Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 06:26:25 +0100 (BST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Richard=20Bailey?= <redrich2000-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Why People Join Vanguard Organizations?


I didn't really get on this list to defend Vanguard
organisations but...

"I mean, a vanguard party considers its members to
be the "advanced" portion of the working class...the
ones that are going to lead us unenlightened masses
to liberation.  Isn't there something patronizing
about that? I mean, we all have ideas about what needs
to be done...and we may form into groups to discuss
them and share those ideas with others...but to
declare that you are THE group is another story."

This is not my understanding of the term vanguard. It
is based on a belief that there is uneveness in the
working class, i.e. there are revolutionary workers,
thoroughly reactionary workers and loads in between.
Lenin called those who have reached revolutionary
consciousness the "Vanguard" of the class. His concept
of the party was the idea that this group needed to
wage a struggle within the class to win a majority to
revolutionary consciousness and the best way do this
was for them to organise themselves in a "vanguard"
party.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the party members are
the only ones with good ideas. In fact Lenin
recognised the inherent conservatism of any
organisation stressed that the party had to learn from
the class.

Having said this many lenist groups have and do act as
if they are the only ones who know anything. I
disagree with this approach.

"Also, the way democratic centralism works in practice
usually means that you have a brain center ( a central
committee, usualy residing in New York if you are the
US vanguard) that pretty much makes all the decisions
on "line"...and then you have the cadre who are foot
soldiers who go about disseminating "the line".  Isn't
there something patronizing about that? Isn't
socialism supposed to be about greater direct
democracy?"

Again this is a mischaricterisation. Most Leninist
groups are far less organised than you give them
credit for. Some decisions are made at the top but I
can promise you if the membership is not convinced of
these decisions they are not put into practise.

Richard

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