There’s a weird misunderstanding of what a “vanguard” is, in both left anti-communist and communist circles.
A vanguard is not a self-defined group that rules over the proles and directs them towards a revolution and governs once it’s won.
Vanguards are not things that exist in the present. Vanguard is just a term to help understand a revolution after it happens.
When a revolution happens, the most politically advanced (in class consciousness and left theory) individuals and groups that participate will steer the people towards socialism. They will lead, by example, on who to fight, how and why.
During the revolution, they aren’t called anything and specially not by themselves.
But after the revolution, when analyzing it, those people are then called the vanguard of the revolution.
Any communist that says they want to “form and participate in a vanguard party” has no understanding of revolutions and left theory.
Any left anti-communist that derides vanguards for being authoritarian and “replicating state oppression” also have no understanding of revolutions or left theory.
Honestly we would all be better off just not using the term vanguard at all anymore.
Any left anti-communist that derides vanguards for being authoritarian and “replicating state oppression” also have no understanding of revolutions or left theory.
You know, you can be anti-authoritarian and still be a communist. Anarcho-Communism is a real thing.
This comes from the unfortunate viral idea that communism has stages.
Some people get really attached to this idea, and either become super against it or super for it. Then they end up wanting to either fully concentrate on “lower stage communism” and idolize militaristic aesthetics of early communist revolutions, and the perceived “toughness” and “authoritarianism” they had. In the extreme this becomes shit like the ACP.
On the other hand, others completely forgo any large scale timeline thinking, and start fantasizing and theorizing about a possible quick jump to “stateless, classless, moneyless” society (which is in itself a misinterpretation of what communism is but that’s another thing completely) in a single revolutionary moment and process.
There are no stages, communism is not total anarchy either. Communism is the means and methods the working class uses to abolish itself. This should start with a revolution, and continue until it’s finished. This process likely would take many generations. And it would be one continuous revolution. This is communism, this state of affairs. Of the long revolution of self-abolishment of the working class.
What comes AFTER, is a stateless classless moneyless society. What is dissolved first and when depends on the revolution, but it wouldn’t all be at once, or it would. Who knows.
Hm, so if you don't want to use the term vanguard anymore, how are you going to talk about the seizing of power by a small authoritarian group during a revolution? And what would be your solution to prevent this from happening?
This assumes that a vanguard is a separate class, when what it really is, is an advanced segment of the working class. That said, I wanna inject some good faith complexity here.
A Maoist critique of a a vanguard would assert that, by being the most advanced segment of the working class, a petty bourgeois element can exist within a party.
In the maoist view, since class struggle persists under socialism, that petty bourgeois element can, wittingly or otherwise, lead the socialist state back to capitalism. And as such, this needs to be struggled against.
The solution to this isn't to discard the concept of a vanguard, after all most socialist revolutions, which have seized power, have featured them.
Rather, Maoism has the concept of The Mass Line, wherein the party seeks to intimately involve itself with the masses. And the Cultural Revolution, where the class conscious masses are unleashed on the party itself, to keep it in check. Hence the Cultural Revolution slogans like, "its right to rebel" and "Bombard the headquarters"
I'm not a Maoist (I find the maoist position on AES to be lacking), but it's a tradition I have respect for. There's this big emphasis on the dialectic between top-down and bottom-up power that's really worth exploring, I think. I once heard it jokingly called "Anarcho-stalinism" and I hope you can see why lol
The vanguard is just the formalized and democratized segment of the most trained professional revolutionaries in the working classes. It isn't distinct from the working class, that's like saying electricians are different from the working class. The vanguard is formalized and democratized so as to be accountable and transparent, and doesn't "rule over" the working classes but is the representative body chosen by the working classes. The vanguard doesn't sieze the means of production, the working class does, led by the vanguard they have chosen.
The working class is a spear. The vanguard is the spearhead, and the rest of the working class forms the actual mass that drives the spearhead through the capitalist machine. A spear with no spearhead isn't very effective, a spearhead without a base even less so. Together, though, they form an effective revolutionary force that can kill the most violent fascist machines.
The vanguard is not a different group. The vanguard is the part of the group that ends up doing something first.
It's not separate from the group, and it's often not even distinguished from the group in any way aside from the fact that it was motivated enough to act first.
That's like saying that the bourgeois are just the workers that did really well for themselves.
No, it's not. It's like saying that the leaders and organizers within the working class will lead the working class and ensure that the means of production are managed after they are seized. Someone (an individual or a group) has to do it, and they should know what they are doing.
