What is Vanguardism?

[YourMuDoIsWeak]

What if vanguardism?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=60

[LOLseph Stalin]

As far as I know, vanguardism is simply revolution.

[#FF0000]

As far as I know, vanguardism is simply revolution.

No it is not. Vanguardism is a specific form of organization for a revolution in which a Vanguard party places itself at the center of the movement and keeps the revolution consistent with ideology.

[Yehuda Stern]

Vanguardism is the belief that in order for a working class revolution succeed, workers need a party led by the vanguard of the working class. This vanguard means the most class conscious layers of the working class - Marxist workers, specifically. This is in contrast to the social-democratic model of a party (which Richter supports in the link above), which suggests the creation of a broad working class party, i.e. a party which contains all levels of working class consciousness, from reformist to revolutionary. Lenin pointed out that this model was one of the main reasons for why the Second International betrayed Marxism in 1914, when it supported the imperialist war - each section supporting 'its' country.

[chegitz guevara]

Vanguardism is the ideology of Zinovievism, as put forward to the Comintern in 1924 or 25. It is a distortion of Lenin's theories on the revolutionary party.

[Yehuda Stern]

So you're saying now that Lenin wasn't for a vanguard party? That's wonderful.

[chegitz guevara]

Not at all. I'm saying that vanguardism is a gross distortion of Lenin's writings. It is based on a narrow, non-contextual, and ahistorical reading of What Is To Be Done? and ignoring everything else Lenin ever wrote. Pretty much every group which calls itself Leninist is infected with this thinking, which isn't based on Lenin's actual life work, but on Zinoviev's declarations about what Leninism was, after Lenin was dead and unable to defend himself.

For Lenin, a vanguard party was a party made of the vanguard of the working class. The vanguard exists independently of the party. Vanguard is a noun here, not an adjective. A party is a vnaguard party not because it has the best ideas, the best leader, etc., but because it attracts the most forward and most militant layer of the working class. For Lenin, the Social Democrats of Germany were a vanguard party, as were the Socialists in France and Italy, etc. Lenin was trying to build a mass party, within which the vanguard of the working class would play the leading role.

[Yehuda Stern]

As I already wrote:


Lenin's book on the breakup of the Second International cites the way in which the parties were built - containing all layers of working class consciousness - as the main reason for its patriotic degeneration. Of course, all Marxists want revolutionary parties to become mass parties eventually, but this can only follow the winning over of the majority of the working class vanguard.

[chegitz guevara]

Again, that not vanguardism. Vanguardism is a caricature of Lenin's work. Vanguardism is when every little sectlet declares itself the vanguard.

[TheRedRevolutionary]

Vanguardism is the belief that in order for a working class revolution succeed, workers need a party led by the vanguard of the working class. This vanguard means the most class conscious layers of the working class - Marxist workers, specifically. This is in contrast to the social-democratic model of a party (which Richter supports in the link above), which suggests the creation of a broad working class party, i.e. a party which contains all levels of working class consciousness, from reformist to revolutionary. Lenin pointed out that this model was one of the main reasons for why the Second International betrayed Marxism in 1914, when it supported the imperialist war - each section supporting 'its' country.

This is the defnitive Marxist Leninist answer! :thumbup:

[Yehuda Stern]

From a Trot, no less. What an interesting position you are in, now.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Vanguardism is the ideology of Zinovievism, as put forward to the Comintern in 1924 or 25. It is a distortion of Lenin's theories on the revolutionary party.

Comrade, I don't know why I'm taking the "center" in these discussions between you and Yehuda here, but what you're attacking here is the concept of vulgar vanguardism:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/basic-principles-sectarian-t87880/index.html

In the link way up above (the link that Yehuda is attacking), there is a reason why that final section of Chapter 3 of my CSR work is titled "'Vanguardism' Revisited," and why Chapter 6 differentiates between actual vanguardism - synonymous with "mergerism" - and "the road to power." ;)

[LOLseph Stalin]

No it is not. Vanguardism is a specific form of organization for a revolution in which a Vanguard party places itself at the center of the movement and keeps the revolution consistent with ideology.

Well I was being very general about it. I'm a horrible teacher. gosh!

[spice756]

I always thought the Vanguard party is special ,skilled people that will show them the way and help the revolution.

They may or may not be the communist party members that will teach the people and help the revolution.

They are skilled and are qualified to lead the revolution.

[Vendetta]

Well I was being very general about it. I'm a horrible teacher. gosh!

That wasn't just general, that was vague.:p

[nom de guerre]

Another aspect of this topic that is vague is what distinguishes the importance of a vanguard. If one argues that the vanguard is the most "class conscious", then what is implicit is that the historical role of Marxists is to lead the revolution. This is thoroughly inconsistent with historical materialism, which suggests both that revolutions happen due to a cathartic alignment of concrete conditions in which the social relations come into conflict with the forces of production, and that they are made and institutionalized by the whole of classes. This is why Marx stressed that the communist revolution will be the work of the proletariat as a whole, and not by any particular group of people; "The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves." A communist society necessitates an active and participatory role of its constituency, and the only way to create and institutionalize those new social relations is through the process of abolishing bourgeois society and capitalist relations, and transcending them with egalitarian and communist relations.

The problem with vanguardism is that the vanguardist feels that because he is the "most class conscious", history has somehow entitled him to "lead" the revolutionary process. This is a consequence of the result that Bolshevism grew out of social-democratic Kautskyism, and the logical consequence was that the workers needed to adopt a bougeois political structure (the Party). The historical anachronism of attempting to replicate this procedure in the 21st century is mind-boggling for any reasonable revolutionary. Frankly, I think that one can squabble about the nuances of vanguardism or Lenin's intention for the vanguard party or whether Zinoviev institutionalized Leninism into vulgar reductionism, or we can begin exploring radical, participatory, and communist methods of political organization, to begin experimenting and building the foundations of revolutionary society, as historical materialism suggests, as an embryo within the womb of class society. The implication of this is the internalization of the analogy from Marx that communists will be but the mid-wives of the revolution. We cannot give birth to communism, as that is the historical role of the proletariat as a whole; we can but ease the process, by both developing our theoretical critique into a cohesive paradigm applicable for the 21st century, and by creating new organizational forms that lay the material groundwork for post-revolutionary life.

[Tower of Bebel]

The vanguard of the workers' movement is the day to day leadership of the movement. It can be a unconscious person who helps organizing his colleagues against his boss, but it can also be the next Karl Liebknecht proclaiming the socialist republic. Therefor a vanguard party can encompass the working class as a whole.
The revolutionary vanguard is the most class conscious part of it. And those revolutionaries should become organized; not separate from the movement but with and within the movement. They have the knowledge, the organizational abilities and the necessary experience to guide and lead the working class a whole. If they don't the movement will end up with subordination to capital.

[Yehuda Stern]

Nom de guerre makes the same mistake as many others in this thread and in the Trotskyist movement - he confuses the vanguard with the party, while, as others have pointed out, the vanguard exists independently of the party.