Revy
8th December 2009, 02:35
from the SWP split thread:
Elitism is actually the opposite of vanguardism (something which I am no longer opposed to). You see, a revolutionary vanguard wants to advance itself, not tear itself apart.
I wouldn't say thats a reason why elitism is 'the opposite of vanguardism'. It doesn't make sense to say that, as its pretty obvious no organisation would want to tear itself apart. The question is whether or not vanguardism could represent a form of elitism. I myself think it depends on what 'rights' a vanguard party thinks it has, i.e. I'd say Trotsky's view that a vanguard party could tell a worker what job to do is even more worrying than simple 'elitism'.
As Hal Draper put it (in The Two Souls of Socialism):
Can the workers fit themselves? ... He was under no starry-eyed illusions about the working class as it was (or is). But he proposed a different goal than the elitists whose sole wisdom consists in pointing a finger at the backwardness of the people now, and in teaching that this must always be so. As against the faith in elite rule from above, Debs counterpoised the directly contrary notion of the revolutionary vanguard (also a minority) whose faith impels them to advocate a harder road for the majority:
It is the minorities who have made the history of this world [he said in the 1917 anti-war speech for which Wilsons government jailed him]. It is the few who have had the courage to take their places at the front; who have been true enough to themselves to speak the truth that was in them; who have dared oppose the established order of things; who have espoused the cause of the suffering, struggling poor; who have upheld without regard to personal consequences the cause of freedom and righteousness.and then in another chapter later this is explained more clearly:
On the other hand, the revolutionary-democratic advocates of Socialism-from-Below have also always been a minority, but the chasm between the elitist approach and the vanguard approach is crucial, as we have seen in the case of Debs. For him as for Marx and Luxemburg, the function of the revolutionary vanguard is to impel the mass-majority to fit themselves to take power in their own name, through their own struggles. The point is not to deny the critical importance of minorities, but to establish a different relationship between the advanced minority and the more backward mass.
Elitism is actually the opposite of vanguardism (something which I am no longer opposed to). You see, a revolutionary vanguard wants to advance itself, not tear itself apart.
I wouldn't say thats a reason why elitism is 'the opposite of vanguardism'. It doesn't make sense to say that, as its pretty obvious no organisation would want to tear itself apart. The question is whether or not vanguardism could represent a form of elitism. I myself think it depends on what 'rights' a vanguard party thinks it has, i.e. I'd say Trotsky's view that a vanguard party could tell a worker what job to do is even more worrying than simple 'elitism'.
As Hal Draper put it (in The Two Souls of Socialism):
Can the workers fit themselves? ... He was under no starry-eyed illusions about the working class as it was (or is). But he proposed a different goal than the elitists whose sole wisdom consists in pointing a finger at the backwardness of the people now, and in teaching that this must always be so. As against the faith in elite rule from above, Debs counterpoised the directly contrary notion of the revolutionary vanguard (also a minority) whose faith impels them to advocate a harder road for the majority:
It is the minorities who have made the history of this world [he said in the 1917 anti-war speech for which Wilsons government jailed him]. It is the few who have had the courage to take their places at the front; who have been true enough to themselves to speak the truth that was in them; who have dared oppose the established order of things; who have espoused the cause of the suffering, struggling poor; who have upheld without regard to personal consequences the cause of freedom and righteousness.and then in another chapter later this is explained more clearly:
On the other hand, the revolutionary-democratic advocates of Socialism-from-Below have also always been a minority, but the chasm between the elitist approach and the vanguard approach is crucial, as we have seen in the case of Debs. For him as for Marx and Luxemburg, the function of the revolutionary vanguard is to impel the mass-majority to fit themselves to take power in their own name, through their own struggles. The point is not to deny the critical importance of minorities, but to establish a different relationship between the advanced minority and the more backward mass.