What is vanguardism? - is it elitist?

[peaccenicked]

All most everyone on the left these days has come to the conclusion that vanguardism is elitist or the practice it without facing up to the term. Vanguardism before stalinism would never would have been considered elitist, even anarchists joined the first international.
Socialists, communists anarchists were too sure of their own convictions to consider themselves elitist. The advent of elitism in this context began with the invasion of Russia by 22 different armies. In the state of emergency the Soviets voted to give all power to the
Communist party temporarily but they never got it back,
elitism was futherersd by Stalins victory over the left opposition(murder of). The climate of fear created in Stalins era was also internationalised and elitism was brought into the practices of the movement. the fabians
were already and advocated a socialist meritocracy by creeping reforms. Trotskyite groups produced Gurus
whose written word became gospel. In a sense the greens, anarchists, and anti coparate liberals are a response to this phenonomen. Elitism was being exposed as very uncool. Vanguardism has a few remnants but the are very small groups who are elitist
and have no future.
Having said all this I am going to say that Vanguardism was never intended to be elitist. Lenin wanted to organise the most advanced workers, meaning those educated in the ways of the labour movement , those who had an inkling of its defects into a professional force. Castro and Che undoubtedly learned from Lenin.
However, it was Gramsci who put most definition to the
nature of a vanguard. He said it was when a few hard thinkers got together and thought in solidarity about the actual problems of the people, political, economic and cultural and gained the solidarity of the masses themselves. To me, an elitist can not think in solidarity.

[vox]

I think that the issue has become one of self-determination. Should a group of thinkers decide what is best, or should that arise naturally as class consciousness spreads throughout the proletariat? There can too easily develop a master/slave relationship where a vanguard party is concerned, seeking to lead the worker rather than being led by the workers.

vox

[red head]

but how does class conciousness develop without a vanguard party? lenin said that the workers are capable of trade union thinking but not social democratic thinking. people are naturally smart enough to band together to improve conditions, but it takes outside forces for them to develop into the manifestation of an intricate political theory.

[peaccenicked]

This is the nub of the problem. Lenin talks of 'imbibing
consciousness', the anti-vanguardists talk about naturally developing class consciousness. Lukacs writes screeds on this but I cant make out what he is exactly trying to say. Marx is more romantic, he sees it more broadly as a merging of philosophy with the proletariat
Gramsci points out that "all men are philosophers".
The "tabla rasa" theory of peasants minds seems now to be merely a moaist pre occupation.
In Historical context the battles of the left have had philosophical roots in empiricism, positivism, pragmatism,
eclecticism and dialectics.
The issue of who knows best , I ve always regarded as strange. Issues of the democratic spirit are involved.
Anyone who advocates something thinks they know best no matter to their philosophy. I used to laugh at Class war activists who would say they had no leaders
and then proceeded to lead actions very well.
The master/slave dialect may sound like a bad thing but in it, the slave gains control of the master, after all
he does everything for him.
It becomes a question of culture, or more precisely political culture. A question of how much the class becomes the vanguard , that the self identity of the party and class merge, in an atmosphere of democracy and secuity of position. Leading workers is merely giving direction to our common cause, workers in reality do the leading in the movement . They vote with their feet. If the party does not listen , they lose trust. comrades thinking in solidarity is hard work.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 4:06 pm on Jan. 20, 2002)

[El Che]

Good points peacenicked, however i think there is only one lucid answer to the question vanguards, the answer is you dont pose the question. Because to my mine it cant be a question, noone can propose to own the truth and say he knows what is best for all. This will only lead to failure of the revolution we want, for several reasons. But of course im talking about a vanguard that seeks power, if this is the case then the ead result will be a authoritarian undemocratic goverment that may even introduce comunism or socialist reforms, but at what price? If what we are discussing here is a vanguard that seeks power, one that seeks to control the faiths of a nation, then we are infact talking about a minority that canot get power through democratic elections(for whatever reason) and because of this must take power be force, by revolution. Once this is done there is no more political freedom and that is unaceptable. But if you think about the concept of a party you will find that they are all vanguards, they know what is best, they are a small group, they (any party anywhere) want power to lead. But what they dont do, is take power by force. And that i think is what is important. I am alot of things but im also strongly against authoritarian regimes that dont respect individuals rights to be individuals and to think individualy. I cant abide that. Vanguards? yes maybe, but only in a democratic context.

