DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM
I want to start by looking at the main alterantive to anarchist methods of organisation, Democratic Centralism.
The theory of democratic centralism is relativly simple although volumes have been written on it. Basically the organisation elects a leadership on the baisis of their political skill/agreement. This leadership is then free to make policies on behalf of the membership. This is the bare minimum of the idea. Now in theory that does not seem too problomatic. This is what the SWM etc will tell you what they mean by democratic centralism however in reality it goes a bit further.
The leadership under democratic centralism is the highest decision making body..It is able to overrule existing policy if it wishes. One recent example of this is seen in the LRCI. They had policy saying the "Workers states could not peacfully go back to capitalism". History made nonsense of this so the international committee changed the policy to say that it could. In theory this could happen to any piece of policy.
It is sometimes claimed that the leaderships decisions can be overturned at conferences. Technically this is a departure from democratic centralism. In practise however it seldoms happens on any important issue. The use of Democratic centralism tends towards producing a leadership cleaque where the same people are effectivly permanently in the leadership even if they are supposed to be re-elected every couple of years. This is true of any Trotskyst group I can think of with the exception of Militant where Ted Grant backed himself into a corner with very few supporters.
Policy tends not to be overturned for a related reason also. Under Democratic Centralism the leadership normally has the power to expel members and to set the conference agenda. It is normally possible to neutralise any opposition that does not have a significant presence in the leadership by manipulating agendas and expelling individuals. The Bolsheviks in 1918 for instance effectivly closed down the faction around "Communist" by pressurising the local branches to deny tem any facilities.
Democratic centralism does have advantages. These are it is commonly possible to make decisions quicker and also to make them in a cheaper fashion which uses less of the parties resources.
The traditional anarchist alternative to organisation has been the federation. The theory of a federation as I understand it is that the individual parts can implement a collective agreement if they want to but may not implement it or even do something contradictory. In practise this makes deciosn making at conferences etc of limted importance except where questions of national resources apply. After all what is the point of fighting for a particular position if when you suceed in getting it through it can be ignored by anyone who does not agree with you.
In fact in a federation there is a tendancy to minimise political debate as there is little to be gained from it but you may well stir up bad feeling within the organisation. Federation in this classical model is the basis of the Synthesis theory of organisation. At the moment this sort of model may well be behind the fact that Direct Action has not appeared for a number of months. The last couple of issues had letters and articles attcaking other branches over their position on femminism.
We want an organisation where the membership is the highest decision making body, decisions are made as efficently and cheaply as possible without sacrificing democracy and once a decision is made all members are required to implement it. That at least is my reading of our constitution and other documents. When we have other branches the relatinship between them will not be that of a traditional federation. Everybody will be required to abide by decisions that are made.
How do we do this in a democratic fashion. Conferences should be the highest decision making body and probably the only body with the power to expel members. A gap should be maintained between those filling political posts and those filling administrative posts. At the moment we only have administrative posts, what do I mean by political posts.
There will obviously be a need to be able to change the priorities and perhaps even the line of the organisation between conferences. The people who make these sort of decisions should not be the people who occupy the posts of National Secetary etc. I would argue that all such decisions would have to be made by a national committee