From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Why People Join Vanguard Organizations?
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 19:31:45 -0500


> Oh, I am sure that group members give consent to much
> of what is handed down from New York...but I do wonder
> (and this applies not just to vanguard groups but to
> all groups...Chris, by the way, I am encountering this
> with the News and Letters people) how we can get
> beyond
> this problem of group think...I mean a  group has a
> certain orientation and will tend to define itself and
> create a sort of group ego...It seems very important
> that people maintain an extremely critical attitude.
> Often this does not happen.
>
> Thomas

I am not surprised.  I respect their greater seriousness with ideas and a
lot of Raya's work, but I never did want to join their group, even though I
had until recently maintained friendly relations.  They are a different kind
of vanguard who believe that they have the TRUTH and that it is the sacred
duty of their members to pass on and try to pass on Raya's teachings of the
one true reading of Marx.  Since, in the end, all vanguardism relates to a
certain orientation around consciousness, their treatment (including their
kowtowing to Leninism) is in many ways vanguardist.  the GROUP is everything
and all else is subordinate to the group.

How do we stop organizations from becoming ends in themselves?  I think we
really have to be committed to the idea that organizations created by
particular movements, particular class compositions and struggles, should
kill themselves when their reason for being no longer exists.

Chris



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