vanguard party and the prejudices of the people

[eat the world]

on one hand, people need socialism.

On the other hand, even the most pissed of people in the U.S. today know anything about socialism.

On one hand, people need a hardcore leadership -- so their "rivulets of struggle" become a single turrent that can reshape the world.

On the other hand, the word "communist" associated with such a vanguard disquiets people.

How do we over come this?

Some people think "we don't go with vanguards, we don't fly the banner that says communist." In other words, they say our only hope of building a radical movement is to disavow communist goals, ideology and labels.

But no other goals and ideology will do.

So how do communists work to win a base, and lead?

[Deleted]

I think it's already known how much I dislike the vanguard concept. I think what we need to do is teach the people how to lead themselves.

The best way to aid in the class struggle in my opinion is to actively engage in the struggle. Far too many groups/parties serve mostly as debating societies where little is done beyond "preaching to the choir." It is also a problem however when groups fight larger issues but then fail to help others see the root cause of capitalism.

If you are a working person, be active in your union. If your job is non-union, try and unionize! Run for a leadership position if you can. The goal should not be to coerce people into following communism, it should be to win them over. As you fight together with them for better working conditions, help them see the larger problems within capitalism that are the root cause. Open their eyes to the class war that the ruling class is waging against us and why we must fight them. Use plain language but expose them to Marxist theory as much as you can. The goal is to not only inform but to also encourage people to become leaders themselves.

It is very important to be active in your community. Community service not only helps people right now, it also gives you the opportunity to help your neighbors see the problems you are both fighting against through the lens of class struggle.

I believe that by working and fighting with people but at the same time being openly communist we can help put a human face on communism and dispel some of the remnants of the Cold War.

When people show some interest, I think it is important to try and build your party. There is power in numbers so this is definitely something that should be a goal. At the same time, I think it's important to have a non-sectarian attitude. Of course everyone believes their line is the right one, but I think we must let people get there on their own.

I'm not trying to espouse the SLP line, but I think their pamphlet INTERVENTION & UNION WORK: An SLP Handbook has some good strategies. Now, if only the SLP actually practiced what they preach it may not be the small party it is today but that is a discussion for another day ;D.

How can this thread get no attention? Come on people!

[Andrei_X]

This thread gets a sticky.

DISCUSS, PEEPS!

[Andrei_X]

www.fighttheoctopus.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=687

This has been a very good discussion so far about the vanguard party... I am Engel242 at Fight The Octopus and have been talking with Anarchists about the vanguard party.

[RosaRL]

I think it's already known how much I dislike the vanguard concept. I think what we need to do is teach the people how to lead themselves

But who is this 'we' that are teachig the people to lead themselves - that is taking up the responsibility?

Isn't the very act of teaching itself also leading?

I find your statement confusing because its my understanding that the reason that there is a need for a vanguard is exactly that people dont spontaniously come to these ideas on thier own - that is 'what WE need to do is teach the people how to lead themselves'.

[Deleted]

RosaRL said:

But who is this 'we' that are teachig the people to lead themselves - that is taking up the responsibility?

Isn't the very act of teaching itself also leading?

I find your statement confusing because its my understanding that the reason that there is a need for a vanguard is exactly that people dont spontaniously come to these ideas on thier own - that is 'what WE need to do is teach the people how to lead themselves'.

I see a role for a party for certain things, but I do not believe that this so-called vanguard party should become a new ruling class for the post-revolution government.

[eat the world]

i don't think there is a person on this site that thinks we should have a revolution where a new exploiting ruling class is imposed on the people.

Most of human history has been like that (for many reasons) -- and the American revolutoin was a prime example (and the reversal of reconstruction was another).

We have a possibility now to have a revolution that abolishes classes, on the basis of modern production (abundance and socialized work).

[struct]

I think that the concept of a vanguard party in itself " divorces " party members from the masses, which ultimately invokes elitism.

Secondly, I think the vanguard is contradictory to the notion of faith in the masses. What makes your vanguard party so superior and all-knowing? Who asked you to shove your propaganda down their throats, anyway?

