Notes and questions on democratic centralism

Hey comrades, I feel like this is a bit scattershot, but here's my response to the piece. Thanks Celt for recommending it. From the title I really expected to respond a lot more negatively than I did as I read it.

From the preface:

They quote Mao, "Those who wish to rule and control others wish to keep them ignorant but those who wish to free the masses wish to keep them enlightened." That's a nice quote. Anyone know where he said it?

Ideological unity is the basis of all unity - I'm ambivalent about that. It all depends on what ideological unity consists in. Certainly revolutionaries must all be revolutionary. But I'm committed to an idea that people can have, for lack of a better term, objectively revolutionary demands (in some cases for some populations the demand to not be killed or consigned to a life of hyperexploitation). I'm also convinced that in some cases action on immediate interests is a better place to start than more abstract ideological points.


From the Mao piece:
Meeting procedure sounds good - distribute material, invite comment, amend based on comments, give and explain the report. I like that he recognizes the factor of time in meeting procedure. I've been to so many fucking long meetings, and people don't always realize that that's also a democracy issue - say for people who have to get home to kids and such.

Mao talks of "the present conference" - where and when was this talk given? He also talks of the "working experience of 12 years", what's the a reference to? Who is he addressing?

"Contradictions among the people can't be resolved by curses or fists, still less by knives or guns. They can be resolved only by discussion and reasoning, criticism and self-criticism. In a word, they can be resolved only by the democratic method, by letting the masses speak out."

Presumably 'the people' here means 'the working classes', not 'everyone', as there are enemies with whom discussion won't suffice. Later on he equates proletarian dictatorship with people's dictatorship, specifying that it will be "let by the proletariat and based on the alliance of the workers and peasants." The peasants, then, presumably are a subsidiary sector of the people. The communist party is the mechanism for proletarian leadership of the peasants, since the party is the vanguard of the proletariat. (As in, the party is the vanguard, or whatever is the leading sector shall function in the role as the party? I'm pretty sure it's the former.)

I like the point that under socialism errors will persist.

I find it interesting that the role of the party in being open to criticism is to explain to the masses and the cadre what the situation is, and then allow them to speak out in response.

Centralism=discipline, democracy=freedom. The former is more important for overcoming difficulties but can't exist without the latter. ("Without a high degree of centralism it is impossible to establish a socialist economy.")

Centralism requires nondivergence of views, unity of understanding, shared correct ideas. Democracy is a means for producing these conditions that make up centralism (like removing a blockage such as unexpressed opinions or unvented anger). The leadership 'merely' process the results of democracy in order to produce the unity of centralism and the formulation of lines, principles, policies, and methods. Democracy is also a means for knowing what's happening at the base. The base is/provides raw material that the leadership work over, as in a factory.

The topic of the conference he's addressing is 'opposition to decentralism,' 'strengthening centralism and unity'. What does decentralism mean? Who were its proponents?

I like the comparison of inflexible people in leadership roles with a government who will get overthrown, but it's interesting that it's an overthrowing in the form of conquest by a different state, not a revolt from below.

Exploitation no longer exists in China, according to Mao. I'm not convinced, though I have no evidence. I think exploitation does occur under socialism (as it does under social democracy). This is not to say it may not be less exploitative, more preferible, or that there may be a balance of power in this condition that favors those who are exploited (that's the most important matter).

New bourgeois elements continue to emerge in socialist society. Classes and class struggle still exist. (But not exploitation?) On what basis do these exist/emerge?

On 'On democratic centralism'

Well, this is maifestly an intervention into a specific climate, into the CCP in - well, I'm not sure what year. Still, it's clearly a didactic method aimed at guiding the practice of the Party, which is in this period clearly wavering from what it should be. I think it's important to remember here that Mao is just a participant in a struggle, albeit one with a very privileged position, who is trying to make an intervention with the aims of guiding the revolution in the right direction.

The point which most alarmed me was Mao insistence on the necessity of "unity of understanding," which seemed to me at first blush to be an insistence that all people have the same ideas, which is impossible, hence a dangerous goal to try to pusue politically. However, given the context and audience, it is clear that what Mao is trying to say is that the masses themselves must understand what is being done by the Party, and that the Party must understand the perspective of the masses, rather than the Party believing themselves to have the understanding and treating the masses like animals to be herded, which at the same time in fact must mean that the Party themselves do not understand what is going on.

The following passage appears prescient from our present perspective:

Unless we fully promote people's democracy and inner-Party democracy ad unless we fully impelement [sic] proletarian democracy, it will be impossible for China to have true proletarian centralism [i.e., as I outlined above, the unity of Party and masses — I would love to be able to analyse the Chinese on this point]. Without a high degree of democracy it is impossible to have a high degree of centralism, and without a high degree of centralism it is impossible to establish a socialist economy. And what will happen to our country if we fail to establish a socialist economy? It will turn into a revisionist state, indeed a bourgeois state, and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and a reactionary, fascist dictatorship at that. This is a question which very much deserves our vigilance and I hope our comrades will give it a good deal of though.

OK, so what Mao is doing here is laying out the conditions under which socialism can flourish in China. It is impossible to know whether he was right about this: I think it is clear that there wasn't that much democracy, but I think it is impossible to know how much would have been enough, or indeed if any amount would have been enough without other factors also being there. It is clear in any case that this struggle was lost and that Mao's intervention, both that showcased here and the apparently extreme intervention of launching the cultural revolution simply did not prevent the restoration of capitalism in China.

It's clear then that the 'democratic' line which Prachanda is now pushing in Nepal is based on extending the Maoist logic, attempting from the beginning to insist on democratic mechanisms that were not applied in China. Of course, this makes sense in Nepal because, unlike in China, there is already a bourgeois electoral system in place which can be harnessed towards this purpose, which seems to be the way Prachanada is pushing, which also enables him to hook up with the established parties. I ought also here to acknowledge the extent to which this thinking seems to me to come from Bob Avakian, although it also seems to me that this is pretty much the only noteworthy contribution from Avakian that I am aware of, and that both he and Prachanda seem to me to err on the side of dodgy personality cultism, as indeed does Mao.

Mao is interesting in this piece, however, in admonishing the Partymen for not having publicised Mao's own self-criticism. This in fact segues nicely with some stuff I was reading recently from Stalin apologists arguing with some plausibility that the cult of personality of Stalin served not Stalin, but rather bureaucratic functionaries, and that it was they who propagated it against Stalin's wishes. One can well believe this with Mao, particularly considering that Mao has continued to be deployed by the CCP as a symbol for them to use as a cloak for their restoration of everything Mao opposed.

COMRADES! A film about our beloved chairman has recently been made

http://www.thepassionofthemao.com/index.html

view the funny trailer

On Democratic Centralism

I suggest we read "On Democratic Centralism" next. It's mostly a practical explanation of democratic centralism, but in contains important chides at the emerging revisionist forces. For Those of you with a book of Mao's writings or access to them it is in Chairman Mao Talks to the People, Stuart Schram, 1974.

Update from Mark: this reading is the second section of this larger document from 1962 (thanks to cf for the link). If y'all haven't read the reading yet, this is probably a better source to read from as it is in html.