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(A faction fight develops in Pete Taaffe's FI. One of the issues involves "democratic centralism", the last refuge of scoundrels trying to maintain hegemony in small propaganda groups following the Zinovievist model.)
The EC’s undialectical approach towards discussion of theoretical differences was highlighted to one of the authors of this document when he requested a branch debate on the cause of the 2007/8 crisis earlier in the year. It was then suggested by a senior member of the Party that the branch should subsequently take a vote on the branch position of the cause of crisis immediately afterwards! This shows a complete failure to understand that democratic centralism prescribes unity on the basis of action, such as programmatical action and activity, and not unity on theory. It is completely absurd, not to mention anti-Bolshevik, to have an agreed “party line” on the cause of capitalist crisis! For example, Lenin and Luxemburg disagreed on this very issue, but their differing views were published and discussed publicly. They also had differences in organisational methods, and even Trotsky publicly polemicised against Lenin’s “What Is to Be Done?” with his “Our Political Tasks”, at a time when Trotsky held a nominally Menshevik and Lasallean approach to Party building and organisation.
full: http://marxistworld.net/2014/01/building-a-revolutionary-party-in-the-21st-century/
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