[peaccenicked]

There is no monopoly on the truth but everybody tries to put their best opinion forward. El Che as usual you have put your position very clearly. People tell me that socialism doesn't work, communism does not work,
so when someone says vanguards don't work I listen very carefully. Firstly, the primary immediate goal of
a revolution is the power of working class people and their allies. A minority taking control without majority support is called a coup d etat. This was called Blanquism by Marxists and the idea was rejected as both immoral and unsustainable. A revolution occurs when the majority take power out of the hands of the ruling class and become the rulers themselves. We have seen all of that power concentrated in the hands of one man. This is not democratic. Traditionally revolutionaries have agreed that the best form of dictatorship is democratic. The majority dictate to the minority. This is the way at the beginning of a revolution. All revolutions have been led by vanguard parties. There has always been other parties around even vanguard parties.
What we have largely witnessed is the ability of one man to concentrate power in his hands.
There are a couple of ways of seeing this. All the blame
can be attached to the one man and his cult of the personality. The revolution being under seige needs to be in constant state of emergency. A virtual police state.
I think that a revolution in a major power will be qualitively different. A majority on the march for socialism
would make a paper tiger out of its enemies. Our traditions in the labour movement and in wider society
would be vigilant to any signs of a concentration of power at the centre. Our revolution needs the power of instant recall. We have the power to decide. Let us use that power. So ultimately I agree with you.

[revolutionary]

The vanguard system (if it is called that) was present in the Cuban Revolution. Che spoke of it many times in his writings. Che was part of it and in the Cuban case it worked well to guide the revolution with out being power hungry and taking over. If the vanguard members are true communists they will not get power hungry and the system will work well.

[Kez]

so can vanguardism be good?
if it aids revolution, on a long term basis

comrade kamo

[peaccenicked]

It think the original intention behind vanguardism was to bring to gether the most radical thinking workers so as to spread and make popular the idea of revolution so that the vanguard would become indistinguishible from
the working class. The division between manual and mental labour would be abolished, indeed that would be the final victory. however many people have seen the word vanguard bastardised and turned into a corrupt elite. The anarchists are always spouting this,
but I've been to some of their meetings. They are no different or better than any group on the left that is democratic. No organisation can exist without a centre of some sort. It is only vanity and the need for to have delusions about authority that is different. The initiative
is not a collective thought and the problem of undue influence should be wiped out be heated debate.
Keep your eye on the prize.

[vox]

But is vanguardism of any kind democratic?

Even if we see it as a process rather than a party, the process would dictate which ideas would be discussed, what was valuable and what was not.

I find this to be a masquerade of democracy.

If the proletariat itself cannot decide what is best for it, who can?

The vanguard in capitalist times must, by necessity, turn itself into nothing in better times, but that, alas, is unlikely, for the very structure of vanguardism grew from the structure of capitalist social relations as the antithesis.

I say abandon vanguardism. Let a million, a billion, lone voices rise up together, and then, and only then, will change be effected.

vox

[peaccenicked]

