Democratic centralism or socialist democracy.

With the Labour Party in serious trouble, there is increasing consideration being given to an alternative for the Left. Perhaps it is a choice of being marginalised within the Labour Party, or being marginalised outside! I had thought that the Green Party may have something to offer, particularly the Green Left, but they seem unable to relate to working class politics, as we saw in the Glasgow East by-election. Clearly, there is no easy way forward. The ideological domination of capital is such that many people just don't see a viable alternative. The leap of the imagination necessary to visualise a different kind of society, one based on production for use rather than profit, on co-operation rather than exploitation, is just too far in present circumstances. We need to concentrate on the achievement of an authentic social democracy for the immediate future.

This will be difficult enough to even begin to move towards, but any kind of Left alliance based on democratic centralist organisations is surely doomed to failure. We have to convince by the quality of our ideas and the relevance of them to the everyday lives of the common people. If you have what is intended to be a broad popular democratic alliance, it will not survive the sectarian feuding implicit in having democratic centralist organisations within its ranks. The idea may have some relevance for revolutionary organisations, in potentially revolutionary situations. If you have a so-called vanguard party which needs to maintain discipline, then deciding policy on a democratic basis and then maintaining this as the line for all members, might work if it does not degenerate into bureaucracy. However, revolutions are problematical. They are better comprehended in retrospect than in prospect. They cannot be accurately predicted, either in terms of their advent or their nature. Nor can their eventual political control. Socialists are as likely to end up opposing the regimes they produce, as supporting them. Certainly, feuding Trotskyist sects should in no way be part of our prospectus.

Rather, inside or outside the Labour Party, we should seek to eschew sectarianism and work toward a broadly-based alliance of the anti-capitalist forces in society, building alliances with all those in struggle for progressive causes along the way.