I do believe that guidance is necessary, however, I don't see anything unique about a vanguard party except that it promotes opportunism. It's up to the people to become class conscious, not us.

The vanguard itself seems analagous to the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. I believe this is evident because of the socialized will of the masses vs. the centralization of power in the party. Emancipation, in my opinion, will ultimately be a collective effort, thus lacking the requirement for a centralized party.

I think it's also important to note the historical failures of such vanguard parties. No vanguard in history led to its final goal. In fact, they did quite the contrary. Science dictates that we abandon hypotheses when there remains discrepancies between our hypothesis and experiment. Revolutionary theory is a science after all, right?

[prowl]

I am really glad to hear out your views on this. I think struct hit on some very important questions, IMO.

struct said:

I think that the concept of a vanguard party in itself " divorces " party members from the masses, which ultimately invokes elitism.

The vanguard can run the risk of 'divorcing' itself from the masses, no doubt, as can any organization or collective. However you seem to think that the vanguard will inherently 'divorce' itself. I think thats kind of undialectical. Dialectical being that things are made up of contradictory elements stuggling with each other, a unity of opposites in all things. In other words I think you are being one-sided. A vanguard party is needed to maintain connections with the masses, to unleash the masses, not in dozens, but their millions across the country, in a unified way. The main thing about a vanguard is not that it is above the masses, but that it is made up of the class conscious masses who have taken the responsibilty to lead and organize revolution. And to do everything necessary to start one as well. And more..

I look the vanguard as a role, not a position.

And the reason why you need a vanguard breaks down to this, to unleash the masses in a unified way, and win, you need a unified line and plan. This is crucial, or else you will have chaos, and will not win.

The vanguard does not divorse itself from the masses, because without the masses, there can be no vanguard party, no revolution, and no better world.

Secondly, I think the vanguard is contradictory to the notion of faith in the masses.

I would love to hear how you think its contradictory?

What makes your vanguard party so superior and all-knowing?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It is neither superior to the masses, or all-knowing. What it does have is class consciousness, it knows what is in the interest of humanity, a world without oppression, it knows that only the proletariat can lead society all the way to classlessness, and it knows that the masses have the right to rule. The party does understand science, dialectical materialism, and tries to apply this science to its methods and understanding.
A vanguard is also far from all-knowing. Mao once said (paraphrase)We have made more mistakes than we can count, but we never made the mistake of giving up.

I do believe that guidance is necessary, however, I don't see anything unique about a vanguard party except that it promotes opportunism. It's up to the people to become class conscious, not us.

How does a vanguard promote opportunism? You should put more meat on your arguements. And about it is up to people to become class conscious..yes, true. Its also on people who are class consciousness to share their understanding. Keep one thing in mind, we are people!!!! also, we did not have a moment of enlightenment to get class consciousness, the vanguard learned it from others, just like those before it did. At the same time the vanguard is always learning more, just like those before it did.

The vanguard itself seems analagous to the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. I believe this is evident because of the socialized will of the masses vs. the centralization of power in the party. Emancipation, in my opinion, will ultimately be a collective effort, thus lacking the requirement for a centralized party.

Well the contradiction you are talking about is the contradiction of leadership and led. Its a deep one in my opinion. We do need to resolve this contradiction, however it is tied to classes in a deep way, and cannot be "removed" as long as classes continue to exist. Here is a section of a document written by the Central Committee of the RCP that gets into the way they deal with this contradiction today.

Our Party is a collective organization, not just a collection of individuals. We decide things collectively and we act collectively. Our power resides in our collectivity--this enables us to correctly link with, unleash, and lead the initiative of the masses and give it its most powerful revolutionary expression in conformity with the fundamental interests of the masses. This collectivity is expressed and realized through the collective functioning of the units of the Party on the various levels, and through the Party's chain of knowledge and of command up and down throughout the Party.

rwor.org/a/firstvol/825/revolutionary_leadership.htm

Here you see that there is an ESSENTIAL mix of leadership and collectivity.

