Vanguard+and+mass+according+to+Trevor+Ngwane

=The vanguard and the mass=


 * Saturday 5th February 2005 by Trevor Ngwane**

HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE VANGUARD AND THE MASS IN WORKING CLASS STRUGGLE
Many comrades can get confused listening to the left fight among itself about whether we need a vanguard party or a mass party. In this article this debate is clarified by explaining the relationship between vanguard politics and the mass struggle of the workers. The main argument is that one cannot move forward without the other. Food for revolutionary thought. Enjoy. (A longer version of this very short paper is available on request to trevor@apf.org.za )


 * THE VANGUARD AND THE MASS IN STRUGGLE**

Vanguard is a political job - it means political leadership which consistenly reflects the class interests of the working class in as developed a way as possible.

Mass is a description of where this job must be done. The Bolsheviks became the majority only at the time of the 1917 revolution in Russia. Before that, they were an organised minority - a vanguard - within a mass workers party.

We (of the Socialist Group - a political affiliate of the APF to whom these views belong and not to the APF) try to build both. Many on the left who emphasise vanguard think that they are it. We don’t. We think the vanguard still has to be developed and built. They think that it will come into being purely by the excellence of its (their) politics. We think it will come into being when the excellence of its politics is rooted amongst workers and starts to provide real leadership in real situations to more and more workers.

They think that the alternative to a vanguard party is a reformist party. We don’t. We think it is perfectly possible - and, at this stage necessary - to have a party which groups the majority of workers together on politics which reflects their own interests. In such a party, different tendencies would struggle to win the mass to particular positions. The tendencies have to organise and develop to have the political positions - that is part of the struggle to develop a vanguard organisation. It will go nowhere unless it provides leadership (political, not personal) to the mass of workers. That is the struggle to develop the mass workers party. And this struggle is the struggle to build a vanguard - it is not one against the other.

Today, it is not reformist to demand a living wage. The mass workers party could adopt that demand. The vanguard needs to know that higher wages are not the solution - but part of a struggle for a solution. If it was only words from the vanguard - without the mass of workers organised to struggle and win a living wage - then the vanguard would not be the vanguard of anything and nothing would move forward.

We can say the same thing with defensive struggles of any kind such as those of the APF, LPM, AEC, Jubilee, CCF, RWM, TAC and other social movements. They are not enough. But they are not automatically reformist. In the struggle around defensive demands - which needs to be as organised and as powerful as possible (so a mass workers party is needed), clear revolutionary politics needs to be put forward (the task of a vanguard).

So - to come to the end of the story - we want the vanguard to be the vanguard of an organised, mobilised, powerful mass of workers and their allies, as politically clear as possible. Otherwise it is not really a vanguard - just a sect, pronouncing the truth while no-one listens and nothing happens. The importance for us is to have some humility - vanguard is a job, not a certificate of superior excellence. Also to understand that at any moment in struggle, a group of workers will be at the front of that struggle - they will be the vanguard in a different but equally important sense. To see and understand this demands respect for ordinary workers as the starting point.


 * From: http://www.apf.org.za/article.php3?id_article=71