The majority is the party

"The Structure and Organizational Principles of the Party" by Farrell Dobbs is a bulletin published by the U.S. Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) in 1971. It contains a lengthy exposition on the principles of Leninist "democratic centralism", as practiced by the SWP.

While the SWP nominally permitted both tendencies and factions within the party, in reality minority rights seems to have been minimal, at least since the mid-1960's. Dobbs argues that the party leadership has the right to regulate the conduct of dissident minorities, i.e. the guys in charge can control the conduct of their critics. Dissident factions can be expelled even without proof of overt acts of disloyalty, since a faction almost by definition *is* disloyal. But then, why does Dobbs claim that factions are permitted? No constitutional guarantees against degeneration can be given, and the rules of "democratic centralism" are forever changing, and can't be put down in advance. In other words, the party leaders can change the rules of the game if and when they are challenged! I also got the impression that the Political Committee (the SWP's Politburo) is the real centre of power, rather than the broader National Committee (the SWP's Central Committee).

Interestingly, Dobbs is *opposed* to democratic centralism within the Fourth International, probably because the International supported some of the dissident minorities in the SWP (such as the Cochran-Clarke faction)! It's also interesting to note that Dobbs can only name one minority group he considers loyal to the party, a short-lived single-issue minority group in the late 1940's which argued for a position on Eastern Europe which was eventually adopted by the SWP as a whole. *All* other dissident groups were in error or worse, and represented "alien class pressure" inside the party. Some were "cultists", including the followers of C. L. R. James or Sam Marcy. The SWP leadership is remarkably apt at always being right... Are we to believe the dissident faction around James Robertson, Dobbs at one point actually quipped: "In the final analysis, the majority *is* the party". On a closer look, Dobbsian democratic centralism turns out to be permanent rule by a majority faction.

Of course, membership in the SWP is voluntary, so on that level, we don't have to care whether or not the Cochranites, Robertsonites or Marcyites were maltreated or not. But what if a party of this kind takes over the government, and makes democratic centralism into the law of the land? You tell me. SWP supported Lenin's Soviet Russia and Castro's Cuba...