I think it's also important to note the historical failures of such vanguard parties. No vanguard in history led to its final goal. In fact, they did quite the contrary. Science dictates that we abandon hypotheses when there remains discrepancies between our hypothesis and experiment. Revolutionary theory is a science after all, right?

By this logic anarchists should all quit, cuz they have never made revolution. And so never won one. (With the exception of the Paris commune over a hundred years ago that was lost very quickly, but in this revolution, state power was taken, so many anarchists today may not consider it anarchist). And anarchists have around for just as long as communists have.

Or capitalists. They should have given up hundreds of years ago. Cuz hundreds of years ago many attempts at setting up capitalist eonomies had tried and been defeated. They should have given up.

And the statement about 'giving up hypothesis where there are discrepencies' is partial and not fully accurate. Scientists, give up some hypothesis, yes, but never after one experiment. And even when they do give up a hypothesis, that does not mean something was incorrect. Getting to science. In an experiment, what scientist plans to have instance results after one experiment? None, or at leats not smart ones. Scientists understand that you may have to perform an experiment dozens of times before you are successful. And the way that they succeed in the end is to learn from the experiments they have already done.

Since the collapse of the social-imperialist Soviet Union, the ruling classes around the world have claimed communism is dead, that its a defeated ideology. This spins reality on its head. Communism was able to liberated almost half of humanity for a time, no other ideology has ever accomplished that feat. Communism was in its birth then, but its growing up.

[Deleted]

A lot of the problem has to do with not only this concept of a vanguard party but also in its organizing principle of Democratic Centralism. I think Rosa Luxemberg had some good things to say on this issue in Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy. Here are a couple of excerpts that seem appropriate:

Lenin reasons that the combination of the socialist mass movement with such a rigorously centralized type of organization is a specific principle of revolutionary Marxism. To support this thesis, he advances a series of arguments, with which we shall deal below.

Generally speaking it is undeniable that a strong tendency toward centralization is inherent in the Social Democratic movement. This tendency springs from the economic makeup of capitalism which is essentially a centralizing factor. The Social Democratic movement carries on its activity inside the large bourgeois city. Its mission is to represent, within the boundaries of the national state, the class interests of the proletariat, and to oppose those common interests to all local and group interests.

Therefore, the Social Democracy is, as a rule, hostile to any manifestation of localism or federalism. It strives to unite all workers and all worker organizations in a single party, no matter what national, religious, or occupational differences may exist among them. The Social Democracy abandons this principle and gives way to federalism only under exceptional conditions, as in the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It is clear that the Russian Social Democracy should not organize itself as a federative conglomerate of many national groups. It must rather become a single party for he entire empire. However, that is not really the question considered here. What we are considering is the degree of centralization necessary inside the unified, single Russian party in view of the peculiar conditions under which it has to function.

Looking at the matter from the angle of the formal tasks of the Social Democracy, in its capacity as a party of class struggle, it appears at first that the power and energy of the party are directly dependent on the possibility of centralizing the party. However, these formal tasks apply to all active parties. In the case of the Social Democracy, they are less important than is the influence of historic conditions.

The Social Democratic movement is the first in the history of class societies which reckons, in all its phases and through its entire course, on the organization and the direct, independent action of the masses.

Because of this, the Social Democracy creates an organizational type that is entirely different from those common to earlier revolutionary movements, such as those of the Jacobins and the adherents of Blanqui.

Lenin seems to slight this fact when he presents in his book (page 140) the opinion that the revolutionary Social Democrat is nothing else than a "Jacobin indissolubly joined to the organization of the proletariat, which has become conscious of its class interests."

For Lenin, the difference between the Social Democracy and Blanquism is reduced to the observation that in place of a handful of conspirators we have a class-conscious proletariat. He forgets that this difference implies a complete revision of our ideas on organization and, therefore, an entirely different conception of centralism and the relations existing between the party and the struggle itself.

