vanguardism

[trivas7]

From 'The "Renegade" Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin' by Gilles Dauve:


For their part, the Trotskyists clung to Lenin's ideas and recited "What Is To Be Done?". Humanity's crisis, is nothing but the crisis of leadership, said Trotsky: so a leadership must be created at any cost. This is the ultimate idealism, the history of the world is explained as a crisis of consciousness.


Does vanguardism means something different to a Trotskyist as opposed to a Marxist-Leninist? How about to a M-L-M like Bob Avakian (RCP)? Thanks.

[Dros]

For their part, the Trotskyists clung to Lenin's ideas and recited "What Is To Be Done?". Humanity's crisis, is nothing but the crisis of leadership, said Trotsky: so a leadership must be created at any cost. This is the ultimate idealism, the history of the world is explained as a crisis of consciousness.

Does vanguardism means something different to a Trotskyist as opposed to a Marxist-Leninist? How about to a M-L-M like Bob Avakian (RCP)? Thanks.

Hey!:)

Firstly, I would question the idea that Trots cling to "What is to Be Done?". A lot of them actually reject the notion of the Vanguard pary (at least in practice).

So, in practice, I think Marxist-Leninist notions of the Vanguard are very much in contrast with the Trotskyist view as we tend to follow WITBD more closely. Of course not all Trot organizations reject this in theory, but most do in practice.

The MLM view of the Vanguard is very much in line with WITBD. The vanguard party is an organization of professional revolutionaries formed out of the vanguard of the working class. It operates according to democratic centralism and is organized around the most revolutionary line that exists in terms of emancipating humanity. The role of the Communist Vanguard Party is to lead the class struggle and in doing so to engender revolutionary class consciousness within the masses much more broadly. This is really summed up quite well in the RCP's slogan "fight the power, transform the people for revolution" in that it really gets at the role and the method of the vanguard and why it needs to exist. In terms of Bob Avakian's views specifically, he has expanded the theory of the vanguard in important ways while at the same time refuting anti-state and ultra-left opportunist critics of Vanguardism. Avakian has made two important contributions with regards to expanding the theory of the Vanguard party. Firstly, he has advanced the notion that the vanguard must be a "solid core with a lot of elasticity". That is, the Vanguard party is a group of people who have dedicated their lives to making revolution and to understanding and advancing the most revolutionary line possible both generally and especially amongst the oppressed masses. But this Vanguard must also be elastic in that it is both ideologically flexible (not dogmatic, scientific) and organizationally flexible in terms of carrying out the tasks of the vanguard party. The second of Avakian's contributions is the notion of "renewed what-is-to-be-done-ism" which is essentially a program for Communist work in a non-revolutionary situation. In the US today, there is no potential for making a revolution in the near future due to the objective factors. Therefore, Communists must await the development of a revolutionary situation while understanding that they are also objectively part of that situation and that they can work to bring about a revolutionary situation.

I'm really glad you interested in exploring these questions.

Here's a website with many of Avakian's works if you are interested in pursuing this more thoroughly. (http://www.rwor.org/avakian/avakian-works.html)

If you have any questions about MLM, Bob Avakian, the RCP, or just generally, please feel free to shoot me a pm.

Edit:

Also, you will quickly learn that there is a lot of opportunism when it comes to Bob Avakian on this board. There are lot's and lot's of people who will be quick to tell you their negative opinion of the RCP and Chairman Avakian, but interestingly, no one is keen to have a real conversation about Avakian's theories. Usually they just repeat silliness like "So does that mean you're a member of the RCP? AKA the "whole world is ashakien because of Bob Avakian"? You might as well eject any and all credibility if you're with those nutballs."

Don't be discouraged. :)

[trivas7]

Hey!:)

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently reading Avakian's bio "From Ike to Mao" and "Phoney Communism is Dead...Long Live Real Communism". From what I've read re his "new synthesis" it seems on the face of it pretty orthodox M-L-M; I don't see what's controversial re it. I really like his emphasis on morality and abandoning the identity politics that has ruined the liberal left. This is really interesting stuff from Bob Avakian.

