Bases of Parties

Abstract

A party is not a community but a collection of communities, a union of small groups dispersed throughout the country (branches, caucuses, local associations, etc.) and linked by co-ordinating institutions. The term ‘basic elements’ is used for these component units of the party organization. The contrasting of direct and indirect parties was in a ‘horizontal’ plane; the idea of basic elements refers to a ‘vertical’ plane. Each of the corporate or professional groups which compose an indirect party is itself a union of ‘basic elements’: Trade Unions, Co-operatives, Guilds of the Boerenbond, local middle-class Leagues, etc.; but these are not political by nature: the party only appears through their agglomeration, either at the summit alone, or at the different levels. Moreover there should be no confusion between the ‘basic elements’, the units from which the party springs, and the ‘ancillary organizations’, institutions which centre upon it, either to bring together supporters, or to strengthen the bonds of membership: youth movements, women’s organizations, sports clubs, cultural organizations, etc. As a matter of fact it is not always easy to distinguish between them and the professional or corporate communities whose union forms the indirect parties: the Trade Unions, for example, are sometimes ancillary organizations of a direct party, sometimes a branch of an indirect party. Only a general analysis of the structure of a party makes it possible to distinguish between the two.KeywordsBasic ElementTrade UnionSport ClubParty MemberPolitical EducationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.