Blanquism did not count on the direct action of the working class. It, therefore, did not need to organize the people for the revolution. The people were expected to play their part only at the moment of revolution. Preparation for the revolution concerned only the little group of revolutionists armed for the coup. Indeed, to assure the success of the revolutionary conspiracy, it was considered wiser to keep the mass at some distance from the conspirators. Such a relationship could be conceived by the Blanquists only because there was no close contact between the conspiratorial activity of their organization and the daily struggle of the popular masses.

The tactics and concrete tasks of the Blanquist revolutionists had little connection with the elementary class struggle. They were freely improvised. They could, therefore, be decided on in advance and took the form of a ready-made plan. In consequence of this, ordinary members of the organization became simple executive organs, carrying out the orders of a will fixed beforehand, and outside of their particular sphere of activity. They became the instruments of a Central Committee. Here we have the second peculiarity of conspiratorial centralism -- the absolute and blind submission of the party sections to the will of the center, and the extension of this authority to all parts of the organization.

However, Social Democratic activity is carried on under radically different conditions. It arises historically out of the elementary class struggle. It spreads and develops in accordance with the following dialectical contradiction. The proletarian army is recruited and becomes aware of its objectives in the course of the struggle itself. The activity of the party organization, the growth of the proletarians’ awareness of the objectives of the struggle and the struggle itself, are not different things separated chronologically and mechanically. They are only different aspects of the same struggle, there do not exist for the Social Democracy detailed sets of tactics which a Central Committee can teach the party membership in the same way as troops are instructed in their training camps. Furthermore, the range of influence of the socialist party is constantly fluctuating with the ups and downs of the struggle in the course of which the organization is created and grows.

For this reason Social Democratic centralism cannot be based on the mechanical subordination and blind obedience of the party membership to the leading party center. For this reason, the Social Democratic movement cannot allow the erection of an air-tight partition between the class-conscious nucleus of the proletariat already in the party and its immediate popular environment, the nonparty sections of the proletariat.

Now the two principles on which Lenin’s centralism rests are precisely these:

1. The blind subordination, in the smallest detail, of all party organs to the party center which alone thinks, guides, and decides for all.

2. The rigorous separation of the organized nucleus of revolutionaries from its social-revolutionary surroundings.

Such centralism is a mechanical transposition of the organizational principles of Blanquism into the mass movement of the socialist working class.

Granting, as Lenin wants, such absolute powers of a negative character to the top organ of the party, we strengthen, to a dangerous extent, the conservatism inherent in such an organ. If the tactics of the socialist party are not to be the creation of a Central Committee but of the whole party, or, still better, of the whole labor movement, then it is clear that the party sections and federations need the liberty of action which alone will permit them to develop their revolutionary initiative and to utilize all the resources of the situation. The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin’s concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party -- to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than to unify it.

[redstar2000]

...people need a hardcore leadership -- so their "rivulets of struggle" become a single torrent that can reshape the world.

This seems to be one of those sentiments that has been repeated so often and in so many different ways that people just "assume that it's true" and move on.

The evidence for it was never very strong; it's really just a variant of the "great man" theory of history that goes back to the very roots of class society--the Epic of Gilgamesh for example.

Things happen because leaders "will" them to happen; their great strength, courage, foresight, etc. "inspire" their followers to a "unified effort" to "change the world".

In this view, the masses of people are a sort of passive lump of dough...until the "yeast" of leadership is added.

The masses may "make history"...but only if they are "properly led". By themselves, they "don't do much".

Upon close examination, this concept of history breaks down rather dramatically. It cannot explain why yesterday's "great leader" so frequently becomes today's "great failure".

If there were really an objective quality of "greatness" that a few possess but most do not, then it would "show"...the "great man" would rise to pre-eminence in adulthood and display his "greatness" for the remainder of his life.

That almost never happens.

The careers of "great leaders" in history are "all over the charts"..."dazzling successes" followed by "catastrophic failures" and vice versa, a mixture of partial successes and partial failures, etc., etc., etc.

