Social media and democratic centralism: Opportunities and challenges

The following is an edited version of an internal document initially written in late 2015 and formed part of the basis for party-wide discussions in the Party for Socialism and Liberation in early 2016. The document examines the new possibilities and difficulties posed by the proliferation of social media from the perspective of the Leninist party. Ben Becker evaluates the resulting qualitative shifts in mass communication, obstacles to vertical organization, the individualizing tendencies of social media, and other tensions between social media and democratic centralist organizations. It analyzes this latter question by comparing social media with the original “collective organizer” for Leninists: the party newspaper. The final section of the article articulates the new security issues raised by social media. Because there are few works that address this issue in a systematic and action-oriented way, we publish it here as a resource for newer party comrades and others in the struggle as they grapple with the (often frustrating) realities of organizing in such an online environment. Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/social-media-and-democratic-centralism-opportunities-and-challenges/