The person I responded to said "a different group". My point is that it's a subset of the larger group. Yes, it's possible to take advantage of the situation and try to grab power afterward. If that subset seized it to enrich themselves, they are class traitors - they are of the working class but betrayed them. However, some person or group needs to literally lead and manage, usually democratically. It can't be literally the entirety of the working class.
All of this is just twisting terms and concepts to try to sow distrust in communist or socialist theory, assuming there will always be some secret group of elites scheming to take everything for themselves the moment the means are seized.
i think this would be the proper way. ideally the vanguard would slowly transition power to the Working class willingly. i think the working class in its entirety is not conscious enough to organize a revolution.
sure thats one way of viewing it.
if push come to shove the working class always has the power to overthrow the vanguard. yet large populations are generally to stupid to do so due to all the propaganda and reeducation (see the USA currently). first one would need to remove capitalism from the equation, and create political education that is systemically impossible to manipulate or censor. after that the working class will gain consciousness over time.
The first is in separating the vanguard from the working classes. The vanguard is a subsection of the working classes chosen by the rest of the working classes. Vanguards derive their power from the bottom-up.
The second is in assuming the working classes are stupid and easily duped. People instead license themselves to believe what they think benefits them is good. Socialist systems have always focused on education and literacy programs because a society run by the working classes works better with more informed members, but even within capitalism workers still come to understand the necessary conditions for their own liberation simply by existing within the brutally oppressive systems.
i dont think it is that wrong to seperate those 2. one could argue that by having different power than the rest all (regardless of where its coming from), it again becomes its own class.
and yes people realise themselves that capitalism is a horrendous system, yet they dont realise it enough to unite. if it was that easy to realise, we wouldnt have racism and such anymore and would have already liberated the working class. yet the class as a whole remains ignorant even if individual groups see through it all. im not saying the working class as a whole is stupid because it cant get smarter, im saying it is intentionally kept stupid and divided, and to stop that we first need to rid ourselves of the system thats responsible for that.
If you separate class from its basis in relation to the mode of production, then you are pivoting from Marxism. Class is not about "power," it's about social relations to the mode of production and how we fit into that. Plumbers and factory workers are both proletarian despite having different jobs, the same applies to administrators and managers.
Secondly, history is not a series of snapshots but instead a dialectical process. We should help accelerate class consciousness, and tackle bourgeois cultural hegemony, but we are not outside the class struggle and instead are within it.
Historically vanguards only ever derive any form of power or legitimacy through popular support from the broader working classes. Had vanguards not been popularly supported, they would have failed. You can see examples of supposed "vanguards" that do fail, such as the Gonzaloist CPP Shining Path, which slaughtered peasants and alienated themselves from the working classes.
oh look, another communist vs anarchist meme… yep, they should fight each other, not the capitalists….
and of course i need to mention that the USSR was only communist in name and are nearly the worst possible example of communism….
Elmer Fud strikes again
I got plenty of criticism for everyone who needs it, not sparing anyone. And the communists I see shitting on anarchists in the Fediverse are frequently also the ones calling for leftist solidarity.
43 Comments
novibe@lemmy.ml · 26 pts · 251d
There’s a weird misunderstanding of what a “vanguard” is, in both left anti-communist and communist circles.
A vanguard is not a self-defined group that rules over the proles and directs them towards a revolution and governs once it’s won.
Vanguards are not things that exist in the present. Vanguard is just a term to help understand a revolution after it happens.
When a revolution happens, the most politically advanced (in class consciousness and left theory) individuals and groups that participate will steer the people towards socialism. They will lead, by example, on who to fight, how and why.
During the revolution, they aren’t called anything and specially not by themselves.
But after the revolution, when analyzing it, those people are then called the vanguard of the revolution.
Any communist that says they want to “form and participate in a vanguard party” has no understanding of revolutions and left theory.
Any left anti-communist that derides vanguards for being authoritarian and “replicating state oppression” also have no understanding of revolutions or left theory.
Honestly we would all be better off just not using the term vanguard at all anymore.
Bababasti@feddit.org · 20 pts · 251d
You know, you can be anti-authoritarian and still be a communist. Anarcho-Communism is a real thing.
novibe@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 251d
Idk man, if you are against all communist movements in history you’re an anti-communist to me 🤷♂️
dogbert@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 251d
novibe@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 251d
This comes from the unfortunate viral idea that communism has stages.