The random mixture of failure and success makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that "leadership" is anything much more than pure chance. The leader may be somewhat more intelligent than average, but not greatly so. Genius is certainly not required (though often claimed).

It's sometimes said that "leaders" possess a quality called "charisma"...the ability to inspire loyalty and devotion independent of actual competence.

If so, it is also a curious quality...in that it is effective with large numbers of people but equally ineffective with large numbers of others. And it likewise appears to fluctuate with time and fortune.

So if you repeat the time-worn formula, "the people need a hardcore leadership to unite their efforts", then you are accepting the idea that without a strong-willed, courageous, moderately intelligent, very charismatic, and lucky leader, nothing much good is going to happen.

The struggle for communism then reduces itself to waiting for the leader to enter upon the stage of world history...or searching for him among all the hordes of "leader-wannabes".

The great insight of Marx and Engels was that all this fuss over leaders was so much froth upon the surface of an ocean of material conditions. When the ocean is calm, the leaders are "mediocre". When the ocean is stormy, various tumultuous characters rise and fall...it is an "era of great men".

It is not, in the Marxist view, leaders who "make history"...it is history that makes leaders.

In the case of proletarian revolution, it makes them out of workers.

[RosaRL]

rs2000 saidSo if you repeat the time-worn formula, "the people need a hardcore leadership to unite their efforts", then you are accepting the idea that without a strong-willed, courageous, moderately intelligent, very charismatic, and lucky leader, nothing much good is going to happen.

While you are very correct that it is not a Marxist idea that 'leaders make history' - in fact the Masses make history, People need someone to point the way forward.

This has been proven repeatedly over the years and its far from any empty statement. In fact, it is in turblant times that it becomes most clear. In fact even the movements of the 60's didnt just 'happen' although they are often put forward as if it was just this huge spontaneous movement- they didnt just spiring up out of the ground. (even be-ins were organized)

People didnt just wake up one morning all over the country simultaneously with the idea 'lets go to chicago for the convention'. Individuals busted ass to make things happen.

More than that, people expected leadership and someone has to co-ordinate things and give it a direction.

Like it or not, even anarchists today have leaders. Its part of the reality of having a movement, of getting things off the ground. Someone has to take that responsibility and bring things together. You can wish it were different, you can wish everyone could just spontaneously know where to gather and what to do, but wishing wont make it happen.

History and experience has also shown that strong hard leadership makes for a stronger movement as well. You have to have people that are co-ordinated and willing to give it their all, to put everything on the line as well as having the ideological training.

Personally, I think that there is a lot that can be learned about this from going back to 'what is to be done' and looking at that. Lenin didnt just pop up with his ideas on the vanguard, the ideas came out of practice - out of actually fighting to figure out what it was going to take to make a revolution.

[redstar2000]

People need someone to point the way forward.

Yes, in any group of people, someone has to be the first to say "let's do this"--there's no such thing as telepathic spontaneity.

But, if Marx was right, there is a "climate of receptivity" that ultimately derives from material conditions.

There are times when someone says "let's do this" and is met with thunderous indifference or even active hostility.

In other situations, the suggestion "catches fire" and "takes off"...as if large numbers of people were already thinking along those lines and had already reached those conclusions. It was only a matter of chance who said it first...it was going to be said, no matter what.

It was "in the air".

There are many examples of this in history but, as it happens, it is something I can speak of through first-hand experience.

In the late 1950s & early 1960s, discontent among American youth was "in the air". Something was "going to happen". You could actually "feel it".

The winds of change were rising.

It was all very fuzzy and incoherent; politics and culture and drugs and sex...seperate strands mixing and re-mixing together. There were even a few "old lefties" around who had not "made their peace" with monopoly capitalism and imperialism...and they gave us the benefit of their long experience through the 1930s and 1940s as well as our first glimpse of revolutionary integrity.

I was present in New York when a small group of leaders of the tiny Students for a Democratic Society (less than 1,000 members) planned the April 1965 March on Washington against the war in Vietnam. I still remember how it was "hoped" that we could get "two or three thousand" kids to come...that with "a lot of hard work" we could "maybe" do this.

