28.03.1996

The theory of leader centralism

Bob Smith - For a Permanent Party Polemic Committee

The editor last week wrote: “Bob Smith has sometimes expressed a concern that no one replies to his column.” Not exactly true. What does concern Bob Smith is that members of the Leninist faction of the CPGB do not reply to his column.

The editor goes on to suggest, “This may be because there is little theoretical polemic in it for comrades to grasp hold of.” I think not. Every week the Open Polemic column endeavours to highlight at least one aspect of OP’s theoretical propositions, and does so by relating them to some real life development in or around the CPGB-initiated communist rapprochement process.

Sometimes the column is successful, other times less so - I’m sure the Weekly Worker readers recognise this themselves. But it is quite wrong to suggest that the column does not deal with theory. Its form may be journalistic and at times rhetorical, but it most definitely is theoretical in content. Now you may well disagree with OP’s formulations - that is your right, but you ought not to allow such disagreement to lead to the point of simply dismissing or ignoring. This would be an abrogation of communist duty and nobody benefits and nothing is advanced.

This brings me the opportunity to elaborate once again on one of the key theoretical premises of the OP project - the concept of leader centralism. Let’s begin by saying that it is not entirely accidental that most communist circles in this country have only one or at best a couple of ‘thinkers’ and the rest of the membership are reduced to the ‘doers’.

This is not a reflection on the ability of members to think critically, but a manifestation of what OP has termed ‘leader centralism’- a situation where a small factional clique gains control of the central committee, invariably legitimised by election, and from this lofty forum the decisive party politics is played out.

When Clive Carr (who incidentally OP is strongly critical of for parting company on the basis of a difference on Ireland) asks the national organiser how he knows the Weekly Worker view on Ireland is the majority one (Weekly Worker March 21), he has a point. The reality is that opinions on Ireland, like so many other ‘majority’ views, are formulated within the factional confines of the central committee, and thereafter pearls of wisdom are filtered down to the lower orders for discussion. This is a grotesque and ultimately barren playing out of democratic centralism.

What are the actual results of leader centralism? In the first instance while the high priests are busy formulating ‘majority views’, the membership at large is kept busy selling ever more papers, raising ever more money and attending ever more meetings. Then a number of things happen - burn-out, squabbles and splits, and worst of all, a political backwardness envelops everything.

This backwardness is manifested in numerous ways: an uncritical dogmatism, a revulsion for all political theory, a lapse into mindless activism or a retreat into anarchistic forms of politics. The end result - the initial gap between the more advanced and less advanced comrades widens instead of narrows. The relatively backward membership becomes easy prey for demagogues and, in the worst scenario, opportunists and liquidators. We’ve seen it all before.

Is this all a figment of OP’s collective and over active imagination? Or perhaps this all happens only in ‘official’ communist parties and in ‘Trotskyite’ organisations. None of this could possibly happen in our organisation - why, we actively encourage open debate: ‘Just look at the pages of our paper,’ the editor tells us.

To this childlike arrogance we could do no better than refer the editor to the CPGB resignation statements from 1993 and to remind the Leninist faction that it was precisely on the question of democratic centralism that the organisation suffered its first damaging split.