Texts on vanguardism and reformism
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Someone's asked me to recommend some texts discussing the connection between vanguardism and reformism/possibilism. Can anyone suggest anything, either from the SPGB or anywhere else? I've found our 1968 pamphlet on the Labour Party and the 1980 one on Trade Unions, but is there anything which discusses smaller leftist groups, or which covers any conceptual or inherent link between vanguardism and reformism/possibilism? Thanks.
Give this one a shothttp://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/sects-and-vanguards-labor-movement-jonathan-ayres-1939
There's also this from the Publications/Study Guides section of this site, about the SWP (up until 1995):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/where-swp-comingAnd chapter 5 on "The Mythology of the Left" in our pamphlet The Market System Must Go. This was based on a brilliant article written by David Ramsay Steele in the 60s or 70s entitled "Officers Looking for Infantry", whose title says it all.
Thanks, Mike, for asking (as you see, I have registered with the forum – I assume, given the straightforwardness of the registration process, that it's okay for non-Party members to register – so you will no longer need to be my go-between for impossibilism-related questions in future
) …… and thanks, both, for your recommendations: I've glanced through the two documents you linked to, and they look very interesting and valuable (with much that the modern British Leninist and Labour Lefts could do with listening to, imo). I'll look at them in more detail and perhaps come back with questions. Cheers! 
Oh, I suppose I may as well share the vague thoughts I had on this that I shared with Mike prior to his starting this thread… What led me back to this question of the intrinsic link between vanguardism and reformism, was thinking about it in relation to democracy and the will to communism*. If we want communism, but aren't busily trying to win the proletariat over to communism per se, reformism starts to make 'sense', and so does vanguardism… at any rate, if we're not about winning the proletariat to communism, and yet want communism, we have two related (and nonexclusive) options: somehow reform our way to communism kind of surreptitiously, without needing explicitly to persuade people of our eventual goal, taking advantage of the psychological phenomenon of gradual commitment; or take charge as a minority, 'advanced' vanguard, and lead the unwilling (or at least not positively willing) masses towards communism. A disregard for democracy (in a real sense, not in the sense of the bourgeois democratic forms) seems to underpin both vanguardism and reformism (given that one is communist; reformism needn't disregard democracy if one isn't aiming for something other than mere reform).So, I guess this links a third way in which SPGB differs from Leninist parties, to the other two ways. The SPGB's regard for democracy and opposition to reformism and vanguardism… I find it quite fascinating how very meaningful and interrelated the differences between impossibilism and Leninism are, in contrast, I think, to, say, the differences among the Leninists. I guess to someone within or familiar with the SPGB, this may seem rather an obvious, or at least easily intuitable point, but it is quite striking to me.
*I should note that I use the word 'communism' to refer to, I think, the same as what the SPGB calls 'socialism'. i.e., roughly (correct me if I'm wrong)… the absence of a state, and the presence of socialized democratic control and ownership of the means of production. I prefer to use 'communism' to avoid confusion with the 'socialism' of bourgeois parliamentary reformists or the 'socialism' of Leninist transition. No objection to calling it "communism" (or anything else) as long as it's clear that we're referring to a classless, stateless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production where money, wages, etc will have become redundant. We call it "socialism" for historical reasons.I think the link between "vanguardism" and "reformism" (as advocating reforms within capitalism) springs from the Leninists' basic assumption that, left to themselves, workers are capable of acquiring only a trade-union consciousness (in the broadest sense, to include Labour Party type politics). It follows from this that, in its everyday political activity, the vanguard has to "lower" itself to the workers' level and offer slogans and reforms suitable to their perceived capacity to understand. Which means of course offering a programme of reforms to be achieved within capitalism.Here's an example, from an exchange I had on the Kingston Anti-Cuts Facebook page. Kingston Anti-Cuts is dominated by the SWP. They produced a draft leaflet which just attacked cuts and the bankers. I asked::
Quote:Hope I'm not being dogmatic but this suggests that we can have a better future without getting rid of capitalism. What's wrong with using the C-word? Everybody else is.One of them replied:
Quote:Well you can, but you bring people into talking about capitalism not through united front leaflets but through conversations, interventions in meetings, helping to improve material conditions through the unions (I know the SPGB are unique in thinking that trade unions and socialism have nothing to do with one another but well, it's wrong). Something purely descriptive as the extent of austerity currently is fine, connects with people more easily than a broader talk of capitalism which most people feel too disempowered to be convinced by via a leaflet.So they don't think that workers can understand even the concept of capitalism !
FWIW, being spotterly, pretty sure most modern left coms think trade unions and socialism have nothing to do with one another. Remember Winnipeg 1919 – the WSM general strike!