About 25,000 kids showed up...and SDS membership exploded. And you know what happened after that.

It was "in the air".

Who were these "leaders"? Where did they come from? And whatever happened to them?

Well, I sort of knew some of them. They were pretty bright kids who'd read a lot more political stuff than most members of their generation. None of them were Leninists or vanguardists in any formal sense, though some of them had read Lenin. They were very impressed with "left-bourgeois" radical critiques of modern capitalism; C. Wright Mills was as popular then as Noam Chomsky is now. They were very leery of "communism"--Stalin, etc.--though Castro's revolution impressed them.

Only a few of them (if any at all) knew anything of anarchist traditions; as far as they were concerned, they invented the idea of "participatory democracy", the regular rotation of people out of office, term limits, the autonomy of the local collectives, etc.

During the years 1965-69, SDS--like America itself--boiled with internal controversies and ideological struggle. Conventions--though technically limited to one per year--in effect took place four times a year and were attended by 800 to 1,200 members and delegates...and it always seemed to me that every last one of them had something to say.

Sad to say, SDS underwent a three-way split in June of 1969...and all three factions were, loosely speaking, based on the Leninist tradition. All three regarded themselves as the "real leaders" of the movement.

The enormous movement that had surrounded SDS essentially dissipated from 1970-75; here and there, local groups continued to function for a while (producing underground newspapers was a popular project, one that I took part in).

A few people wrote books...not bad but not so great either. Some ended up in academia...with all the political sterility that such a fate implies. Most, I suspect, just quietly entered the working class and, whenever they remembered their "glory years", just had a good chuckle over their youthful naiveté.

Imagine! A bunch of ordinary people thinking they could change the world.

From these experiences, I've drawn a conclusion. That when material conditions grow "ripe" for proletarian revolution, the leaders will come from the ranks of "people you never heard of". They will not be anything like the mental picture of a "great leader" that you may have.

What they will do is articulate what is already "in the air", what millions of workers have already concluded needs to happen. When they speak, their words will "catch fire", setting the whole political landscape in flames.

Not because they are geniuses or have a "correct understanding" or because of charisma or any of that crap.

Their "rise to fame"--such as it will be--will take place because they, by chance, were the first to speak a new truth for a new age.

And I'm convinced that such a truth, when finally spoken and heard, will echo what we said in SDS nearly 40 years ago: let the people decide.

[honky tonk]

Redstar 2000: "But, if Marx was right, there is a "climate of receptivity" that ultimately derives from material conditions. There are times when someone says "let's do this" and is met with thunderous indifference or even active hostility. In other situations, the suggestion "catches fire" and "takes off"...as if large numbers of people were already thinking along those lines and had already reached those conclusions."

This is true. And it is an important part of how radical politics works. There are times of crisis and a mood of resistnace, and times when things are more quiet and down pressed.

Maoists say "what is subjective for the people is objective for us." Meaning that you can't force millions to feel discontent -- that is "subjective" to them (i.e. it is in their heads), and the moods of the people are part of 'objective conditions" for us.

But while rebellion can be "in the air" that doesn't make revolutions. Revolutionary moments and situations can be "thrown away" because (though the people had the potential to go for it) there was not powerful organized force and leadership to direct the disctontent of the people into a revolutionary movement. Or one that can successfully lead a revolutionary movement to take and hold power, and actually take the socialist road.

Many many revolustionary situations have been thrown away, many deep crises of discontent have been hijacked by non revolutionary forces (even islamists etc.)

RS writes: "In the late 1950s & early 1960s, discontent among American youth was "in the air". Something was "going to happen". You could actually "feel it". The winds of change were rising."

This is deeply true. And reflected in powerful songs like Dylan's "You don't know what's happening, do you mr. jones?"

The "movement" was not planned. And there wree very very few communists involved (and those who called themselves "communists" like the CP were often hostile to the radical currents.)

