We are not talking about "smaller party". We are talking about the faction within one party. Majority has the full right to kick offenders out.
It is not government. It's a party. You can even have multi-party system, Bolsheviks simply didn't have that as an option, as even Left SR went reactionary and attempted Right-wing coup in the summer of 1918.
The party was effectively the government. In order to have a functioning democracy minority factions need to be allowed to operate. The ban on factions within the party was a mistake. You’re basically justifying destroying proletarian democracy based on a technicality.
"There is no contradiction between an absence of factions and democracy, just as there's no contradiction between a single party and democracy.
Factionalism entails replacing service to the party with service to the particular faction one belongs to. Lenin wrote that "factionalism in practice inevitably leads to the weakening of team-work and to intensified and repeated attempts by the enemies of the governing Party, who have wormed their way into it, to widen the cleavage and to use it for counter-revolutionary purposes."
When the party comes to a decision on something, factions can easily disrupt the carrying out of that decision by functioning as miniature, rival parties with their own memberships, periodicals, platforms, etc.
Through regular meetings of the party at all levels of society (from the nationwide level to the local environments like towns and apartment blocks) members can disagree on what course to pursue or suggest changes in existing policies. The important thing is that once a decision has been arrived at, it is to be carried out by all members until the next meeting of the membership where disagreements or criticisms can be voiced."
says Ismail
I agree on that position if we are talking about a revolutionary party before it takes power. After a revolution is an entirely different story. After the revolution there needs to be tolerance of dedicated opposition forces which will seek to carry out their agenda in the legislature, and will seek to prevent other factions from carrying out theirs. I fail to see how there could be a functioning democracy without an opposition to the governing faction that can openly and continuously criticize that government and work to convince others of its own ideas. Unless that opposition devolves into literal sabotage (ie terrorism, destructive acts, not just criticism and voting against the governing faction) and subversion of the state entirely, it’s normal and healthy for it to oppose and work against the government. In a democracy even the minority has the right to try to carry out its agenda.
No, it wasn't.
Why should opposition be permitted to claim that it is speaking on behalf of government and party it criticizes?
It wouldn’t be. It’s speaking on behalf of the opposition within the party.