Here's another example of the Leninists of the SWP thinking that the working class are too thick to understand the straight socialist case and therefore need a party "to fight for the best possible deal for working people within the present system". It's from the Sunderland Echo of 2 November 2006:
Quote:Revolution laterIn his slightly separatist letter (Oct 10), Steve Colborn tells us that the "only way forward" is socialism, but that the Respect Party is not the way to achieve it. Well of course it isn't. Steve knows as well as I do that the only way to real socialism is through revolution and smashing of the capitalist system and all its machinery. As a member of the revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party I would like nothing more than to see this happen. Unfortunately though, a mass uprising just isn’t on the cards right now. Yes, many people are dissatisfied with mainstream politics, but how many are clued-up on the system and are ready and willing to fight for the alternative in the way that is necessary? It is a sad fact, but the masses are doped with materialism and entertainment, and while Corrie is on the telly and there's a lager and pizza in the fridge we are not going to see revolution. Therefore, there is a need for the next best thing, Parliamentary reform. The Respect Party aims to fight for the best possible deal for working people within the present system. And it's essential such a party exists, even if only as a fringe party, to prevent the rich from being all-powerful. I sincerely hope Steve manages to stir the masses and wake them from their slumber. Till then though, all we have is our vote. Gary Duncan, Respect Party, Hylton Castle, Sunderland. [http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/revolution-later.html ]This was before Galloway kicked the SWP out of Respect. I think that since then Gary Duncan, who was the SWP's main man in Sunderland, has also left the SWP. Perhaps one of the comrades from the North East can confirm this. But at the time he was nevertheless expounding the SWP view.
ALB wrote:I think that since then Gary Duncan, who was the SWP's main man in Sunderland, has also left the SWP.Raked this up about Duncan:-"Former SWP activist and Sunderland taxi driver, Gary Duncan, was (as usual) very vocal on the megaphone during the course of the march followed by his 'Sunderland Against the Cuts' banner carried by former members of the six strong Sunderland SWP branch. Duncan was kicked out of the SWP after singing a sexist song at a fundraiser for the SWP 'anti-racist' front group, Unite Against Fascism. He later joined the Coalition of Resistance splinter group, but quickly squabbled with Snowdon and Gateshead NUTter Tony Dowling, another leftist Gateshead teacher, who had also split from the SWP."http://www.civilliberty.org.uk/newsdetail.php?newsid=1245
What they say about Duncan may well be true, but the people saying it seem to be some sort of front for the likes of the BNP.
ALB wrote:What they say about Duncan may well be true, but the people saying it seem to be some sort of front for the likes of the BNP.Well, I did say "raked this up"; probably not the most impartial source.
Call me a cynic or whatever but I sort of sympathise with the view that"many people are dissatisfied with mainstream politics, but how many are clued-up on the system and are ready and willing to fight for the alternative in the way that is necessary? It is a sad fact, but the masses are doped with materialism and entertainment, and while Corrie is on the telly and there's a lager and pizza in the fridge we are not going to see revolution". I have been on too many demos and protests and watched them ignored by the crowds on the way to watch the football, and at meetings where no-body turns up but next door the pubs are over-spilling.It is indeed the task of socialists "to stir the masses and wake them from their slumber." and our only reason for optimism is because we do not think them too thick to understand and change attitudes. But let's not ignore our incredible frustration at the time it is taking!
I don't think that the difference between us and the Leninists is over the diagnosis that at the moment the working class does not want or understand socialism. It's about what to do in these circumstances.They say that the working class can never come to a socialist understanding under capitalism and that therefore socialists (in the broadest sense) should organise as a vanguard that seeks to win a working class following on the basis of what they think the workers can understand, i.e reforms and improvements within capitalism.We say that workers can come to want and understand socialism (after all, we have and there's nothing particularly special about us) and that socialists should therefore concentrate on explaining capitalism and socialism (how capitalism can never be made to work in their interests and why common ownership and democratic control of the means of production is the only framework within which the problems workers face can be solved) rather than offering reforms of capitalism.The Leninists end up taking the same practical position as open reformists of the Old Labour type — offering reforms of capitalism to attract working class support — except that they disagree as to who should be doing the offering: a Leninist vanguard or Labour candidates and MPs? Both seek a following and both see the other as rivals to lead of the working class.
Thanks for the interesting discussion and suggestions of texts. I remember reading the one about the SWP a few years ago, and it's very thorough and detailed. As others have said, the link between vanguardism and reformism seems to be in the patronising way that vanguardists think that reformism is the limit of working class understanding. Also, a vanguard isn't going to argue for anything beyond maintaining a society with leaders, as they would be arguing themselves out of a position of power. Truly revolutionary organisations advocate transferring power to the working class as a whole rather than another elite.
Is there any difference between the vanguard and the avant-guarde?'It is we, artists, who will serve you as avant-garde: the power of the arts is in fact most immediate and most rapid: when we wish to spread new ideas among men, we inscribe them on marble or on canvas;…and in that way above all we exert an electric and victorious influence…'http://bak.spc.org/subversion/utopia.htmlNot so much as offering leadership but igniting the imagination…so could we call ourselves avant-guarde socialists.
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