name for Stalinism.
All so-called "Communist Parties" became ideological promoters of idealist philosophies, of course, in the name of Marxism and materialism. They ritualized their new anti-materialist, anti-scientific philosophy precisely to obscure truth and reality in order to justify and maintain popular support for their organizations in spite of their vicious abuse of power, and oppression of the people they ruled over. Stalin became their cult leader worldwide. But in each Communist Party there was a local cult leader that received standing ovations until removed, sometimes by a telephone call from Stalin, at which time another "leader" was picked and received the standing ovations.
The litany of utterly false ideas attributed to Lenin grew through the years. These included such concepts as only one party can represent the interests of working people, (meaning, of course, your local Stalinist organization) or, for instance, socialism can be achieved in one country, a concept obviously in contradiction with everything Marx and Engels wrote. These Stalinist conceptions became quite popularized. Bourgeois educational systems and the mass media turned these Stalinist concepts into the very meaning of the words in popular usage. To this day much of the left uses these terms not with their original content or meaning but with the Stalinist distortion. <В
Democratic centralism
For instance, the term democratic-centralism now means to most people a bureaucratic, undemocratic, if not utterly dictatorial, organizational structure because that is what most organizations calling themselves democratic centralist were like.
When a local city council in any United States town passes a law to put up a stop sign everyone has to stop there. The decision is made democratically, or at least by elected officials. But it is carried out by centralism. Even people who disagreed with the decision have to follow it. Loosely speaking, that is democratic centralism. The fact is that all societies, certainly capitalist societies, advocate democratic centralist conceptions as a basic framework for the existence of society.
The idea that a voluntary organization could apply democratic centralism as a premise of how it functions is totally benign. Most organizations, to one extent or other, do that. Some do not apply it. For instance, the Democratic and Republican Parties in the United States vote platforms and then the candidate is free to violate that platform all they want.
Obviously these two parties are not democratic centralist. People advocating fascism are members and run as Democrats in the United States, as do others who call themselves socialist. But most organizations, in general, have policies and rules which if you do not accept you are expelled.
Lenin's concept of democratic centralism was developed because Lenin was concerned over the effectiveness of an organization fighting for power. His idea starts with the right of majority rule. To be effective Lenin argued that a serious socialist organization should function under the premise that once decisions are made everyone should help implement the policy. One can argue about Lenin's organizational concept, when it is appropriate or how it should be applied.
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.
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Trotskyist movement
In the struggle against Stalinism...