Some people get really attached to this idea, and either become super against it or super for it. Then they end up wanting to either fully concentrate on “lower stage communism” and idolize militaristic aesthetics of early communist revolutions, and the perceived “toughness” and “authoritarianism” they had. In the extreme this becomes shit like the ACP.
On the other hand, others completely forgo any large scale timeline thinking, and start fantasizing and theorizing about a possible quick jump to “stateless, classless, moneyless” society (which is in itself a misinterpretation of what communism is but that’s another thing completely) in a single revolutionary moment and process.
There are no stages, communism is not total anarchy either. Communism is the means and methods the working class uses to abolish itself. This should start with a revolution, and continue until it’s finished. This process likely would take many generations. And it would be one continuous revolution. This is communism, this state of affairs. Of the long revolution of self-abolishment of the working class.
What comes AFTER, is a stateless classless moneyless society. What is dissolved first and when depends on the revolution, but it wouldn’t all be at once, or it would. Who knows.
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 244d
The means and the ends should be in alignment.
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com · 3 pts · 251d
So, did Soviets get the concept wrong? It's often claimed dictatorship of the proletariat doesn't mean an actual dictator, yet there it was.
What do we call the Soviet concept of vanguard if not vanguardism?
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 250d
They didn't end up building a utopia, so must have made some kind of a mistake along the way.
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 251d
novibe@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 250d
Idk man I think there’s as many people like that as “anarchists” who live under bridges and dump dive.
It’s just that libs and left anti-communists usually see any type of real actual action and revolutionary practice as “evil”.
flora_explora@beehaw.org · 1 pts · 251d
Hm, so if you don't want to use the term vanguard anymore, how are you going to talk about the seizing of power by a small authoritarian group during a revolution? And what would be your solution to prevent this from happening?
novibe@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 251d
That doesn’t happen though. What we saw were rightwing counterrevolutionaries taking over the USSR, China etc.
But historically it’s a great mischaracterization of all socialist revolutions to say they were “overtaken by authoritarians”.
All revolutions are “authoritarian”.
SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 251d
This assumes that a vanguard is a separate class, when what it really is, is an advanced segment of the working class. That said, I wanna inject some good faith complexity here.
A Maoist critique of a a vanguard would assert that, by being the most advanced segment of the working class, a petty bourgeois element can exist within a party.
In the maoist view, since class struggle persists under socialism, that petty bourgeois element can, wittingly or otherwise, lead the socialist state back to capitalism. And as such, this needs to be struggled against.
The solution to this isn't to discard the concept of a vanguard, after all most socialist revolutions, which have seized power, have featured them.
Rather, Maoism has the concept of The Mass Line, wherein the party seeks to intimately involve itself with the masses. And the Cultural Revolution, where the class conscious masses are unleashed on the party itself, to keep it in check. Hence the Cultural Revolution slogans like, "its right to rebel" and "Bombard the headquarters"
I'm not a Maoist (I find the maoist position on AES to be lacking), but it's a tradition I have respect for. There's this big emphasis on the dialectic between top-down and bottom-up power that's really worth exploring, I think. I once heard it jokingly called "Anarcho-stalinism" and I hope you can see why lol
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 251d
The vanguard is just the formalized and democratized segment of the most trained professional revolutionaries in the working classes. It isn't distinct from the working class, that's like saying electricians are different from the working class. The vanguard is formalized and democratized so as to be accountable and transparent, and doesn't "rule over" the working classes but is the representative body chosen by the working classes. The vanguard doesn't sieze the means of production, the working class does, led by the vanguard they have chosen.
The working class is a spear. The vanguard is the spearhead, and the rest of the working class forms the actual mass that drives the spearhead through the capitalist machine. A spear with no spearhead isn't very effective, a spearhead without a base even less so. Together, though, they form an effective revolutionary force that can kill the most violent fascist machines.
Pulptastic@midwest.social · -8 pts · 251d
Like white male landowners? They represent our interests!
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 251d
Not sure what you're getting at.
RockBottom@feddit.org · 12 pts · 251d
Anyway seized they should be.
F_State@midwest.social · 12 pts · 251d
It doesn't help the working class if a different group like the Vanguard seize them instead.
theparadox@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 251d
The vanguard is not a different group. The vanguard is the part of the group that ends up doing something first.
It's not separate from the group, and it's often not even distinguished from the group in any way aside from the fact that it was motivated enough to act first.
