Is the vanguard party reactionary or revolutionary?

[Astarte]

I am wondering if the vanguard party is reactionary or revolutionary seeing as though when a vanguard party comes to power it usually converts itself into a new ruling class.

[Robespierre Richard]

Depends on who you ask.

[hatzel]

Depends on who you ask.

Yeah, this is just asking for a tendency war...

In response to the OP: it could even be neither. It could occupy that strange area between the two. That is to say, it might be what we call in the business...a colossal waste of time...

[PhoenixAsh]

Mostly they are....which stacks evidence against them. But that is not to say that they always will be.

I personally don't see a way to have a vanguard party dissolve itself after the revolution. I am primarilly opposed to the idea but I will not argue that there are no specific situations in which a vanguard maybe a usefull tool..IF and only IF it can be 100% guaranteed that it will dissolve.

[hatzel]

IF and only IF it can be 100% guaranteed that it will dissolve.

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how difficult that is to guarantee. I think it's fair to say that, on that condition, there will never be a situation in which the vanguard would be something worth using...from your perspective...from mine, it's much the same, but I can see the potential worth in a vanguard party, if it might improve prevailing conditions to some extent. But that would be about the same as seeing the relative worth in electing a social-democratic party to power if the current ruling party was far right; that is to say, it doesn't effect me, it doesn't necessarily put me anything closer to something I want, but that doesn't mean I'm automatically opposed to it 'in the mean time', if it improves conditions.

The problem is that, historically speaking, the use of some vanguard party seems to make it that little bit tougher for other groups of leftists to actually achieve anything towards their own goals, for some reason, and that's not an improvement in conditions...so, again, it falls back on needing some kind of impossible guarantee that the vanguard won't be complete schmucks about it all...

[Savage]

Like most questions about the vanguard, this just leads back to the question, ''What the Fuck is a Vanguard?''. If you consider the Bolsheviks to have been a vanguard (most learned people would understand them as the only vanguard in history), then to prove that they were reactionary you would have to completely deny the function that the bourgeois states of the world had in the degenerated of the revolution, but then again, there are people who don't consider the vanguard to be something that has ever existed.

[28350]

this is such a non-issue

for fuck's sake people this isn't early 20th century Russia.

[Octavian]

To have ensure that the vanguard didn't become tyrannical you would have to have them associated on a non personal basis and even that doesn't guarantee much.

[hatzel]

for fuck's sake people this isn't early 20th century Russia.

Are you absolutely positively 100% sure about that? :rolleyes:

And, to be honest, I feel that a lot of outsiders might peek into RevLeft and think that we think that it is, given the fact that a healthy chunk of what goes on around here is...discussing 20th century Russia, quoting 20th century Russians, very little else, really...

[Savage]

I'm sorry guys, I forgot that history is completely irrelevant to the modern world, especially politically.

[hatzel]

I'm sorry guys, I forgot that history is completely irrelevant to the modern world, especially politically.

Well...just try to remember next time :)

[28350]

Let me clarify before someone is an asshole and strawmans what I said.
EDIT: Oh darn, it looks like someone already has.

First, very few leftists oppose a vanguard party. A vanguard party is the most class-conscious section of the working class.
Who opposes vp?
Councilists - oh well
WSM, SPGP - It's strange they call themselves marxists when they deny the very practical implications of class struggle (eg. a ruling class unwilling to simply give up the means of production)
Platformists - Anarcho-syndicalists like CNT/FAI are vanguardist. I'm leaving out other anarchists bc these are the only two i can take seriously.

Second, it doesn't matter who supports what
Any movement that has a decent chance of socialist revolution must be international and proletarian. It won't be summoned by some leftist necromantic sect using their arcane magical texts. You only get to watch (or if you're lucky, ride) the waves of history. Any party-movement will necessarily have a vanguard. The party will be one of class rule, not some sect whose interpretation of some Marxist nicene creed is found to be most agreeable.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Well...just try to remember next time :)

I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic...

Nic.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The most class conscious sections of the working class organizing to lead the rest of the working class.

obviously not all workers are revolutionary or think in terms of class interest, they need their fellow workers to lead them. this is what the vanguard does, it acts as a tool to help spread class consciousness and organize a fight against the bourgeoisie.

[Astarte]

Obviously the vanguard is made up of the most advanced portions of the proletariat, and petty bourgeoisie, and yes its role is to lead and guide the masses, but time and time again the mechanisms of the revolutionary party convert themselves into the mechanisms of a state bureaucracy which elevates itself over society.

Is is alright that the vanguard party in power alienates itself so much from the "people" (proletariat/peasantry/petty bourgeoisie) it claims to represent? Is this recurring aspect of Marxism-Leninism to be ignored?

[Jose Gracchus]

Well they are usually just hypocrites according to their own politics...the Bolshevik party abandoned the 'vanguard' militant workers of the working class by 1921, and arguably as early as 1919. This is papered over in hope of attracting recruits on the basis of anti-Marxist cant like "workers need something believe in" (yes, I've heard this - apparently speaking the truth about the USSR and PRC is too "demoralizing"; funnily enough, the truth-value of the claims don't seem to come into it), and attaching themselves to radical-chic brand-names.

[The Idler]

Marx said the working-class will emancipate themselves.
Engels said about socialists only through sentiment;

believing that a small and well organized minority, who would attempt a political stroke of force at the opportune moment, could carry the mass of the people with them by a few successes at the start and thus make a victorious revolution.
Rosa Luxemburg made similar criticisms.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll just reiterate here that it's more accurate to conceptualize a vanguard "party" more as a *movement* than as an *organization* or institution, per se.

