doomer

Okay so, hot take but here goes:

I'm an ML and a large part of the reason for that is because it establishes a framework for how to do vanguardism.

A vanguard is really simple: it's a group of specialist organizer-activists whose theoretical and political development is extremely high. They are the specialists amongst the masses whose specialization is driving political change, bringing people together, and effectively steering orgs through challenges and contradictions. Of course there's a more Marxist, much more theory-heavy way of describing it but in simple terms a vanguard is a group of political specialists.

One major failing of many other radical tendencies is, imo, that there's an expectation that the masses achieve vanguard/near vanguard levels of theoretical and political development. I don't think that's any more possible (at least under the current conditions) than expecting the masses to become specialists in nuclear physics or linguistics or anthropology. Yes, it's probably a possibility in pure terms but in reality it's not gonna happen and that's fine. We must reconcile ourselves to this truth.

There are people who are very skilled at developing people into being vanguard level and I truly appreciate their efforts. But there's a lot of groundwork to be done as well, and that work is equally as valuable but we must not conflate one with the other; if you approach agitating for change and educating people as if you're developing someone into that vanguard level then you're gonna be prone to disappointment. Likewise the intensive work of getting someone to develop vanguard tier is gonna cause disappointment if it's applied to people who aren't deeply political and who aren't inclined that way.

If a member of the vanguard is like a marble statue then the work that goes into their development is that of a sculptor. But that marble doesn't spring forth out of nowhere - there are hundreds or even thousands of people at work making a quarry and unearthing that marble such that eventually the ideal veins of marble are uncovered and blocks can be skilfully cut from the quarry.

That quarrying work at the rock face is an analogy for agitation and it's just as valuable as carving someone into vanguard level. Not every bucket full of earth quarried will uncover the perfect vein of marble but without the quarrying work, there is no marble and ultimately no statue to be carved. Likewise there is no vanguard without a movement and there is no movement without agitation. And there is so much work to be done in agitation. I personally am very willing to have discussions about the definition of capitalism and communism and to have discussions about the history of both etc. (I'd hope that people who are familiar with my account would know that to be true.) But I think the majority of the work right now is to agitate against capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism - definitions be damned. It is far easier to educate someone who has been sufficiently radicalized against these things than it is to radicalize someone who knows about these things in an abstract, academic sense but who lacks the experience of it and the opposition to it. (These are not mutually exclusive and they should not be considered as such, although for the purposes of simplicity I'm putting it in these terms as a framing device.)

In the Russian empire, the masses had to hate their conditions sufficiently, they had to hate capitalism/feudalism, they had to hate the Tsar. But they didn't necessarily need to understand Marx on a deep level. You don't need a degree in economics to hate the bourgeoisie and you don't need any specialist education to understand that the kulak lives in a lavish home and does little work while your family lives in a draughty single-room hovel where you toil your life away using wooden plows that are drawn by hand, nor do you need it to understand the direct connection between the two.

Yes, everyone should read Marx and everyone should know the definition of political terms. But maybe, for the majority of people who aren't big theory heads, hating things and understanding enough context of the present moment is sufficient.

One thing I try to practice is speaking plainly (lol). I do it in my day to day life, although I know I have a tendency to cut loose a bit more in a space like this. In fact, my autistic brain struggles to shift gears and so I'll be speaking plainly in my default way, without the adornments of theory terms, to a well-read comrade and I'll embarrass myself because I will remember I can just say "commodity" this and "alienation" that without me talking over their heads. I think it's good practice to get comfortable with speaking to the average person in a plain way to agitate against the current state of affairs in language that resonates with them. This is the quarrying work to be done at the rock face. In most conversations I am influencing sentiment against capitalism etc. and towards all the usual good things that are too numerous to list. If someone walks away from a conversation with me feeling a little more antagonistic towards anything that is reactionary then that's what counts. A thousand, thousand shifts in sentiment against all that is reactionary is what prepares the ground for a vanguard to emerge and, eventually, for revolution itself. So I try to focus my efforts on shifting sentiment over overtly educating people, except where it's relevant and welcomed. The first step is to get everyone to hate capitalism enough.