There were mass leaders (like the ones you describe in early SDS, like Clark Kissinger who played such an important role in the SDS march on the Pentagon etc.)

But mass leaders are not the same as communist and revolutionary leaders.

We need organizers, but more than that, we need *communist leadership* which is something very different -- it connects the final goal of revolution, socialism and communism, with all the things we are doing now.

The fact that there was no revolutionary and communist movement organized nationally in the U.S., meant that the early organizers came from other trends (SDS itself started originally as a youth group for social democrats).

But because the times were so radical, and because of the influoence of the Vietnamese revolution and the Chinese cultural revolution -- and because it was so clear that Imperial America was not into backing down from white racism and imperialism etc. -- there was the development of NEW communist and revolutionary leadership from among the ranks of the new activists.

And the non-communists eventually gave way. Because people like Tom Hayden (an early SDS leader who is not a bourgeois politician) really were much less radical than was needed and desired. They just got bypassed by more radical leaders. Or else (like Clark Kissinger) they started to THEMSELVES become revolutionaries and communists.


The whole thing of "participatory democracy" was a rather naive feature of SDS (similar to the consensus approach of today's anarchist circles) -- and really, there were networks of "movement heavies" operating behind the scenes, while everyon pretended it was run by "participatory democracy."

which meant you had leadership -0- but becase it wasn't officially chosen, or discussed, or evaluated, or supervised, it was often hard to struggle with the functioning leaders of SDS and help them improve.

RS writes: "Sad to say, SDS underwent a three-way split in June of 1969...and all three factions were, loosely speaking, based on the Leninist tradition. All three regarded themselves as the "real leaders" of the movement."

I think this is the official summation of many academic historians too. But i think it was not as "sad" as all that.

SDS was moving to become a Revolutionary Youth Movement (called RYM) and many things had to be clarified.

some of the trends inside of SDS were incompatable with each other. (PLP/WSA for example said all nationalism was reactionary and were denouncing the Vietnamese NLF and the Black panthers. How could one easily coexist within that in a common radical organization?)

And more: it was necessary to develop a strategy for making revolution in the U.S., develop communist cadre who would go deep into the working class and connect revolution with untouched sections of the people. This meant that student activists had to transform themselves into communists, and they had to leave campuses in many cases.

All this was good. And necessary. And it required ruptures from what SDS had been.

RS writes: "The enormous movement that had surrounded SDS essentially dissipated from 1970-75; here and there, local groups continued to function for a while (producing underground newspapers was a popular project, one that I took part in)."

This is onesided and basically mistaken.

First, the movement did not "dissipate" because SDS split. The dissipation happened because the upsurge subsisded. The Black liberation struggle declined after 1973, and most of its organizaitons disappeared or shrank. The antiwar movement declined after May 1970.

At the same time, there was a powerful and positive consolidation of communist organization -- something that was much needed. Communists led significant movements among workers -- like in the coal mines, in auto plants, El Paso's garment strike etc.

And many of such communists are still active.

The rap that "the radicals of the 60s sold out" is bulshit. Some reentered mainstream society after the decline of the upsurge -- but that shouldn't be surprising. Others (like Bob Avakian, or Carl Dix, or Clark Kissinger, or many many others) are still on the front lines -- and in some ways have made important and penentrating insights that are CRUCIAL for the next upsurge.

RS writes: "Imagine! A bunch of ordinary people thinking they could change the world."

Yes imagine. And better than just imagining -- lets do it!!

RS writes: "From these experiences, I've drawn a conclusion. That when material conditions grow "ripe" for proletarian revolution, the leaders will come from the ranks of "people you never heard of"."

I don't believe this at all. And one of the deep problems of the 1960s is that the movement did not have mature, developed, thoughtful experienced communist leaders -- and real communist organization, when the movement was at its most powerful.

The 60s could have gone much farther, but ran into the contradiction of the lack of such leadership and communist organization.

If you just articulate what is already "in the air" you will have radical times, but not a revolution.

