Vanguardism

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 23 Feb 1996, James Miller wrote:

>    What did Marx and Engels start with? They started with
> a lot of "incorrect ideas," but through serious study and
> debate, they soon developed the germ of a proletarian world
> view. Once they had grasped the implications of this ("the
> point is to change it"), then they sought to join the
> Communist League. The point here is that once you have an
> idea of how to proceed, you had better get to work and try
> to build an organization of revolutionaries.

Louis:

It is perfectly understandable that Jim Miller would skip all of
my comments on Lenin and go directly to what I wrote about Trotskyism
since what Lenin was trying to do has nothing in common with the
party-building model of the SWP.

Lenin said:

"Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we
must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation.
Otherwise our unity will be purely fictitious...We do not
intend to make our publication a mere store-house of
various views. On the contrary, we shall conduct it in the
spirit of a strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be
expressed by the word Marxism. ... Only in this way will it
be possible to establish a genuinely all-Russian, Social-
Democratic organ. Only such a publication will be capable
of leading the movement on the high road of political
struggle."

Lenin said the demarcation for a socialist party in Russia was Marxism.
This doesn't mean agreement on historical questions, or international
questions. For example, the SWP based itself on Trotsky's theory of
permanent revolution for its entire history. To join the SWP meant
accepting this bit of Trotskyist orthodoxy. You couldn't advocate Lenin's
theory or Mao's or--god forbid--your own unless you can stand up to intense
intellectual peer pressure.

Then the SWP discovered that all those years it believed in permanent
revolution it had been mistaken. Well, at least Jack Barnes made this
discovery. Then the SWP's new revised edition of Marxism includes Lenin's
"democratic dictatorship" theory. Believers in "permanent revolution"
need not apply.

All this sort of business is laughable. Permanent revolution theory,
Lenin's theory, or some combination of the two are both "within Marxism".
Lenin's Bolshevik party in fact incorporated both perspectives as well as
theories that made concessions to Plekhanov's 2-stage theory. Unless you
are prepared to allow all sorts of clashing ideas *within Marxism*, you
are destined to become a purist sect.

By the way, the decision to dump permanent revolution was not made
democratically. Nobody voted on it. Many Trotskyist veterans who still
adhered to this theory fought to preserve it. They were purged in a
ruthless faction fight that helped to consolidate Jack Barnes' rule over
his sect/cult.

My concept of how to politically define a socialist party in the United
States today is like Lenin's, not like James P. Cannon's or Jack Barnes'.
I am looking for allies in the fight against the US ruling class. Various
people will have various ideas on how underdeveloped countries like Vietnam
and China can best achieve socialism. But the United States is not an
underdeveloped country and it makes no sense to create a party that defines
itself on a position like that.

My concept also has more in common with Fidel Castro's. He didn't have a
litmus test on historical and international questions to see who could join
the guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra. You simply had to have an
orientation to armed struggle against Batista and a goal to create a
government based on the power of the working-class and the peasants.

He didn't ask Che Guevara whether permanent revolution was correct or
not, did he? Nor did he didn't ask Cinfuegos whether WWII was a people's
antifascist war or an interimperialist war. This is the method of
sect-builders like James P. Cannon and Jack Barnes. The July 26th
movement incorporates a different party-building methodology than
Cannon's "Struggle for a Proletarian Party". If Fidel Castro had taken
Cannon's party-building advice to heart, Batista or his nephew would
still be in power.


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