Democratic centralism

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Democratic centralism is the organisational principle of most communist parties, in which decisions are made by a process of vigorous and open debate amongst party membership, and are subsequently binding upon all members of the party. The concept is mainly associated with Marxism–Leninism and how that governs a political or administrative group such as a party, wherein the party's political vanguard of revolutionaries practice democratic centralism to select leaders and officers, and determine and execute policy.^[1]

Democratic centralism has historically been associated with not only Marxist-Leninist but also Trotskyist parties,^[2][3] and has also occasionally been practised by democratic socialist and social democratic parties, such as South Africa's African National Congress.

Scholars dispute whether and to what extent democratic centralism was implemented in practice in places where they were nominally in force, such as the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, pointing to violent power struggles, backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige.^[4] Various socialist states have made democratic centralism the organisational principle of the state in their statutes, with the political power principle being unitary power.