What is a vanguard party? Why would such a group ever be necessary? And are there any
differences between the vanguard’s Leninist formulation and its Maoist iteration?
Today, we’re going to take a look at the answers to these questions and more.
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sharing these videos around on social media. Now, in 1924’s Foundations of Leninism,
Stalin described the Leninist vanguard party as “the advanced detachment of the
working class [and] the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat”
In other words, the Leninist vanguard party is a political organisation comprised of
the most class-conscious, politically advanced members of the working class,
generally working as full-time Professional Revolutionaries,
who are tasked with putting Marxist revolutionary theory into practice and organising the seizure
of power from the capitalist class by the exploited and oppressed masses.
And, importantly, it’s not the party, but the masses themselves who make history – who push
humanity forward from one stage of historical development to the next.
So you may then ask, quite fairly, “Why does our class even need a vanguard party to guide it?
Why don’t the oppressed masses simply rise up and seize power for ourselves on our own initiative?”
Well, as Lenin famously stated in What is to be Done?, “Without revolutionary theory there
can be no revolutionary movement.” Without the framework provided by
revolutionary Marxist theory, the spontaneous movements of the masses
generally end up simply treating the symptoms of capitalism, rather than actually curing the
underlying disease through socialist revolution. Now, workers experience the negative effects
of the capitalist mode of production, and class society more broadly, in their day-to-day lives.
And, despite the capitalist ideological state apparatuses which attempt to trick the workers,
many will still identify these real problems that are experienced every day at the level of the
particular – for example, their low wages, long working hours, being mistreated by their boss,
etc. in their own particular workplaces. However, it’s important to understand these
phenomena not only at the level of the particular struggles in specific workplaces locally,
but to advance into understanding these at the general level as manifestations
of the global capitalist-imperialist system. The problem isn’t just that a worker’s boss is
a cruel individual (although that may be true), the problem is the capitalist system itself.
And this is where revolutionary theory becomes crucial in helping our class to
make the leap from knowledge of the particular to knowledge of the general - to identify not
only the symptoms (such as poor working conditions here or there) but the disease
itself (the capitalist mode of production). And this diagnosis of the disease brings with
it the possibility of its cure: socialism. Without a clear understanding of the general
disease that is the capitalist mode of production - and with only a partial understanding of its
particular symptoms – the exploited and oppressed masses who seek solutions are pulled in numerous
different directions, each purporting to treat this or that symptom, while never
actually curing the underlying disease. Without a revolutionary vanguard guided by Marxist
theory that’s educating, agitating, and organising the masses, progressive struggles find themselves
subservient to spontaneity, or spontaneous action, in one form or another. Now, the spontaneous
action of the masses has got a role to play in the development of a revolutionary consciousness,
but spontaneity by itself (in isolation from a conscious revolutionary strategy)
is incapable of progressing society from one stage of historical development to the next.
Today, this spontaneous action manifests perhaps most prominently in “movementism”.
Movementism is simply following behind, or tailing, social movements and popular
uprisings or rebellions against particular injustices, but without any kind of cohesive,
unified strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist system that genuinely puts power
into the hands of the working class. For example, Occupy Wall Street and the Yellow Vest Movement.
As we saw, there’s a popular upsurge by the masses who are trembling with righteous indignation,
but without a conscious revolutionary strategy to carry them forward to the next level,
these movements simply fizzle out over time. Historically, however, two of the main trends
that emerged from this subservience to spontaneity were Economism and Terrorism.
Economism, in this Leninist sense, refers to focusing narrowly on improving day-to-day
conditions for workers within the confines of the capitalist system through the trade union
movement, rather than consciously fighting to overthrow the capitalist system itself.
For example, “The Economists [in Russia] limited the tasks of the working class to an
economic struggle for higher wages and better working conditions, etc., asserting that the
political struggle was the business of the liberal bourgeoisie. They denied the leading role of the
party of the working class […] In their deference to spontaneity in the working-class movement, the
Economists belittled the significance of revolutionary theory and class-consciousness,
asserted that socialist ideology could emerge from the spontaneous movement, denied the need for a
Marxist party to instil socialist consciousness into the working-class movement, and thereby
cleared the way for bourgeois ideology.” Terrorism, on the other hand, refers to
individuals, or small groups, engaging in unprincipled violent action which isn’t
rooted firmly in the support of a mass movement – also known as adventurism.
