Party & Programme > Democratic centralism
The long view
29 Mar 2012
Communists must be patient, writes Paul Demarty, avoiding the twins of opportunism and adventurism
Make the party now!
28 Aug 2025
Resolution unanimously agreed at the August 24 aggregate of CPGB members and invited supporters
Civility and its discontents
10 Jul 2025
Lessons from Martin Luther and the Hobbesian demand for speech controls. Can we build a workable communist movement without ruthless truthfulness, even at the cost of giving offence? Paul Demarty thinks no
Get back to the talking
10 Jul 2025
Being in a majority is nicer than being in a minority, but without minorities accepting being in a minority, there can be no hope of meaningful communist unity. Scott Evans reports on the June 30 TAS meeting
After Mamdani’s victory
03 Jul 2025
We should celebrate the triumph of a DSA member in New York City’s Democratic primary, argues Paul Demarty. But what this once again poses is the question of party control over representatives
They come with thorns
08 May 2025
Demands for ‘civility’, avoiding ‘name-calling’ and approaching others ‘in a comradely way’ are phrases that come straight from the dominant culture of opportunism. Mike Macnair defends the CPGB’s good culture of open criticism and robust polemics
Programmatic starting point
27 Feb 2025
Without a comprehensive, fully worked-out programme, our party will have no chance of taking coherent form, guarding against opportunism or navigating the road to socialism, argues Jack Conrad
Moshé and Nick
20 Feb 2025
Question, question, question, that is Marxism. Carla Roberts reports on the latest session in the ‘Building a Communist Party’ series organised by Why Marx?, which addressed the question of sects and sectarianism
Speech controls yet again
20 Feb 2025
There are those who want to keep differences polite, internal and under tight control. That is the approach of the opportunist right. Mike Macnair takes issue with those complaining about the CPGB’s ‘bad culture’
Problems and progress
13 Feb 2025
We are ready now to get down to programmatic specifics, but there are the ‘partyists’ who are not walking the walk ... yet. Jack Conrad reports
Two meetings and many possibilities
13 Feb 2025
No-one thinks we stand on the threshold of mass politics. But there is clearly an audience, especially amongst those wanting to go beyond the confessional sects. Carla Roberts reports
Going beyond strikism
06 Feb 2025
Too much of left politics is trade union politics. But what is urgently needed, argues Mike Macnair, is the working class posing a political alternative to capitalist rule
What sort of party?
21 Nov 2024
Setting up yet another loose network, a broad left alliance or a confessional sect would obviously be pointless. Mike Macnair responds to an invitation to discuss what is the main question before us today
Amy Leather vanishes
19 Sep 2024
What lies behind the mid-term changes at the top? The central committee limits itself to a single gnomic pronouncement. Meanwhile, Paul Demarty investigates
A hundred years is enough
19 Sep 2024
Three books, all published in 1924, laid the ideological groundwork for a Lenin cult, which is still responsible for the confessional sects and academic historians alike getting the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution so wrong. Lars T Lih shows that there was no Hegel moment, no April theses break, no conversion to Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks consistently upheld revolutionary social democracy
Applying Bolshevism globally
25 Apr 2024
Comintern came into existence because of, on the one hand, the treachery of most of the social democratic parties and, on the other hand, the inspiration provided by the Bolsheviks and the October Revolution. However, as Jack Conrad explains, the main problem encountered in the early years was leftism - not least when it came to electoral strategy and tactics