I assume you don't agree with Gilles Dauve's article on 'The "Renegade" Kautsky' re the vanguard party?

http://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve

[Die Neue Zeit]

Humanity's crisis, is nothing but the crisis of leadership, said Trotsky: so a leadership must be created at any cost. This is the ultimate idealism, the history of the world is explained as a crisis of consciousness.

That is reductionist thinking on the part of "pro-leadership" folks.

Both the Trotskyist and "ML" versions of the vanguard party are way off base. :(

http://www.revleft.com/vb/sozialdemokratische-partei-deutschlands-t79754/index.html

BTW, kudos for finally reading that exceptional yet overly biased article by Gilles Dauve. It helped me get to this point:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-and-kautsky-t78667/index.html

[Dros]

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently reading Avakian's bio "From Ike to Mao" and "Phoney Communism is Dead...Long Live Real Communism". From what I've read re his "new synthesis" it seems on the face of it pretty orthodox M-L-M; I don't see what's controversial re it. I really like his emphasis on morality and abandoning the identity politics that has ruined the liberal left. This is really interesting stuff from Bob Avakian.

That's great. I'd be happy to talk more about why this is new if you'd like to pm me.


I assume you don't agree with Gilles Dauve's article on 'The "Renegade" Kautsky' re the vanguard party?

No. I don't agree.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently reading Avakian's bio "From Ike to Mao" and "Phoney Communism is Dead...Long Live Real Communism". From what I've read re his "new synthesis" it seems on the face of it pretty orthodox M-L-M; I don't see what's controversial re it. I really like his emphasis on morality and abandoning the identity politics that has ruined the liberal left. This is really interesting stuff from Bob Avakian.

Beware of pronouncements on "identity politics" from a white heterosexual man from a ruling class family. Their perspective on the issue tends to be a bit...skewed.

[trivas7]

Beware of pronouncements on "identity politics" from a white heterosexual man from a ruling class family. Their perspective on the issue tends to be a bit...skewed.
I don't know re Bob Avakian, but I -- as a non-white, non-heterosexual, from a non-"ruling class family" -- personally don't see the problem.

[Dros]

The attitude being expressed by Joe Hill's Ghost is one of the things that Bob Avakian is trying to rupture with: MLM is a science. Simply saying, "you aren't of this class or you aren't of this race so you can't criticize our politics" is anti-scientific and anti-Communist.

This is also an example of the rampant opportunism that crops up around Avakian. Lot's of people are willing to make silly pronouncements about Bob Avakian (who worked very closely with the Black Panther Party) yet no one is ready to make a principled criticism.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

I don't know re Bob Avakian, but I -- as a non-white, non-heterosexual, from a non-"ruling class family" -- personally don't see the problem.

*shrugs* I'm white, but most of the non white folks in my family tend to roll their eyes when white radicals lecture them about race issues. Much like I roll when my eyes when yuppies try to lecture me about economics.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

The attitude being expressed by Joe Hill's Ghost is one of the things that Bob Avakian is trying to rupture with: MLM is a science. Simply saying, "you aren't of this class or you aren't of this race so you can't criticize our politics" is anti-scientific and anti-Communist.

Never said white folk had no place speaking at all. However, there's no such thing as "scientific objectivity" when it comes to political matters. Your social position is always a heavy factor in what sort of "objective" conclusions you come to. This sort of scientific nonsense is what has justified so many other horrid ideas. Gobineau thought he was scientific too.


This is also an example of the rampant opportunism that crops up around Avakian. Lot's of people are willing to make silly pronouncements about Bob Avakian (who worked very closely with the Black Panther Party) yet no one is ready to make a principled criticism.

Opportunism? Its not opportunism to point that the man has no material knowledge of what it is to be an oppressed group of any kind. He has made his ideological break from his past, but his material and social upbringing still affects him in a deep way. He can never know, on a true gut level, what its like. He misses all of that experience based knowledge. To say its mere opportunism to point this out, is intellectual dishonesty.