Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 13:13:45 +1000
From: "-AT-ndy" <andy-AT-xchange.anarki.net>
Subject: AUT: Dude, where's my vanguard?




Richard Bailey wrote:

> 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.

There are obviously a number of ways in which to interpret the idea of a
vanguard, but my understanding of the Leninist interpretation is that
the vanguard does indeed refer to a 'party' consisting of the most
'advanced' intellectuals and workers. In other words, from a Leninist
perspective, the next obvious step to be made by a person who has
reached 'revolutionary consciousness' is to join the 'party'. And in
reality, Lenin spent the bulk of his life trying to 'build' this party,
as have his epigones.

(Of course, none of this addresses directly the question: 'What is
revolutionary consciousness?')

> 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.

Right: so, one may be a member of the 'vanguard' - ie., have reached
'revolutionary consciousness' - without being a member of the 'party'.
However, the task of the 'vanguard' is to help the majority of the
working class reach 'revolutionary consciousness', and forming a 'party'
from the 'vanguard' is the most effective (only?) way to accomplish
this.

There are a number of problems I have with this schema, not least of
which is that it ignores Lenin's observation that, left to its own
devices, the working class is simply incapable of advancing beyond a
'trade union' consciousness. I may be wrong, but I thought that it was
on this basis that Lenin argued that a 'revolutionary vanguard' was
required in order to 'win a majority of the class to revolutionary
consciousness'. Further, my understanding of Lenin's conception of the
party was that this party would consist, first and foremost, of
bourgeois intellectuals and, secondly, that group of workers somehow
capable of reaching 'revolutionary consciousness' either because of
their status as autodidacts, or (more usually) as a result of having the
good fortune of having come into contact with the 'party'. As such,
'revolutionary consciousness' is in fact a product of the reflections of
bourgeois intellectuals on the means by which the working class may
overthrow capitalism and establish a workers' state in its stead.

> 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.

This would seem to beg the question: why create an inherently
conservative organisation if one's aim is to be in the 'vanguard'?
Surely a more appropriate course of action in this case would be to
avoid forming any organisation that would mitigate against the party
learning from the working class?

Are all forms of organisation inherently conservative? What makes one
organisation more conservative than another? What kind of an
organisation is the party? Moreover, isn't it the role of the party to
educate the working class (and not the other way around)?!?

> 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.

As far as I'm concerned, this is not so much a question of 'approach' as
it is one of structure, and the structure Lenin advocated as being most
appropriate to the creation of a unified party was based on his
conception of 'democratic centralism'. And if 'many' Leninist groups
consistently behave in an authoritarian manner, may this not have
something to do with the fact that they are organised along 'democratic
centralist' lines rather than their '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.

That may be so, but the fact that 'Leninist groups (may be) far less
organised than those who aren't members may realise' does not mean that
the aim of Leninist groups isn't to become more organised (read:
centralised) rather than less, and it makes more sense to me to address
the question of what it is that a vanguard organisation is trying to
accomplish before addressing its success or failure in doing so. The
situation described above, in other words, may not always be the
reality, but in what sense is it not the logical outcome of Leninist
organisational prerogatives?

> 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.

I would argue that "some decisions" actually translates as "the most
important" decisions, ie., decisions which determine the overall
strategy and tactics that are to be pursued by the party over a
comparatively lengthy period. In any case, if the fact that the general
membership is not convinced of the correctness of decisions made at the
top of the organisation means that these decisions aren't put into
practice, well, this is obviously a problem, but it's not a new one. In
fact, wasn't it in order to address this problem that Lenin conceived of
'democratic centralism'?

-AT-ndy.

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