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Vanguardism

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Vanguardism is a core concept of Leninism which states that a revolutionary vanguard party, composed of the most conscious and disciplined workers, must lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism, ultimately progressing to communism.

The vanguard works to engage the working class in revolutionary politics and to strengthen proletarian political power against the bourgeoisie.

This theory generally serves as a rationale for the leading role of the Communist party, which is often enshrined in the country's constitution if the party attains state power.

Foundations

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Vladimir Lenin popularised political vanguardism as conceptualised by Karl Kautsky, detailing his thoughts in one of his earlier works, What Is to Be Done?.[1] Lenin argued that Marxism's complexity and the hostility of the establishment required that a close-knit group of individuals pulled from the working class become a vanguard of the greater whole to lead and safeguard the revolutionary ideology within the particular circumstances presented by the reactionary régime. While Lenin wished for a revolutionary organization akin to the contemporary Social Democratic Party of Germany, which was open to the people and more democratic in organization, the Russian autocracy prevented this.[2][3]

Leninists argue that Lenin's ideal vanguard party would have open membership: "The members of the Party are they who accept the principles of the Party program and render the Party all possible support."[4] This party could be completely transparent, at least internally: the "entire political arena is as open to the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience".[5] A party that supposedly implemented democracy to such an extent that "the general control (in the literal sense of the term) exercised over every party man in the politics brings into existence an automatically operating mechanism which produces what in biology is called the 'survival of the fittest' ". The party would be completely open while educating the proletariat to remove the false consciousness that had been instilled in them.[5]

In its first phase, the vanguard party would exist for two reasons. First, it would protect Marxism from corruption from other ideas, as well as advance its plans. Second, it would educate the proletariat in Marxism to cleanse them of their "false individual consciousness" and instill the revolutionary "class consciousness" in them.

Our task is not to champion the degrading of the revolutionary to the level of an amateur, but to raise the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries.[5]

If the party is successful in their goal, on the eve of revolution, a critical mass of the working class population would be prepared to usher forth the transformation of society. Furthermore, a great number of them, namely their most dedicated members, would belong to the party cadres as professional revolutionaries, and would be elected to leadership positions by the mass party membership. Thus the organisation would quickly include the entire working class.[5]

Political party

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A vanguard party is a political party at the fore of a population-wide political movement and of a revolution. In the praxis of revolutionary political science the vanguard party was composed of professional revolutionaries, first effected by the Bolshevik Party in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin, the first leader of the Bolsheviks, coined the term vanguard party, and argued that such a party was necessary in order to provide the practical and political leadership that would impel the proletariat to achieve a communist revolution. Hence, as a political-science term, vanguard party most often is associated with Leninism; however, similar ideas (under different names) also are present in other revolutionary ideologies.

Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx briefly touch on the subject of advance guards helping the proletariat revolution in its progress; in Chapter II: "Proletarians and Communists" of The Communist Manifesto (1848), they said:

The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

According to Lenin, the purpose of the vanguard party is to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat; a rule of the working class. The change of ruling class, from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat, makes possible the full development of society. In early 20th-century Russia, Lenin argued that the vanguard party would lead the revolution to depose the incumbent Tsarist government, and transfer government power to the working class.[6] In the pamphlet What is to be Done? (1902), Lenin said that a revolutionary vanguard party, mostly recruited from the working class, should lead the political campaign, because it was the only way that the proletariat could successfully achieve a revolution; unlike the economist campaign of trade union struggle advocated by other socialist political parties and later by the anarcho-syndicalists. Like Karl Marx, Lenin distinguished between the two aspects of a revolution: the economic campaign (labour strikes for increased wages and work concessions), which featured diffused leadership; and the political campaign (socialist changes to society), which featured the decisive revolutionary leadership of the vanguard party.

Marxism–Leninism

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