Roughly, a vanguard party is group which following Lenin, believes that the working class is incapable of ruling as a class except through its most conscious elements, its “vanguard.” These conscious and disciplined elements serve as a “general staff” of the working class, developing and guiding the working class on the correct road both up to the revolution and, afterwards, in the building of socialism and communism.

Among the groups that claim to be “the vanguard party” or to be building such a party in this country are

  1. the Communist Party USA
  2. the Socialist Workers Party
  3. the Progressive Labor Party
  4. the Spartacist League
  5. the Workers League
  6. various Maoist fragments like the Revolutionary ‘ Union, Georgia Communist League (Marxist-Lenin- ist), etc., and International Socialists.

The NAM Founding Convention in June has a number of alternatives with regard to these groups. The three clearest seem to be:

  1. Let them all become members of NAM
  2. Exclude certain vanguard parties from NAM by name, leaving other parties to come in or not as they chose
  3. Exclude members of existing vanguard par- ties, groups that maintain the desirability of build- ing vanguard parties, and anyone who advocates building a vanguard party.

The first option is attractive because it’s easy. In addition, it has the aura of “fair play” about it. NAM would be a “ marketplace of ideas.” All of these parties would send members into NAM and engage in “political struggle” with each other, trying to win recruits into their respective parties. Some of the vanguard parties would try to win NAM itself to adopting part or all of the vanguard program.

This is substantially the course followed by the late Students for a Democratic Society. Prior to 1969, SDS was open to any and all vanguard parties. Three “vanguard” factions developed, one under the auspices of Progressive Labor, the other two among SDS members not aligned with any party outside of SDS. All three - PL’s Worker-Student Alliance, the Weatherman and the Revolutionary Youth Movement II – agreed that a vanguard leadership was necessary. The burning question in their minds was which fac- tion would hold power in SDS.

This course had certain consequences. First, un- aligned members of SDS were alienated by the exist- ence of the vanguard factions. Some people in NAM are_begi~ning to fe~I_the same way about IS – the way unorganized people always fe·el around an organized minority – especially a disciplined minority. On its face, this suggests that NAM members should be cau- tious about setting up factions, especially disciplined ones.

Beyond this, even people in or friendly to PL were ambiguous about PL ciubs and, more importantly, about higher PL bodies making recommendations to SDS. Naturally, many SDS members had strong doubts about PL’s committments to SDS. These factors increased the alienation of the SDS rank-and-file.

Finally, when the factional struggle came to a head, most SDS members could not support any of the vanguards and left the organization entirely. One could argue that this was due to the generally “rotten politics” of all three factions. My own view however is that the overwhelming majority of SDS m~mbers, ‘ on the basis of their experiences with all three van- guards rejected – even if they couldn’t articulate it – the whole idea of any vanguard leading them to socialism.

The second option – exclude certain particular vanguard parties – attractive both to NAM members who think that IS is “different” from groups like the CP or PL, and to NAM members who look for a “better” vanguard party that wouldn’t do what the present rotten p_artiesdo., ••

First, it must be admitted that ts does seem dif- ferent. They do not project the rule-or-ruin arrogance of PL or the various Maoist fragments. Th_ey are not lunatics, like the trotskyist splinters. They are not vulgar liberals like the CP or the SWP.

On many particular political questions, I agree more with IS than with some independent NAM mem- bers. For instance, I agree with IS that there is no “revolutionary socialist” country in the world today, no place where the working class actually controls the state and the economy. In every country that pre- tends to the name of-socialism we find power in the hands of vanguard parties.

However, the IS leadership still retains its trotskyist heritage of the 1940’s. They want to build a “Leninist Party,” a democratic-centralist vanguard to lead the working class to power. They sincerely believe that without such leadership, socialist revo- lution is impossible, and they are prepared to assume that leadership.

The IS leadership celebrates and defends the Bolshevik Party of the period 1917-1921 when, under Lenin and Trotsky, power was taken from the wor- kers councils (soviets) and vested in the Central Committee of that Party. The only reasonable conclusion is that (a) IS would do the same thing in this country if they thought it necessary, and (b) IS would attempt to rule NAM against the will of the mem- bership – if they thought it necessary.

Perhaps many members of IS would oppose an IS dictatorship over NAM under any circumstances - just as I and other .PL members opposed the idea of. . a PL dictatorship over SDS after the 1969 split. Some of us thought – as most IS’ers might say now – that our group should lead the mass organization because our ideas were correct, but that we should have the membership’s approval of our leadership. We were willing to govern, but only with the consent of the governed. PL leadership, however, was eager to govern SDS regardless of the will of the membership because “that was the only way the movement would grow·”

A group’s willingness to become a vanguard with the consent of those who are led must inevitably become a willingness to assume a vanguard role regardless of those who are led. The excuse(!)–the “needs of the revolution”–can always be found when the vanguard leadership requires it.

IS is, of course, still some distance from this point. But some of the signs are there. Its own national convention has been repeatedly postponed. Naional policy is formulated by a small committee and its leadership has made a series of proposals to “tighten up” IS, with greater discipline for IS members.

There is a possibility–though slim–that a substantial portion of IS’s 300 members may be ready to junk the vanguard party concept altogether, If this is the case, a special opportunity exists for NAM in connection with the third option. This option, as noted above, would exclude all advocates of the vanguard ( or “Leninist”) party, whether or not they were members of a group that claimed to be or wanted to build a vanguard party.

The main ideological basis for this exclusion would be that the vanguard party is an elitist perversion of Marxism; it is based on the premise that the working class is inherently unfit to govern itself and therefore a special group must govern on its behalf. NAM endorsing the fundamental principle that the working class must achieve its own liberation, would accordingly reject the vanguard party concept.

If this option is adopted by the NAM Founding Convention, the opportunity arises to invite IS as an organization •• as well as its members individual- ly •• to scrap the vanguard party concept and merge their efforts with NAM towards building a mass, democratic, revolutionary socialist movement.

I believe .those IS members who sincerely want to build NAM into such a movement will accept such an invitation. There’s even a small possibility that IS as a whole would enter NAM on this basis (over the howls of its present leadership no doubt). Insofar as IS does have many talented·and active members, this would mean a big boost for NAM projects.

But even if the effort is for naught, we will still have made an important step forward. We will have decisively turned away from a hopeless course – the whole vanguard party concept that has repeatedly paralyzed the left in this country and around the world.

In realizing a key principle - the emancipation of the working class being the work of the working class itself - we would have caught up with Karl Marx.

(P.S. The option which I favor could take the form of an article in the NAM Constitution as follows:

Article -

  1. Advocates of the establishment and/or building of a “vanguard party” to lead the working class to power and to rnle on behalf of the working class after the transfer of power are.not eligible for membership in NAM.
  2. The National Convention shall establish appropriate procedures as required to implement Section 1.</i>