In my last post, I said the Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow acted like a “vanguard”. I'm going to talk more about that word - it's one of the most misunderstood words on the left.

To even talk about a vanguard, you have to accept a) capitalism exists and can be overthrown, and b) the working class exists and can be mobilized for a). But how? The ruling class controls all the levers of power: the state, corporations, the army and the media. To defeat the ruling class, workers have to target them at all levels, fighting cutbacks and layoffs, as well as political initiatives like the WTO and the war in Iraq.

Anti-war demo, London, 2003 - one of the actions vanguards come from

You and whose army?

This fightback is not a utopia. It’s happening right now, in dozens of places. Two points are important:

a) when socialists organize, they try to encourage this self-empowerment. In bad times, it means defending against cutbacks or wars. In good times, it means organizing militant unions and wresting reforms from the government. This fightback does two things. It provides real gains in the here and now, and it teaches people they have power in their own hands.

b) the scale is breathtaking. These are micro-processes. Strikes & community struggles happen every day in every community. They’re not coordinated, and most of the time they don’t feel they have the same goals. Meanwhile, the capitalist state is coordinated. It has different ministries and levels of government, but they all work together. And the army & police will help when things get rough. How can you fight such a big machine?

It takes more than rage

This is where the vanguard comes in. There are many definitions but, in essence: a vanguard is a group of socialist workers, organized into a political party, for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism. Marxists get this definition from historical practice: socialists have organized vanguards before. I have to skim through this history, but in brief:

1902 - Vanguard as elite

19th century socialists, organized in the Second International of socialist political parties, thought they could achieve socialism peacefully, through parliament. In 1902, Lenin & the Russian Bolsheviks said that was impossible; the capitalist class would always fight viciously to defend its property. The state couldn’t be ignored or reformed; it had to be smashed. In the book What is to be done?, Lenin argued for the creation of a small, disciplined group of revolutionaries. They’d connect with workers’ & peasants’ struggles, generalizing them. The vanguard would teach workers about each others’ struggle, and finally lead them in political struggle against the government.

A Soviet Bolshevik soldier - they didn't happen on their own

The Russian working class & peasantry fought against landlords, for better working conditions and against imperialist wars - it sounds familiar. But a lot's changed, too: Lenin was organizing in illegal conditions, against a tsarist dictatorship that would exile, imprison or execute socialists. Literacy was low; the popular press was non-existent. Without a disciplined party which could act quickly according to orders, there would be no socialist movement at all.

Obviously those conditions don’t exist now. It’s unfortunate that many anti-communists, of both left & right, have seized on this definition of a vanguard to prove that communism is elitist and dictatorial. But a) this ignores how elitist capitalism is to begin with (we don’t get to vote on investments or working conditions), and b) how Lenin’s vanguard was an historical moment, soon to change.

Just three years later, in 1905, the Russian working class rose in a general strike and formed its own workers’ councils, or soviets. While the Bolsheviks remained illegal, this proved to some Russian Communists – including Trotsky – that a vanguard didn’t have to be small and restrictive. The workers created their own forms of direct democracy. A socialist party could encourage & lead that process.

Russian workers demonstrating, May 1917 - the Bolsheviks were often to the right of the working class.

1917 - Vanguard as revolutionary democracy

In 1917, the tsar was overthrown and the Russian army deserted from the war. People weren’t just listening to Bolshevik ideas; they were acting on them. They formed soviets, and created new forms of struggle. Recognizing the historical situation, Lenin changed tack. The vanguard party had to change, opening its doors and learning from what the workers were doing. In those heady times, the party didn’t lead the class; the working class was well to the left of the party, taking matters in its own hands. At one point Lenin threatened to leave the Bolsheviks and start a new party, so convinced was he that the working class was instinctively Communist, and would make a revolution if only it didn’t have conservative socialists holding it back.

Now a vanguard meant a party of the advanced section of the workers, which educated, fought and set up new political structures under workers’ control. The vanguard party had different political points of view; it had debates; it came to decisions democratically.

How that became a rigid, fixed version of a vanguard party is a long and sorry story. The point is: a vanguard doesn’t have to be a Stalinist dictatorship, where the leadership tells everyone what to do. In its heyday, the Bolshevik Party was a vanguard, the biggest & strongest fighter for socialism, that led the Russian Revolution – and it was as open & democratic as it could be.


And now for something completely different?

I’m telling this long story, so that we have a common understanding of the vanguard’s history (and there’s lots more.) My mind's not made up about whether we need a vanguard. But I have yet to find a decent alternative. Here are some non-vanguard arguments I have problems with:

1) Don’t build a vanguard to overthrow the state; just work for small changes

Big change is impossible - this is a common sentiment on the soft left. It's understandable, given the lack of revolutionary sentiment these days. The point, however, is to work for reforms in a revolutionary way – one that encourages people’s self-confidence. Rosa Luxemberg, in Reform or Revolution, has many good things to say about this.

2) Overthrow the state, but don’t organize a party

This is the anarchist position. I have a lot of sympathy for it, because of the horrible examples of Stalinist & Maoist parties in the past, that ended up becoming personality cults or tools for new ruling classes. However, I think it dodges the central question. Organizing for revolutionary change means encouraging critical thinking and activism, but it also means more than that. What do you do when the state strikes back?

"We need a revolutionary party of the working class!"
"That's OK, I can do it myself."

The anti-globalization movement has been held up as a perfect example: no centralized leadership, autonomous organizing. But the state was able to retaliate massively against the demonstrators, using electronic surveillance, teargas, batons and murder when necessary. More importantly, the capitalist state won the political battle, shifting the terrain from global justice to terrorism. The autonomous movement could provide on-site medical care and non-violent training. But it couldn’t possibly confront the state in the media, in parliament and elsewhere. It couldn’t build links with other, less-confrontational movements – trade unions most importantly – because its very lack of structure precluded a coherent ideology & practice. These are all things a vanguard party could do.

3) Overthrow the state, organize a group, but not a vanguard party

There are many radicals who would accept these weaknesses and call for some form of organization, but not name it a party. Here I find common ground. At this point in the left’s fortunes – which aren’t amazing, outside of some promising hotspots – organizing a vanguard is a waste of energy. Many small groups apply Lenin & Trotsky’s models by rote, and end up being tiny caricatures of parties: 10 people in a room telling the working class what to do. When the left rises again, how do we channel that upsurge? What do we do with the thousands of people, in unions, groups and on their own, who want to fight?

Trotsky's mobile command post, 1918 - you can't be a vanguard without your own train

Vanguard not vanguard

We need an organization that does the things a vanguard does, with one update. That organization will

- Organize the most radical workers and activists in different struggles
- provide resources for those struggles: newspapers, strike support, etc.
- help activists learn from one another
- provide key political guidance when necessary

The key phrase is when necessary. I accept CLR James’ critique that workers by and large know what to do. Having worked in modern industry, workers are well-equipped to run things themselves. However, true spontaneity doesn’t exist. Workers don’t rise up themselves en masse: someone – more likely a group of people – has to start things off. Those people need to be in touch with other activists, to learn from their experiences and teach them in turn.

Don’t tell me what to do, man

James was famously anti-vanguard. But he had no time for activist egos (except, perhaps, his own.) He laid down strict operating rules for the group he was involved with, everything from what features to write, to the number of newsletter copies to make. If you don’t agree with a vanguard party, this doesn’t absolve you from key organizational questions. If anything, that makes the responsibility greater: how do you accomplish the tasks – from fighting the state at all levels, to organizing locally – that a party can do?

I welcome responses about this question, as I’m still working through my own thoughts on the issue.