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https://x.com/OOCcommunism/status/1999932339414032604
tbf, the final two sentences are actually kind of good, but it's just funny to do this when the question is about 8 billion people, like bro, "living continuity of a revolutionary program"? humanity's literally all dead, Trotsky's the last guy left!
also why the hell is the WSWS launching an AI chatbot?!
This is an interesting experiment. Many Trotskyist groups view the fundamental obstacle to revolutionary consciousness as a crisis of socialist leadership. That is, the masses are nascently revolutionary but they just need leaders to guide them. By this strategy, which I'm sure the icfi line, the AI post makes a sort of perverted sense, even though this line has caused myopia in Trotskyist parties since the 30s. Trotsky had to actually tell the SWP in the 1930s to support the Ludlow amendment, which would require a popular vote before the US could declare war, because not going to war was better for the working class even if, by USAmerican Trotskyist calculations, workers being sent to die in a war was more likely to "sharpen contradictions" and produce revolutionary consciousness in workers. We had to be explicitly told, by the guy himself to fight for workers.
Some Trotskyist groups and parties stemming from the CWI tradition are developing a more robust line than the crisis of leadership, called the triple crisis/dual task. The triple crisis is 1. Lack of socialist leadership 2. Lack of working class organization 3. Lack of revolutionary class consciousness, and the dual task is 1. Educate the working class, and 2. Build the party.
I'm a Trotskyist, and a member of a group developing the 3C2T line. I think it is an improvement! But in developing a new, nonsectarian tendency in our tradition I wonder what sectarian or reformist distortions can emerge out of contradictions still hidden in this method. For my own part, I'm more of a trot by birth: this is the tradition that trained me up as an organizer and rejecting it just causes me to make the same errors for different reasons, theres no synthesis, therefore there are parts of my experience that I just can't escape. But as a Marxist I'm more interested in interacting directly with real conditions rather than interaction with real conditions through some socialist method.
But its interesting to see how the crisis of leadership just becomes a group of sectarian "leaders" in waiting. Sometimes when I think about the formulation of the vanguard party, I wonder if I'm supposed to think that I am a member of the vanguard, or if people I work with think that they are individual members of the vanguard. I get the sense that when we think about things this way we start to lose the plot. The vanguard formulation is good and historically tested but I wonder if there aren't parts of it that conflict with our current identitarian milieu. In any case, preserving Trotsky over the whole of the working class scans in that it prioritizes self preservation of leadership over the working class. Although I think that's true of most sectarian tendencies, regardless of ideological pedigree
I'm just an observer of life going through lots of turbulent times and I'm sure many others have as well. I'm probably not adding anything much of value, but I'd like to share what I think about the failures of why we haven't been able to form a vanguard and what is it really about.
We've arrived in living in a society that punishes you for having empathetic traits. Even helping others is often seen as more "efficient" to sacrifice something in order to make big gains, then share the spoils with the pack. I'm honestly doubtful of if such society operating under these principles can achieve socialism. Not unless that issue is dealt with and we can move into a mindset where shared burden is seen as the proffered choice over sacrificial lamb.
I view the vanguard as a sort of hydra, cut one head off and another one will grow, but get rid of all of them and it will fall. It's difficult to form such a beast in a world so corrupt. Lots of people own stocks and investments for instance, are they really going to be willing to build socialism if it means letting go of their savings? How do we convince people that their "nest egg" needs to go? A lot of people want to eat the cake and also keep it.
I'm curious, do you think even someone like me could be taught to be a leader? That's the last place I'd like to be. I'm often incoherent, have no public recognition, am all over the place, lack confidence and have a history of ceding ground the moment someone talks over me, all terrible traits for the leadership position. But do you think it'd be possible to turn around even someone like me or do you think I was born this way and now it's too late to address it? Are we all just cogs born in our place? What if I had to become a cog that I'm terrified of being to advance socialism?
If I don't make any sense don't worry about it. I personally wouldn't waste time trying to understand me. But that's why I am leaving the comment here after all.
I think this is more common than you think. The answer is briefly "yes, you kind of need to so something". You don't need an official leadership title to offer leadership skills or to make yourself useful. It is best to join an org that is active in your local area, (mostly) regardless of tendency. If that isn't practical, I think the average user on this site should be directly involved in some sort of local affair whether you're going to "win the local dogcatcher seat for socialism" or even just "win chair of my condo/neighborhood HOA for socialism" or something like that. You don't even need to be "visibly socialist" in just thinking in terms of mentality.
I'm lucky enough to have found a local organization effort that is ongoing, they seem to have been way too eager in being visibly socialist however and underestimated the potential consequences. Now there's a setback, but they haven't given up and hopefully I can soon join them.
I'm very in favor of being a socialist who is openly and transparently socialist, and I believe that orgs of socialists should be open in advancing that as well. I think that the failure of "estimation" most often occurs when people try and create their own idea of an organization and fit objective conditions into it, which leads to a sectarian, alienated strategy; rather than developing what already exists into informal structures, and then organizing, eventually formalizing, an organization adapted to existing conditions. This latter case, when carried out with strong political praxis, is what I deem most effective, whereas the alienated sectarian strat fails to gain traction. Another downside is that it doesn't expose the illusions of individualist politics, whereas the second model is fundamentally collective and democratic.