I am saying that vanguardism as a phenomena is a necessary evil. I think people want to drop the term because of its negative conatations which is fair enough . Words go through shifts of meaning over time.
The very term suggests people at the front and people at the back. These days we all like sitting in circles but so we can display equality.However, the independence of the working class is not going to be exerted individually but when the class acts as a class for itself. This happens with an element of the spontaneous. If it was completely so. there would be no organisation whatsoever.
What I am saying is that this organisation is neccessarily vanguardist. It starts as minority and tries to win the majority. It starts by saying our position is superior( as an array of political positions) to all other parties and to that of unorganised individuals.
The democratic content of that organisation is dependent on things like how democratic is the country they live in. In oppressed countries were it is illegal to do socialist work. Vertical structures are a requirement,
to guarantee security. So that cells are not exposed.
In more democratic countries. Horizontal structures become popular. Yet in the real world. Work needs to be done votes are taken, pecking orders get established. It is idealistic to achieve 100% consensus at all times. democracy means majority rule but that is not our way for the positive reason we want an unforced consensual decision.
Yet ultimately sometimes a vote is forced because it so much easier and everybody feels they are getting nowhere with the debate. It seems like a breakdown of communication. A centre arises out of the majority vote.
It happens in all organisations including anarchist ones.
There is a percentage of democracy and a percentage
of centralism. If there is no dynamic between these poles we end up with bureaucratic centralism which is the biggest reason why vanguardism has become a bad
word. I am wary of dropping the word, if it distorts the nature of our own beasts.
Communist disdain to conceal their beliefs.

[vox]

"If there is no dynamic between these poles we end up with bureaucratic centralism which is the biggest reason why vanguardism has become a bad word."

But I fail to see how, with a vanguard structure in place, there can be two poles at all, for if vanguardism is to mean anything, it means that a group takes a forefront. By occupying the fore, it is by definition forcing others to the rear.

A political climate of dependency is then established, which can do no good for anyone.

vox

[peaccenicked]

Is a vanguard a theoretical construct
or a phenomena corresponding to the organisational
needs of revolution.
The first proposition implies it is a subjective preference
and I believe for those of both side of the Stalinist/trotsky conflict it is, it is Lenin's baby.
How ever after reading Lenin. I see an objective recognition of two things.
An advanced layer of workers aware of the limitations of the social democratic labour movement.
A bigger group at least in 1905 of workers who he said mainly tail ended the economic struggles of the workers and then there were backward workers who held the ideology of the Tsar. I think objectively there are people at the front and at the back and if we only wish that away we do ourselves no favours. The struggle is to abolish these objective differences. How that is done is problematic. The history of the twentieth century left did not resolve that problem. If anything it made it worse.
I think we enter the fray with the vanguard structure already in society, however loosely. Here our subjective preferences come into play we struggle for democracy within our own millieu, we try to estabilish democratic traditions and norms. Yet centres arise. wars of position
between centres arise, the minority position may later become the majority and things move this way in the concrete. Meanwhile we try to recruit workers or gain their support, how do we respect their oppinions, if some of them are backward(racist or sexist etc) we try to educate. we become vanguardistic objectively no matter how much we wish the truth of inequality would be different. Today I can see why vanguardism is an unappealing as a notion. It smacks of the elitist practices of old. However the revolutionary spirit is not
elitist, many have sacrificed their lives for the cause of general working class development. Some have given their clothes to the poorest. Forcing others to the rear is caricature. The desire of the advanced layer is to bring out the best in people and for them to throw off the ideological chains of capitalism. We need quality as well as quantity to win.
if we identify vanguardism with elitism, we only
see its bastardisation and not the real problems of the movement

[Kez]

i realised that vanguardism is neccery to a certain extent.
even great communists, such as luxmborg (her male counterpart, whats his name?), che, lenin, were from relatively good backgrounds
the elite can push the rest forward.
such as in science, newton einstein(who was a commie), there were the elite of society, and they were the people who most benefited the society

comrade kamo

[El Che]

Vanguards must arrive at power to democratic means. And this power must periodicly be put in question. If this does not happen the vanguard now in power will cease to serve whatever cause they set out to serve, and will act primarily to stay in power. This will now be there goal and purpose, to preserve the power they have. Any man can be great, if you really want to test a man`s caracter give him power.

[peaccenicked]

It is important that the democratic character of our revolution is widely understood. A revolution will throw up its own institutions. These ought to have the right of instant recall and workers representatives on the same wage as an average worker.
On top of this we want to remove the standing army and to be able to elect all officials from law to education
to health and welfare. A revolution is a thousand times more democratic than bourgeois society.
All power to the workers. Our bad experiences have told us that our 'leaders' must be accountable. Let's make it so!

[peaccenicked]

Here is an old thread, that seems to becoming in vogue, now.