celticfire
1st October 2005, 17:15
I wanted to start a thread on the topic of Vanguard and what the role of them are. I've noticed that a number of people seem to think it means ordering others to do what you want. Well, I and I know others disagree and to add to the discussion I wanted to throw in Bob Avakian's comments on the vanguard:
What It Means To Be The Vanguard (http://rwor.org/a/v24/1161-1170/1161/baintrv6.htm)
Carl Dix: Okay, so let me bring back the second part of that question which also some of these forces pose -- "Why can this party call itself a vanguard? What is it about this party that qualifies it for that?" And some of them pose it more negatively about why they think it's not.
Bob Avakian: First of all, what does it mean to say you're the vanguard? Does it mean that you insist that everybody follow you whatever you do? No, that's not what it means--or that's not what it should mean.
What it means is not that you are declaring yourself that which everyone must follow, but that you're taking responsibility, in all of its different expressions and every dimension, for actually leading the process that has to be carried forward in order to deal with the problem, in order to bring about the solution, in order to upend and overturn the system and transform all of society and contribute to that process on a worldwide basis. That's what it means to be a vanguard fundamentally. It means you're taking the responsibility for that, and that means both leading and it also means learning. It means learning from the masses and it means learning from other people. It means carrying out a process of unity-struggle-unity with many different forces in society. But that's fundamentally what you're doing when you're saying that you're the--you're saying, "We are willing to and determined to take the responsibility for leading the revolutionary process to overturn this monstrous system and to bring into being a better world together with revolutionaries and vanguard forces throughout the world."
So that's a fundamental point that's very important to stress. It's a fundamental point of orientation.
Now, how do you determine if a group really is a vanguard or not? Once again it gets back to line. This question has to be approached in a concentrated way as a matter of line. Does a group's line--does its outlook on the world, does its world view, does its methodology, does its programme, do its policies actually represent a correct understanding of the problem and a correct means to achieve the solution? Does it really have the means, on the basis of that line, to mobilize the forces that have to be mobilized and to lead people and bring forward people consciously to struggle for what needs to be struggled for in order to bring into being a better world on the basis of having overturned and swept away this system? That's the fundamental question.
Now it's true that a vanguard, to really be a vanguard, should have some following among the masses. In other words, if it merely has a line, in the sense of a set of ideas that it never carries out in practice and never mobilizes the masses around, first of all its line will not remain correct because you can't cook up the correct line in a hothouse where you're divorced from the actual class struggle. You're only going to learn more and more deeply what's correct by taking it into practice and carrying out what we call the practice-theory-practice dialectic, where you formulate ideas on the basis of summing up as much as you can about reality, you take them out to put them into practice, unite with the masses to carry them out, win the masses to take them up, learn from the masses as well as from experience broadly in that context and then further develop your line. That you have to do. If you don't do that, if you're not actively doing that, then objectively you're not a vanguard no matter how good your ideas sound (if they do).
Second of all, yes, you should have a certain section of the masses behind you, but there's an important point in this regard that Lenin made. He said the definition of "masses" means different things in different circumstances. He said in a non-revolutionary situation, masses can mean a few thousand people. In a revolutionary situation, then you have to be thinking and acting in terms of millions or tens of millions.
In a situation which today, unfortunately, is still a non-revolutionary situation in the U.S., no revolutionary vanguard is going to have millions of people following it, pretty much by definition, I mean in its full program. It may be able to and it should be able to unite with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions in certain particular struggles. But in a non-revolutionary situation, a revolutionary vanguard is not going to have millions of people following it in its full program; otherwise, you'd be in a revolutionary situation almost by definition if you had that. So that can't be the standard and criterion.
But the standard and criterion that is important--it's not as fundamental as the question of line, but it is important and it is also a reflection of line and how you're carrying it out--is that a vanguard should have, even in a non-revolutionary situation, thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people who either more or less are following it directly or who look to it for leadership. And by that criterion our Party does in fact constitute a vanguard. And the point is not to be complacent with that. The point is that we're always, as we say, seeking to strain against the limits that are imposed by the objective conditions and to transform them and to expand the ranks of the revolution as well as to advance the struggle overall. But I think that's the way you have to approach the question of whether you're a vanguard or not.
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Anarchist thinking says we don't need a vanguard, that they're only vehicles for controlling the masses not to real liberation. But I see a contridction among anarchist thinking, for example: one anarchist said "we need to teach people to liberate themselves, we don't need a vanguard." I think that is the whole point of a vanguard, to lead people to liberate themselves and raise above what we have all been taught we can accomplish (ie: all you can really do is vote for a democrat) - a vanguard's role is to raise the sights of the masses beyond what the oppressors have taught us to think we can accomplish.
There is the possibility of vanguards becoming their opposite (mechanisms for oppression) but honestly I see that with council communism and direct democracy too - take SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) for example, I've read personal accounts that they had a participatory democracy, but in reality decisions were shaped by "heavies" or full time activists, who were usually white men. So I don't think just throwing away the vanguard idea solves the problem of revisionism (people who will take us back to capitalism within our own movements) nor does it mean that the masses will really master their society.