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 244d
That's like saying that the bourgeois are just the workers that did really well for themselves.
theparadox@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 244d
No, it's not. It's like saying that the leaders and organizers within the working class will lead the working class and ensure that the means of production are managed after they are seized. Someone (an individual or a group) has to do it, and they should know what they are doing.
The person I responded to said "a different group". My point is that it's a subset of the larger group. Yes, it's possible to take advantage of the situation and try to grab power afterward. If that subset seized it to enrich themselves, they are class traitors - they are of the working class but betrayed them. However, some person or group needs to literally lead and manage, usually democratically. It can't be literally the entirety of the working class.
All of this is just twisting terms and concepts to try to sow distrust in communist or socialist theory, assuming there will always be some secret group of elites scheming to take everything for themselves the moment the means are seized.
SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 251d
as long as they gwt seized
F_State@midwest.social · 9 pts · 251d
If the Vanguard seize the means of production, then the Working class still need to seize the means of production or we're still at square one.
SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml · -4 pts · 251d
i think this would be the proper way. ideally the vanguard would slowly transition power to the Working class willingly. i think the working class in its entirety is not conscious enough to organize a revolution.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 9 pts · 251d
SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 251d
sure thats one way of viewing it. if push come to shove the working class always has the power to overthrow the vanguard. yet large populations are generally to stupid to do so due to all the propaganda and reeducation (see the USA currently). first one would need to remove capitalism from the equation, and create political education that is systemically impossible to manipulate or censor. after that the working class will gain consciousness over time.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 251d
This is wrong on two levels.
The first is in separating the vanguard from the working classes. The vanguard is a subsection of the working classes chosen by the rest of the working classes. Vanguards derive their power from the bottom-up.
The second is in assuming the working classes are stupid and easily duped. People instead license themselves to believe what they think benefits them is good. Socialist systems have always focused on education and literacy programs because a society run by the working classes works better with more informed members, but even within capitalism workers still come to understand the necessary conditions for their own liberation simply by existing within the brutally oppressive systems.
SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 251d
i dont think it is that wrong to seperate those 2. one could argue that by having different power than the rest all (regardless of where its coming from), it again becomes its own class.
and yes people realise themselves that capitalism is a horrendous system, yet they dont realise it enough to unite. if it was that easy to realise, we wouldnt have racism and such anymore and would have already liberated the working class. yet the class as a whole remains ignorant even if individual groups see through it all. im not saying the working class as a whole is stupid because it cant get smarter, im saying it is intentionally kept stupid and divided, and to stop that we first need to rid ourselves of the system thats responsible for that.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 251d
If you separate class from its basis in relation to the mode of production, then you are pivoting from Marxism. Class is not about "power," it's about social relations to the mode of production and how we fit into that. Plumbers and factory workers are both proletarian despite having different jobs, the same applies to administrators and managers.
Secondly, history is not a series of snapshots but instead a dialectical process. We should help accelerate class consciousness, and tackle bourgeois cultural hegemony, but we are not outside the class struggle and instead are within it.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · -3 pts · 251d
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 244d
The Vanguard chose themselves and if you don't like it, straight to Lubyanka
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 244d
Historically vanguards only ever derive any form of power or legitimacy through popular support from the broader working classes. Had vanguards not been popularly supported, they would have failed. You can see examples of supposed "vanguards" that do fail, such as the Gonzaloist CPP Shining Path, which slaughtered peasants and alienated themselves from the working classes.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 4 pts · 251d
F_State@midwest.social · 0 pts · 230d
I hope you have some ideas because I have serious doubts that's possible in any political/economic system.
F_State@midwest.social · 0 pts · 230d
It's in the interests of the Vanguard for Revolution to never end. I consider it unlikely that they would willingly transition.
dogbert@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 251d
Cowbee@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 251d
Some do, to be fair, and some do also read Marxist theory. I think that's important to recognize.
Deceptichum@quokk.au · 1 pts · 250d
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 244d
IRL people I've met doing things like Mutual Aid or homeless outreach are more likely to be Anarchists then any other Leftist
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 251d
Correction, staunch anarchists ONLY read anarchist theory
ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 251d
oh look, another communist vs anarchist meme… yep, they should fight each other, not the capitalists….
and of course i need to mention that the USSR was only communist in name and are nearly the worst possible example of communism….
Elmer Fud strikes again
ThunderQueen@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 251d
F_State@midwest.social · 0 pts · 230d
I got plenty of criticism for everyone who needs it, not sparing anyone. And the communists I see shitting on anarchists in the Fediverse are frequently also the ones calling for leftist solidarity.