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. It is mainly associated with Marxism–Leninism, 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 primarily been associated with Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyist parties,^[2][3] but has also occasionally been practised by other democratic socialist and social democratic parties such as South Africa's African National Congress. Scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism was implemented in practice in the Soviet Union and China, pointing to violent power struggles, backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige in those states.^[4]

Socialist states, such as the former Soviet Union and present-day China, have made democratic centralism the organisational principle of the state, and the political power principle being unitary power.