I look forward to a comradely discussion.
What It Means To Be The Vanguard (http://rwor.org/a/v24/1161-1170/1161/baintrv6.htm)
Carl Dix: Okay, so let me bring back the second part of that question which also some of these forces pose -- "Why can this party call itself a vanguard? What is it about this party that qualifies it for that?" And some of them pose it more negatively about why they think it's not.
Bob Avakian: First of all, what does it mean to say you're the vanguard? Does it mean that you insist that everybody follow you whatever you do? No, that's not what it means--or that's not what it should mean.
What it means is not that you are declaring yourself that which everyone must follow, but that you're taking responsibility, in all of its different expressions and every dimension, for actually leading the process that has to be carried forward in order to deal with the problem, in order to bring about the solution, in order to upend and overturn the system and transform all of society and contribute to that process on a worldwide basis. That's what it means to be a vanguard fundamentally. It means you're taking the responsibility for that, and that means both leading and it also means learning. It means learning from the masses and it means learning from other people. It means carrying out a process of unity-struggle-unity with many different forces in society. But that's fundamentally what you're doing when you're saying that you're the--you're saying, "We are willing to and determined to take the responsibility for leading the revolutionary process to overturn this monstrous system and to bring into being a better world together with revolutionaries and vanguard forces throughout the world."
So that's a fundamental point that's very important to stress. It's a fundamental point of orientation.
Now, how do you determine if a group really is a vanguard or not? Once again it gets back to line. This question has to be approached in a concentrated way as a matter of line. Does a group's line--does its outlook on the world, does its world view, does its methodology, does its programme, do its policies actually represent a correct understanding of the problem and a correct means to achieve the solution? Does it really have the means, on the basis of that line, to mobilize the forces that have to be mobilized and to lead people and bring forward people consciously to struggle for what needs to be struggled for in order to bring into being a better world on the basis of having overturned and swept away this system? That's the fundamental question.
Now it's true that a vanguard, to really be a vanguard, should have some following among the masses. In other words, if it merely has a line, in the sense of a set of ideas that it never carries out in practice and never mobilizes the masses around, first of all its line will not remain correct because you can't cook up the correct line in a hothouse where you're divorced from the actual class struggle. You're only going to learn more and more deeply what's correct by taking it into practice and carrying out what we call the practice-theory-practice dialectic, where you formulate ideas on the basis of summing up as much as you can about reality, you take them out to put them into practice, unite with the masses to carry them out, win the masses to take them up, learn from the masses as well as from experience broadly in that context and then further develop your line. That you have to do. If you don't do that, if you're not actively doing that, then objectively you're not a vanguard no matter how good your ideas sound (if they do).
Second of all, yes, you should have a certain section of the masses behind you, but there's an important point in this regard that Lenin made. He said the definition of "masses" means different things in different circumstances. He said in a non-revolutionary situation, masses can mean a few thousand people. In a revolutionary situation, then you have to be thinking and acting in terms of millions or tens of millions.
In a situation which today, unfortunately, is still a non-revolutionary situation in the U.S., no revolutionary vanguard is going to have millions of people following it, pretty much by definition, I mean in its full program. It may be able to and it should be able to unite with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions in certain particular struggles. But in a non-revolutionary situation, a revolutionary vanguard is not going to have millions of people following it in its full program; otherwise, you'd be in a revolutionary situation almost by definition if you had that. So that can't be the standard and criterion.
But the standard and criterion that is important--it's not as fundamental as the question of line, but it is important and it is also a reflection of line and how you're carrying it out--is that a vanguard should have, even in a non-revolutionary situation, thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people who either more or less are following it directly or who look to it for leadership. And by that criterion our Party does in fact constitute a vanguard. And the point is not to be complacent with that. The point is that we're always, as we say, seeking to strain against the limits that are imposed by the objective conditions and to transform them and to expand the ranks of the revolution as well as to advance the struggle overall. But I think that's the way you have to approach the question of whether you're a vanguard or not.
==============================================
Anarchist thinking says we don't need a vanguard, that they're only vehicles for controlling the masses not to real liberation. But I see a contridction among anarchist thinking, for example: one anarchist said "we need to teach people to liberate themselves, we don't need a vanguard." I think that is the whole point of a vanguard, to lead people to liberate themselves and raise above what we have all been taught we can accomplish (ie: all you can really do is vote for a democrat) - a vanguard's role is to raise the sights of the masses beyond what the oppressors have taught us to think we can accomplish.
There is the possibility of vanguards becoming their opposite (mechanisms for oppression) but honestly I see that with council communism and direct democracy too - take SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) for example, I've read personal accounts that they had a participatory democracy, but in reality decisions were shaped by "heavies" or full time activists, who were usually white men. So I don't think just throwing away the vanguard idea solves the problem of revisionism (people who will take us back to capitalism within our own movements) nor does it mean that the masses will really master their society.
I look forward to a comradely discussion.