Will there be, or should there be, no "vanguard party" during a revolutionary period for the working class? [No, it's not a councilist or other ultra-left question. It's a question of majority political support and class-based mass activism.]
Really depends on your definition of vanguard party.
Comrade, I'm not convinced that using terms like "vanguardism" and "vanguard party" is really helpful. Did you see my thread on the vanguard party?
Well, I think it's interesting that there is a distinction between Lenin's "vanguard" and Kautsky's "mass" party. In What is to be Done? Lenin actually uses the German Social-Democrats as an example of a vanguard party, which can be very confusing.
What he writes is that the proletariat is the vanguard (class) in the struggle for democracy. It could be argued that the politically mobilized proletariat means basically the same as "vanguard party" (and vice versa). But l'Enfermé is right that he doesn't use the term. So in the actual context in which the word vanguard was used, that is the position of the proletariat towards the other classes, there is dispute with the Mensheviks who preferred the term vanguard (class), while the bolsheviks actually thought this was too tailist, and went with idea of leadership; the proletariat as leading the struggle for democracy.
I think I am in agreement with l'Enfermé on the issues, that we should scrap the term vanguard party; for one it doesn't accurately describe what we propose and two it has no basis in the historical movement we are a continuation of. Lately I've simply been saying a 'proletarian mass party'.
Mass-party more clearly represents what we are aiming for. I think including Proletarian in that is really stating the obvious, since, at least in the west, a party can't be a mass-party without the proletariat anyways. But maybe for clarity sakes.
Yeah it is a bit redundant on my part.
The vanguard is basically whoever is carrying out the revolution so yes.
