Political Parties

The principle of self-government through political parties, the cornerstone of democracy, has come to be regarded as a solution to the problem of nationality

Introduction; Causes of Leadership: Introductory-The Need for Organization; 2: A. Technical and Administrative Causes of Leadership: Mechanical and Technical Impossibility of Direct Government by the Masses; 3: A. Technical and Administrative Causes of Leadership: The Modern Democratic Party as a Fighting Party, Dominated by Militarist Ideas and Methods; 1: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: The Establishment of a Customary Right to the Office of Delegate; 2: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: The Need for Leadership Felt by the Mass; 3: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: The Political Gratitude of the Masses; 4: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: The Cult of Veneration Among the Masses; 5: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: Acessory Qualities Requisite to Leadership; 6: B. Psychological Causes of Leadership: Accessory Peculiarities of the Masses; 1: C. Intellectual Factors: Superiority of the Professional Leaders in Respect to Culture, and Their Indispensa-bility; the Formal and Real Incompetence of the Mass; Two: Autocratic Tendencies of Leaders; 1: The Stability of Leadership; 2: The Financial Power of the Leaders and of the Party; 3: The Leaders and the Press; 4: The Position of the Leaders in Relation to the Masses in Actual Practice; 5: The Struggle Between the Leaders and the Masses; 6: The Struggle Among the Leaders Themselves; 7: Bureaucracy. Centralizing and Decentralizing Tendencies; Three: The Exercise of Power and Its Psychological Reaction upon the Leaders; 1: Psychological Metamorphosis of the Leaders; 2: Bonapartist Ideology; 3: Identification of the Party with the Leader ("Le Parti c'est Moi"); Four: Social Analysis of Leadership; 1: Introductory. The Class Struggle and Its Disintegrating Influence upon the Bourgeoisie; 2: Analysis of the Bourgeois Elements in the Socialist Leadership; 3: Social Changes Resulting from Organization; 4: The Need for the Differentiation of the Working Class; 5: Labor Leaders of Proletarian Origin; 6: Intellectuals, and the Need for Them in the Working-Class Parties; Five: Attempts to Restrict the Influence of the Leaders; 1: The Referendum; 2: The Postulate of Renunciation; 3: Syndicalism as Prophylactic; 4: Anarchism as Prophylactic; Six: Synthesis: The Oligarchical Tendencies of Organization; 1: The Conservative Basis of Organization; 2: Democracy and the Iron Law of Oligarchy; 3: Party-Life in War-Time; 4: Final Considerations