Successful democratic party regeneration required rapid centralization and undemocratic means

Evidence

Even with the advantages of elite political resources, party regeneration was far from inevitable. It required an enormous transformation of the communist parties’ organizations from tools of authoritarian rule to instruments of democratic competition. Once they were forced out of power, these parties now had to signal their new intentions, obtain strategic flexibility, and steel themselves for further programmatic, electoral, and parliamentary transformation. To that end, early and rapid centralization of the organization and a symbolic break with the past were crucial. One resulting irony was that success in democracy often involved profoundly undemocratic organizational means: weakening or eliminating party membership, abolishing internal debates, and reducing local autonomy. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 376

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s core question — whether parties survive by strategic transformation. The ‘profoundly undemocratic means for democratic ends’ irony parallels how successor parties differ from their originals. — connects to: Democratic success required communist parties to adopt undemocratic organizational means — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 376; Democratic centralism means adapting constantly to movement rather than hardening into bureaucracy; Successful party reform requires new leaders able to centralize decisively and rapidly. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 93 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Was there variation among parties in how far centralization went, and did the specific choice correlate with survival or decay later?

Broader Connections

• Democratic success required communist parties to adopt undemocratic organizational means #corroborates (0.92) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 376
• Successful party reform requires new leaders able to centralize decisively and rapidly. #corroborates (0.85) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 93
• Centralized parties with experienced elites adapted best to postcommunist elections. #corroborates (0.85) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 71
• Democratic centralism means adapting constantly to movement rather than hardening into bureaucracy #qualifies (0.78)
• Progressive parties use democratic centralism while regressive ones become unthinking bureaucratic executors #qualifies (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 685