workers Party dissolve into the Socialist Party. To that end they began negotiations with the Revolutionary Policy Committee . When they reported their talks to the party's Political Committee, they set up their own negotiating committee without any members of the Oehler-Stamm group on it. When Oehler-Stamm group continued their talks with RPC they were censured by

735-523: The Soviet Union. The organizational structures of the Kuomintang would remain in place until the democratization on Taiwan in the 1990s and would serve as a structural basis of several Taiwanese political parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party . Since 1945, the Chinese Communist Party's constitution has defined the party's view of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism

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770-546: The WPUS June National Committee Plenum. Though the party issued a declaration denouncing "false rumors" of factionalism and moves toward merger with the socialists, a struggle did apparent take place, Muste, Oehler, and Martin Abern against joining the Socialist, with Cannon and Shachtman favoring the proposal. The group led by Oehler and Tom Stamm were not entirely opposed to work among the left wing members of

805-723: The anti-Stalinist Left. Oehler and Negrete were both imprisoned by the Loyalist regime, and only returned to the US after the intervention of the US embassy. With the declaration of the Trotskyist Fourth International , the RWL instead founded the Provisional International Contact Commission for the New Communist (Fourth) International . Besides themselves, this included the Leninist League (UK) and

840-510: The decisions of the higher ones, such as the LPRP Central Committee . It also entails a ban on internal party factions. In the end, every decision-making organ has to be guided by the principle of collective leadership , a process that emphasises collegial decision-making, in contrast to one-person dominance. LPRP General Secretary Kaysone Phomvihane, in a speech to the 5th National Congress in 1991, stated "that our Party's democracy

875-399: The interests of the proletariat. 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, Vladimir Lenin 's model for such a party, which he repeatedly discussed as being "democratic centralist", was

910-471: The lowest to the highest, their accountability to the people, and the obligation of lower bodies to observe the decisions of higher ones." For much of the time between the era of Joseph Stalin and the 1980s, the principle of democratic centralism meant that the Supreme Soviet , while nominally vested with great lawmaking powers, did little more than approve decisions already made at the highest levels of

945-556: The members, including a six-hour day and workers management of the industry, "Ziggy" quit the RWL. The group sent a man named Russel Blackwell (using the pseudonym Rosalio Negrete) to Spain during the early part of the Spanish Civil War , who made contacts to the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( POUM ) left wing. Later they sent Oehler, who was present during the May 1937 suppression of

980-571: The new party were advocating an application of Leon Trotsky 's French Turn by having the enter in the Socialist Party of America . The issue was first raised at the "Active Workers Conference" at Pittsburgh in March 1935. Though the idea was favored by James Cannon and Max Shachtman , the two former leaders of the CLA, it was opposed by Joseph Zack Kornfeder and Muste. The issue was again brought up at

1015-552: The party's Control Commission. Things came to a head at the October 4–9, 1935 Plenum of the party's National Committee, at which the Oehler-Stamm group was forbidden to issue a factional periodical and were given a final warning to cease their violations of " organizational discipline ". Oehler and his faction then withdrew to form the Revolutionary Workers League. By this time a majority of the National Committee come around to support

1050-409: The split included questions over democratic centralism as well as a supposed tendency to focus too much on European events, but Sidney Lens stated that Stamm's motivation was more personal: he simply did not wish to relocate from New York to Chicago, where the RWL's headquarters was being transferred to become closer to the heart of America industry. The Stammites set up another organization, also called

1085-423: The state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate. The division of functions and powers between the central and local state organs is guided by the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local authorities under the unified leadership of the central authorities. The Communist Party of Vietnam is organized according to

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1120-423: The title Revolutionary Communist Organisation . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Revolutionary_Communist_Organisation&oldid=1212958156 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Political party disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

1155-481: The unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party." By the Brezhnev period , democratic centralism was described in the 1977 Soviet Constitution as a principle for organizing the state: "The Soviet state is organized and functions on the principle of democratic centralism, namely the electiveness of all bodies of state authority from

1190-502: Was a group in the Soviet Communist Party who advocated different concepts of party democracy. In On Party Unity , Lenin argued that democratic centralism prevents factionalism. He argued that factionalism leads to less friendly relations among members and that it can be exploited by enemies of the party. Lenin wrote of democratic centralism that it "implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb

1225-441: Was implemented in practice in the Soviet Union and China, pointing to violent power struggles, backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige in those states. Socialist states, such as the former Soviet Union and present-day China, have made democratic centralism the organisational principle of the state, and the political power principle being unitary power . Democratic centralism

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