[redstar2000]

Reply Part 1...

honky tonk wrote: But while rebellion can be "in the air" that doesn't make revolutions. Revolutionary moments and situations can be "thrown away" because (though the people had the potential to go for it) there was not powerful organized force and leadership to direct the discontent of the people into a revolutionary movement. Or one that can successfully lead a revolutionary movement to take and hold power, and actually take the socialist road.

A succinct summary of the Leninist-Maoist hypothesis.

The question is: can the discontent of the people be "directed" into "taking power"?

And if so, how could this possibly be done?

Of course, you can "call" on people to occupy government buildings, for example. Will they do it?

You can "call" on the army to "defect to the people's side". Will they?

What Leninist parties have traditionally done is to substitute themselves for the people. Their own cadre arm themselves, occupy the government buildings, and "proclaim" the "provisional revolutionary government", and hope that people will accept that...particularly the army (or most of it).

If they have at least some mass working class support, they can make a pretty good run for "the big prize".

Lenin's coup against the Kerensky regime is a text-book case; there were enough Bolshevik factory worker detachments and enough units of the military that were willing to "take orders" from the Petrograd Soviet Military Committee (controlled by the Bolsheviks) that key points in Petrograd (government offices, the telephone exchange, the railway stations, etc.) were occupied with hardly a shot being fired. The Kerensky government was arrested while sitting around a table in the old Winter Palace arguing about "what to do".

The next day, Lenin informed the opening session of the All Russian Congress of Soviets that "state power had been seized in their name"...and the congress promptly approved a new government dominated by Bolsheviks and led by Lenin...their first and last act of any political significance.

After that, it was "Lenin & the Bolsheviks" all the way.

This singular event in history has profoundly influenced three generations of revolutionaries...even though it's never been repeated. (Probably the closest parallels took place immediately in the wake of October...the brief Hungarian Soviet Republic and the even briefer Bavarian Soviet Republic.)

Was the Bolshevik victory a "fluke"? Was it a crucial error to impose this event as a "template" on all future attempts to make revolution?

Is it a justified conclusion that Lenin was "right" about "directing revolution to victory"?

Aside from Lenin's revolution, the major examples of (temporarily) successful revolutions of the 20th century have been "protracted people's wars" (peasant revolutions)--which we could call the Maoist variant of Leninism. In these revolutions (China, Yugoslavia, Cuba, IndoChina), it really was a case of "directed revolutions"...organized by a "powerful leadership".

So if you live in a "backward" country, with an enormous peasant majority, burdened with a colonial bourgeoisie and a rural aristocracy...it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Maoism is "the way to go".

Meanwhile, we who live in the advanced capitalist countries and who expect proletarian revolutions on the model initially suggested by Marx and the Paris Commune have a dilemma.

Lenin's model never "caught on" in the west...most workers rejected its "iron discipline" and "centralized leadership". And Mao's model is totally unsuitable for obvious reasons.

It seems logical to me to therefore look at the model of Barcelona...where the anarcho-syndicalists seized practical control of the city--though making the crucial blunder of failing to disperse the old government and its politicians. Knowing little of Marx (and that little probably being mis-information from the pen of Bakunin), they neglected to "smash the bourgeois state apparatus"...which, in due course, came around to bite them in the ass with a vengeance.

Would a "strong leadership" have made a difference in Barcelona? Or would the wide-spread knowledge of that "final step" that had to be taken been sufficient?

I think the latter is the case. I think that if the working class is informed by communists from the beginning that the old bourgeois state apparatus must be destroyed...that when revolutionary upheaval takes place, they can and will do that easily.

What need, then, for a "strong leadership" if communists have always fully informed our class of what actually has to be done?

Unless you want to argue that most workers are "incapable" of grasping the basics of anti-capitalist revolution or how to organize an egalitarian and libertarian post-capitalist society, then those are things that can be learned in the decades that precede the actual revolution itself.

Barcelona, after all, was 30 years in the making...and the working class knew how to do everything but that one crucial step.

It wasn't an "inevitable" mistake.