Just as we can currently discuss and analyze the 'anti-imperialist' *movement* in relation to the capitalist world's current domineering status quo of empire, a vanguard party would be a movement of leading political thought for a global working class revolutionary offensive, to guide action.





I personally don't see a way to have a vanguard party dissolve itself after the revolution. I am primarilly opposed to the idea but I will not argue that there are no specific situations in which a vanguard maybe a usefull tool..IF and only IF it can be 100% guaranteed that it will dissolve.





I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how difficult that is to guarantee. I think it's fair to say that, on that condition, there will never be a situation in which the vanguard would be something worth using...from your perspective...from mine, it's much the same, but I can see the potential worth in a vanguard party, if it might improve prevailing conditions to some extent. But that would be about the same as seeing the relative worth in electing a social-democratic party to power if the current ruling party was far right; that is to say, it doesn't effect me, it doesn't necessarily put me anything closer to something I want, but that doesn't mean I'm automatically opposed to it 'in the mean time', if it improves conditions.




The problem is that, historically speaking, the use of some vanguard party seems to make it that little bit tougher for other groups of leftists to actually achieve anything towards their own goals, for some reason, and that's not an improvement in conditions...so, again, it falls back on needing some kind of impossible guarantee that the vanguard won't be complete schmucks about it all...





First, very few leftists oppose a vanguard party. A vanguard party is the most class-conscious section of the working class.




Second, it doesn't matter who supports what
Any movement that has a decent chance of socialist revolution must be international and proletarian. It won't be summoned by some leftist necromantic sect using their arcane magical texts. You only get to watch (or if you're lucky, ride) the waves of history. Any party-movement will necessarily have a vanguard. The party will be one of class rule, not some sect whose interpretation of some Marxist nicene creed is found to be most agreeable.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'll just reiterate here that it's more accurate to conceptualize a vanguard "party" more as a *movement* than as an *organization* or institution, per se.

Just as we can currently discuss and analyze the 'anti-imperialist' *movement* in relation to the capitalist world's current domineering status quo of empire, a vanguard party would be a movement of leading political thought for a global working class revolutionary offensive, to guide action.

Comrade, it should be both. Only by being a real movement at the same time can it be a real party. The party-movement must then have institutions.

[The Grey Blur]

I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic...

Nic.
I'm pretty sure the Rabbi was too...

[hatzel]

I'm pretty sure the Rabbi was too...

I'm pretty sure it's hilarious to be referred to as 'the Rabbi', and I'm not regretting my decision to change the name. Not one bit.

Back to the topic...I don't understand why ckaihatsu quoted all that stuff we said :confused: Can you explain the link, or was it an accident, or am I missing something?

[ckaihatsu]

Comrade, it should be both. Only by being a real movement at the same time can it be a real party.




The party-movement must then have institutions.


Well, this is the part that makes people nervous -- in the absence of a context in reality we can only discuss and argue abstractly / in a vacuum about the degree of formalism and organizational discipline that might be required by such an endeavor, but I'd prefer to think of it as more of an umbrella rather than a hierarchy.





I don't understand why ckaihatsu quoted all that stuff we said :confused: Can you explain the link, or was it an accident, or am I missing something?


Oh, I included it just to show that people had already mentioned those points. I wasn't pointing out anything new with my own words -- just reiterating what others had previously said.

[Gorilla]

I am wondering if the vanguard party is reactionary or revolutionary seeing as though when a vanguard party comes to power it usually converts itself into a new ruling class.

The trendy thing to read now is Lars Lih. He says what we think Lenin meant by vanguard party is not actually what he meant by vaguard party.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am wondering if the vanguard party is reactionary or revolutionary seeing as though when a vanguard party comes to power it usually converts itself into a new ruling class.A "vanguard" that wants to put itself or its party into power is the vanguard, the front lines, of reaction if there was a revolution. A vanguard party (i.e. a party of organized activists who have won the trust of many other people in the class) that wants to figure out how the working class can best organize to come to power is revolutionary and necessary at some point.

The term "vanguard" has no magical power - it simply means the people who are paving the way... in any revolution it exists, but not necessarily organized together into self-conscious parties or groups. I think it's a necissary step for the class in organizing itself. It's our class-disorganization that the ruling class needs, counts on, and tried to cultivate through racism and sexism and so on. In order to really counter and defeat their top-down centralized forces, I think we need organized and centralized efforts of our own. Except unlike the ruling class, our class doesn't have strength through controlling other people and resources, our strength is in our numbers and potential unity (fighting in our own class interests instead of hiring others to do it like capitalists have to). So our potential strength is through our ability to have mass and participatory decision-making. So it is useless for a "vanguard party" to be autocratic and to seek to put itself alone in power, but it would also be useless to remain unorganized and hope that our revolution isn't scattered and divided leading to confusion and disunity like in Libya. So think the alternative for parties has to be something to the effect of real democratic-centralism where there can be unity in action but that action is based on mass input from all active party members. That way we can be just as unified as the ruling class but being in an even stronger position because we have the full creativity and passion of many more people.

I think that after a revolution, workers need to figure out how to shape society - revolutionary unions and revolutionary parties are vehicles for getting through capitalism, not sailing on the open ocean of socialism - so workers need to figure out how best to collectively and cooperatively run things.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The trendy thing to read now is Lars Lih. He says what we think Lenin meant by vanguard party is not actually what he meant by vaguard party.

It's more than that. The "trendy" thing is the Kautsky Revival that was pioneered by Lars Lih's Lenin-Kautsky papers (after his WITBD commentary) and intensified by Mike Macnair's Revolutionary Strategy.

The real point is that you can't have real mass party organization without real mass movements, and vice versa.