Texts on vanguardism and reformism

[Jonny K.]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Is there any difference between the vanguard and the avant-guarde?'It is we, artists, who will serve you as avant-garde: the power of the arts is in fact most immediate and most rapid: when we wish to spread new ideas among men, we inscribe them on marble or on canvas;…and in that way above all we exert an electric and victorious influence…'http://bak.spc.org/subversion/utopia.htmlNot so much as offering leadership but igniting the imagination…so could we call ourselves avant-guarde socialists.

Oh, I love this. I've heard this idea of avant garde not vanguard from three independent, I think, sources now, and I love it. I won't identify the other two sources or their affiliations because the idea was used in informal conversation, and I don't know how publicly they'd air the idea; but I aired it publicly (if you count a document on the CCS website as public ) in my atrociously rambly and ill justified document "Kicking a Demanding Habit". http://communistcorrespondingsociety.org/demands.html From the relevant section… "What is the role of the Left, then, at this time, if not to act as (or if in preparation for acting as) a vanguard detachment of the proletariat? Perhaps the cognate word 'avant-garde' would fit better, with its connotations less of military formation and more of radical, creative exploration."  (You will note that it is phrased in such a way as to allow those who are (still) Leninist to at least have a chance of taking the idea on board, by merely gently assuming that a vanguard is not called for now, rather than that it will never be appropriate as a tool of communist revolution.)

[ALB]

In a sense we could be said to be a "vanguard" but only in the sense that we have become socialists before the rest of the working class. But, words and their connotations apart, the question is what should socialists in this position do. How should they analyse their situation and what should they do?Should they seek to lead the rest of the working class judged incapable of understanding socialism by offering reforms or should they seek to spread socialist ideas amongs more of their fellow workers whose socialist understanding is considered an essential condition for the establishment of socialism (as a stateless, classless, moneyless, wageless society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production)?The  Leninist/Trotskyist "vanguardists" choose the first of these. We choose the second.

[Jonny K.]

Yeah, I have yet to hear a persuasive argument for vanguardism, and on the face of it, it is obviously inappropriate…. It is a form that is at odds with the forms it is intended to bring about.That said, it is perhaps incorrect to say the vanguardist position depends necessarily on a belief that the proletariat, special clever vanguardists aside, can't achieve the appropriate level of consciousness under capitalism. It could be defended by arguing that in some situations… Let's say… A time-critical threat that the bourgeois state could develop authoritarian forms capable of protecting it dangerously robustly against proletarian revolution… And a majority of the proletariat is not yet won over to socialism… Perhaps then it would be correct, reluctantly and warily, to act as a vanguard, just because the proletariat hasn't yet, not because it cannot ever, achieve revolutionary class consciousness. 

[ALB]

Jonny K. wrote:

it is perhaps incorrect to say the vanguardist position depends necessarily on a belief that the proletariat, special clever vanguardists aside, can't achieve the appropriate level of consciousness under capitalism..

This is true. Leninism, and its derogatory view of the intellectual incapacity of the working class, isn't the only form of "vanguardism". There is a long anarchist tradition of "vanguardism", of justifying an "active minority" not being held back by the lower level of understanding of the rest of the working class but forcing the issue, e.g. in conflicts with employers, without the backing of a majority of the workers concerned.

Quote:

It could be defended by arguing that in some situations. Let's say… A time-critical threat that the bourgeois state could develop authoritarian forms capable of protecting it dangerously robustly against proletarian revolution… And a majority of the proletariat is not yet won over to socialism… Perhaps then it would be correct, reluctantly and warily, to act as a vanguard, just because the proletariat hasn't yet, not because it cannot ever, achieve revolutionary class consciousness.

You're talking about a future period when there will be a sizeable minority of socialists. Obviously that changes things as what the socialist minority decides to do will have an effect on the course of events. I'd have thought that, whatever they decide to do in any situation, they should still do so democratically and still seek to act democratically.

[Jonny K.]

Ah, interesting, of course, I suppose I knew that, but hadn't thought to think of that strand of anarchism as vanguardist.  Yes, I'm inclined to agree. It's not necessarily the case that democratic forms are needed in our revolutionary organization if our postrevolutionary society is to be democratic (as it must be), but it seems reasonable to assume that It is the case, unless a very strong argument/evidence arises against it (and I'm not aware of any).

[ALB]

Jonny K. wrote:

It's not necessarily the case that democratic forms are needed in our revolutionary organization if our postrevolutionary society is to be democratic (as it must be),.

I know you're making a logical point here (and that there are organisations that want communism but are not organised democratically,  "Left Communists" and the Zeitgeist Movement for instance) while agreeing that in practice a revolutionary organisation should be democratically-organised, but this assumes that there is/can be/should be a permanent distinction between the "revolutionary organisation" and the movement of the working class.OK, at the moment, when there are only a relative handful of revolutionaries, there is clearly a distinction, but as the revolutionary movement takes off surely the "revolutionary organisation" will become an increasing section of the working class organised for socialism/communism and, both in logic and in practice, the working class can only organise themselves for socialism/communism democratically without leaders (if they don't they won't end up with socialism)?

[Author]

Posts