Now, it may sound strange to compare reformist trade union activism for better working conditions
on the one hand to adventurist terrorist activity on the other. But as Lenin explains,
“The Economists and the terrorists merely bow to different poles of spontaneity;
the Economists bow to the spontaneity of “the labour movement pure and simple”,
while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of the passionate indignation of intellectuals,
who lack the ability or opportunity to connect the revolutionary struggle and the working-class
movement into an integral whole.” In isolation, both the right-opportunism
of economism and the “left”-opportunism of adventurism ultimately have the same roots
in subservience to spontaneity, rather than being part a consciously organised,
cohesive, viable strategy of revolutionary class struggle that engages the widest possible masses
in the overthrow of the capitalist system. And this is where the revolutionary vanguard steps
in to connect the spontaneous movements of the masses with a conscious, organised
plan to take power for the working class. The vanguard party, by imbuing the masses
with revolutionary proletarian consciousness through education, agitation, and organisation,
helps our class to avoid falling into the traps of reformist economism at one end of the spectrum,
and mindless adventurism at the other – neither of which are capable of solving the problems
inherent to the capitalist system. Namely, the problems that stem from the antagonism between
capitalism’s social character of production and its private form of appropriation.
Now, in order to overcome the highly organised and sophisticated rule of the bourgeoisie,
it is necessary to have an even more powerful organisation of and for the proletariat. However,
there are many challenges to establishing this. The bourgeoisie employs an entire state apparatus,
including police and military, who are full-time servants dedicated to maintaining bourgeois
class domination. Meanwhile, the proletariat spends 8, 10, or 12 hours of its day at work.
This provides very little time to the workers for agitating and organising, as well as educating,
and getting educated to the point of developing revolutionary proletarian class consciousness.
To remedy this situation, the vanguard party is to be led by Professional Revolutionaries
who are dedicated to bringing about socialist revolution and work to this end full-time.
Lenin explained that, “A worker-agitator who is at all gifted and “promising” must not be
left to work eleven hours a day in a factory. We must arrange that he be maintained by the Party;
that he may go underground in good time; that he change the place of his activity, if he is to
enlarge his experience, widen his outlook, and be able to hold out for at least a few years in the
struggle against the gendarmes […] When we have forces of specially trained worker-revolutionaries
who have gone through extensive preparation (and, of course, revolutionaries “of all arms
of the service”), no political police in the world will then be able to contend with them,
for these forces, boundlessly devoted to the revolution, will enjoy the boundless confidence
of the widest masses of the workers.” And so these professional revolutionaries,
or “trained worker-revolutionaries”, generally form the core of the vanguard party.
However, the party being led by such figures does not mean that all party policy should be dictated
solely from above, with a central committee arbitrarily commanding the rank-and-file
membership, who then command the masses to do this or that. This would be a gross distortion of the
principals of the vanguard party. Instead, party policy is decided
by the process of Democratic Centralism. Through the process of democratic centralism,
motions pertaining to party policy are proposed and then freely debated by party
members at various meetings. After the debates have concluded, the motions are then voted upon
by all members. Once the vote results are in, and there’s a clear democratic will to either
adopt or reject the motion, all party members are then required to uphold that decision,
and work collectively to realise it. So, after the “democratic” process of free debate and voting,
the result is then “centralised”, becoming party policy – hence the name “democratic centralism”.
If members aren’t happy with the result of a particular policy being either adopted
or rejected, they will then raise the question again internally and work to
change it from within, rather than from without. Externally, the organisation acts in unison.
While internally there’s a range of opinions and continuous line struggles. As they say,
“Diversity of thought. Unity in action”. Now, the two aspects of Democratic Centralism,
democracy and centralism, exist in dialectical unity with each other.
