Re: J.P. Cannon on the Vanguard Party

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Cannon model does seem to encourage shibboleth driven groups.

There are some interesting alternative versions around.  Groups like the
PRD in Indonesia, and the SPP in the Philippines use consciously "Leninist"
models, but seem to be light on the shibboleths, despite clear
revolutionary programs.

Both of these currents grew out of mass revolutionary movements: the PRD
out of the mass democratic student movement, and the SPP out of the
Philippines left, from the CPP Maoists and the pro-Moscow PKP, plus other
leftists and members of minority nationalities.

Of course, these groups influence and are influenced by the DSP, and thus
the Cannonist tradition!

Alan Bradley
alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>
> Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 16:37:37 -0400
> From: "Jose G. Perez" <jg_perez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: J.P. Cannon on the Vanguard Party
>
>     I'm grateful that Dick Fidler took the time to scan and post James P.
> Cannon's article on the role of the "Leninist" Party.
>
>     Reading it again now, so many decades after I first read it, it is
> striking how similar in nature this concept of "The Leninist Strategy of
> Party Building" is to the foquista guerrilla "strategy" of the 1960s, as
> expressed in Regis Debray's Revolution in the Revolution and many other
> places. A sure-fire formula that if correctly understood and properly
> applied, would make the revolutionaries victorious.