If either one of these aspects is neglected, the party cannot function correctly in its role as
the revolutionary vanguard that both represents the will of the masses and is capable of putting
that will into action. It either falls into “ultra-democracy”, where party congresses
might be held in order to democratically decide on the minutia of everyday life – resulting in
organisational paralysis. Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, and far more common in
modern-day revisionist communist parties, is “ultra-centralism” where virtually all decisions
are made from the top-down by a central ruling clique that’s disconnected from not only the broad
masses of the working class, but even from the general rank-and-file of the party itself. Both
extremes of ultra-democracy and ultra-centralism are errors of mechanical conceptions of the
party – one rigidly focused solely on a bottom-up approach, the other, top-down.
However, more extreme cases of mechanical conceptions of the vanguard manifest in
the party being viewed as a substitute for the working class itself, neglecting
the need for such an organisation to be deeply rooted amongst and accountable to the masses.
Consequently, in such a case, “A member’s first loyalty is expected to be to the party – not to
the class. An attitude not unlike religious faith is encouraged in the membership towards the party
and its leaders. The result is the destruction of serious enquiry and questioning – the party and
the leaders become the repository of all political wisdom; the party is always right. Revisionism
turns dialectical thinking into a parody of Marxism; ’dialectics’ becomes the rationale for
whatever particular twist and turn expediency may force on the revisionist leadership.”
Such a conception, unfortunately quite prevalent among many so-called Communist Parties in the
twentieth century, mechanically viewed the vanguard party itself as ultimately a monolith,
devoid of its own internal contradictions – such as the contradiction between the rank-and-file and
the leadership, the struggle between revolutionary and reformist lines, socialist-roaders
and capitalist roaders, and so on. “ [The party] was not grasped as a space of
active contradictions, as an organic entity which must continually renew its leadership position and
relevance in society by grappling with external and internal contradictions. Ideological struggle
became formal. Democratic centralism froze up into relations of domination and subservience.”
And this is where more modern and genuinely dialectical understandings of the vanguard
party come in to correct earlier mechanical formulations which led to the problems of
ultra-centralism and viewing the party as a substitute for the working class itself.
“Grasping the party as a unity of opposites – this is the point of rupture to firmly
establish the Maoist party concept in both theory and practice.”
Key to modern developments is the understanding that the party itself is composed of various
opposing forces at all times. As Mao stated, “If there were no contradictions in the Party and
no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party's life would come to an end.”
In order to correct the mechanical errors of the monolithic party formulation and ultra-centralism,
Mao proposes the Mass Line, which internally re-connects the rank-and-file membership to
the central leadership, and externally re-connects the party to the masses.
As Mao explained, “In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily
"from the masses, to the masses". This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and
unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic
ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them
as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these
ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the
masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again
in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time.
Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.” And this, combined with a renewed emphasis
on criticism and self-criticism, provides the key solutions to the problems that
emerged from earlier mechanical conceptions of the vanguard party.
However, even with these important refinements in our understanding of the party,
Mao reminds us that it is not the party that makes history, but the masses.
It is not the party who will deliver stateless, classless, moneyless society to the people on
a silver platter, but the people themselves. Thus, a resolution was passed at the Communist
Party of China’s Eleventh Plenum in 1966 which stated that “the only method is for the masses
to liberate themselves, and any method of doing things in their stead must not be used.
Trust the masses, rely on them and respect their initiative. […] Let the masses educate themselves
in this great revolutionary movement and learn to distinguish between right and wrong and between
correct and incorrect ways of doing things.” With this revolutionary spirit in mind,
the successful implementation of the Mass Line “enable[s] the working class to
“exercise leadership in everything,” to “place politics in command of administration,” and to
ensure that everyone serving as an official should “remain one of the common people.””
And if the party betrays the people by embracing the capitalist road, then the empowered,
class-conscious masses rise up against the party itself, bombarding the party headquarters,
and carrying forward the revolution. Lastly, it’s important to discuss the Maoist
conception of the organisational structures best suited for successful revolution.
These are something called “The Three Magic Weapons” of the revolution, and consist of:
“A well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, using the method
of self-criticism and linked with the masses of the people; an army under the leadership of such a
Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups under the leadership
of such a Party - these are the three main weapons with which we have defeated the enemy.”
Today, these three structures would generally be constructed concentrically with the revolutionary
party at the core, the people’s army at the next layer outside of that,
and then the united front outside of that again. Now, the united front is comprised of various
networks, alliances, and above-ground mass organisations that are open to anyone to join.
From these united front mass organisations, some may then choose to get involved in the
movement at deeper levels. This kind of concentric construction protects the
identities of revolutionaries who might otherwise be targeted by the state or reactionary forces,
and helps to prevent organisational infiltration. Today we’ve taken a look at the Revolutionary
Marxist Vanguard Party. We began by looking at why a revolutionary vanguard is necessary. Here,
we discussed the limits of the spontaneous action of the masses, including movementism, economism,
and adventurism. The revolutionary vanguard unites the spontaneous movements of the masses with
conscious, structured action that takes the people beyond simply winning piecemeal concessions from
the capitalist class, and instead brings about the full seizure of power from the capitalists
by the exploited and oppressed masses. This is co-ordinated by Professional Revolutionaries who
are able to dedicate themselves to the revolution on a full-time basis. Within the organisation led
by these worker-revolutionaries, party policy is decided by the process of Democratic Centralism.
However, with Democratic Centralism, organisations need to be careful to avoid falling into the traps
of either ultra-democracy at one end, where it becomes impossible to get anything done,
and ultra-centralism at the opposite end, where organisational leadership makes virtually all
decisions from the top-down without consulting with the party rank-and-file and the broader
masses of people outside of the party. As many organisations have fallen into this latter trap,
as well as having mechanically viewed themselves as monoliths, it has become clear that the
Leninist vanguard party formation has required refinements and safeguards to prevent such abuses
of power which led to party leaderships becoming detached from the rank-and-file, and parties
themselves becoming detached from the broad masses. The Maoist vanguard built on the Leninist
model, clarifying the mass of contradictions that comprised the party itself, which would
be handled through the deepest implementation of the Mass Line possible, both internally and
externally, as well as introducing stronger processes of criticism and self-criticism.
From this, the party of the new type can engage in rectification campaigns to correct the errors
of the past, and meet the changing needs of the oppressed and exploited masses of the modern day.
Lastly, we discussed the Three Magic Weapons of the revolution: the party, the people’s army,
and the united front. And we discussed how these are constructed concentrically, with the
underground revolutionary party at the core, and the above-ground united front of various networks,
alliances, and open mass organisations at the outermost level. This concentric structure
provides the best organisational protection from infiltration and sabotage by reactionary forces.
Right, there was a lot there, and we had to skim over quite a bit. As always,
these videos only present the tip of the iceberg. For a more in-depth look at this
topic and its various aspects, there are a number of texts that I recommend diving into.
The first, of course, is Lenin’s What is to be Done? However, when reading this,
keep in mind that while there are numerous universally-applicable elements within it,
the party model presented in What is to be Done? can’t be mechanically copy-and-pasted
onto all conditions at all moments in time, but instead needs to adapted creatively in
accordance with local conditions, as Lenin himself demonstrated over his own life.
Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism, chapter 8 specifically, also provides a useful overview
of the Leninist party formation, though sometimes veers into the mechanical, monolithic formulations
of the vanguard party discussed earlier. For a more critical, anti-revisionist
analysis of mechanical formulations of the vanguard party, have a read of What is a
Marxist-Leninist Party? from Marxist-Leninist Quarterly, 1972, which you’ll find linked below.
For a more complete analysis of the specifically Maoist vanguard party formation,
as opposed to the earlier Leninist vanguard party, read Comrade Ajith’s
essay “On the Maoist Party”. It’s also nicely summarised in Chapter 28 of MLM Basic Course.
Also, if you’re looking for a more in-depth analysis of the limits of “movementism” and
spontaneity, as mentioned earlier, make sure to have a read of The Communist Necessity by JMP.
It provides an important critique of the Western left in particular’s failures to
develop a robust anti-capitalist movement over the past few decades, and explains
why we need to move beyond vague, eclectic supposedly left-wing ideologies and return
specifically to revolutionary communism. Right, thanks very much for watching this
video. Hopefully you’ve found it useful in one way or another.
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