Many orgs go through these same growing pains, one group I am a member has (sort of) a tenuous relationship with our group's founders. A common obstacle to watch out for is when groups who begin with the "right ideas" try, and fail, to gain traction in a movement, they can overcompensate too much in the other direction, only tailing the masses. Mass organizing strategies are often over compensation in this direction, whereas sectarian tendencies can fluctuate between tailing and alienating strategies. Fortunately, experienced organizers often know how to navigate this terrain. But in many cases I think they don't have a navigational strategy, and they still make mistakes.
So make sure you speak up and develop your perspective while engaging with objective conditions as near to actual struggle as you can.
I would even recommend finding a local food kitchen or other worthwhile mutual aid, since these groups are full of caring and determined people who value taking action, and youre very likely to find people who have many nascent qualities of socialist organizers
Also a great idea! Also a place that someone can develop their leadership skills
This is a great comment! I appreciate you explaining your perspective so much, and it resonates with my own experience very strongly.
On your first point about the vanguard, I think of the vanguard as an emergent quality of the working class, such as "capitalism creates its own grave diggers." Your example of the hydra is interesting, because Hercules defeated the Hydra with his nephew Iolas. When Herc would chop a head, Iolas would cauterize it with a torch. It makes me think about how this would work as a strategy against the vanguard. "Chopping a head" would mean killing or imprisoning a member, a leader. But how would the wound be cauterized? The only thing that would prevent the development of new heads would be the alleviation of social and economic hardships, which Capitalism can't do. It can try to buy people off, but this wouldnt work with the vanguard by its very definition. Additionally, new heads are created not just by chopping, new ones are cropping up all the time, since members of the vanguard are created organically. Remember that Lenin's brother was killed by the tsar. So there's always a chance that when you cut off a head, that you can create a whole new Hydra, that is a new revolutionary social movement, in its place. I love this allegory though, I'll probably use it to develop a perspective.
The second part of your response is something I thought about a lot. I'm an organizer and in many ways a leader in local work. But starting out, I was kind of wary of the term "organizer". For one, I am notoriously disorganized. I'm not an intellectual by training, I don't even have a college degree, while others are trained in polisci. Lots of people I organize with are lawyers. I'm not even in a union, just a dad who reads books. I struggle with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Two years ago, after celebrating our movement's success in winning abortion rights in our state, I suffered a severe and acute psychotic break, leading to a burn out that took me out of organizing for 8 months.
But since then ive developed a much different view of leadership. I am a cochair of a committee for my local DSA chapter, but I usually resist taking leadership positions. I consider myself a "middle layer" comrade. Orgs can have official leaders, and they can have new recruits, but can struggle to develop active mid-level comrades who are capable of more complicated analysis and organizing tasks. So all of the little annoying tasks fall on the leaders who have the most commitment and frankly love for the movement. This leads to leader burn out, that is, often we end up cutting off and cauterizing our own heads.
I'm a white, cis man in a straight relationship. I'm not visibly queer. I am the very definition of a problematic socioeconomic demographic. Ive seen guys like me who, in good faith, ignorantly but confidently step into leadership roles (in other orgs mostly), just to create serious problems in the orgs they wrongly believe they are qualified to lead.
I believe that it is my job to put others before myself and offer support to official leaders. My goal is to move people into official leadership positions which helps them develop as comrades, while creating an organizing basis for leadership. I am almost totally unconcerned with formality. My job isnt to create rules and provide leadership, my job is to produce analysis of objective conditions, organize around those conditions, and empower others to be leaders. I want people to know that I have their backs, so if they want to take on more, they don't have to do it alone.
Basically, I just talk to people all the time. When I organize, I like to put the right people in the right room, discussing the right problems. And when they have it up and running, I like to walk away and work on something else. My biggest influence in this realm isnt Marx or Lenin, it is Lao Tse:
That is my definition of the vanguard, which explains why its hard to say if we are "in" it. The vanguard has some qualities that are distinct within the working class as a whole, but I think that if you peer into the working class to see the line between the mass and the vanguard, there is no discernable line. So must it be within ourselves.
Over time I have gotten better at things like managing appointments and keeping a calendar. I'm much better at organizing tasks and managing burn out. Most of my "work" involves having conversations with people about issues and their experiences, although I do write quite a bit. Rather than worrying about whether or not I am a "leader" I engage people in the work I care about, and in doing so, I develop an objective basis for leadership. That leadership can be taken on by myself or I can pass it on, using my own network to help others develop theirs.
For me, developing those leadership qualities did not come from adapting myself to some externally validated definition, but by just doing what I think is right, speaking up, encouraging others to do the same, and consciously working with others, in cadre whenever possible, to enact verifiable change. I go into every situation hoping to learn something new. I ask questions in order to listen and reflect on peoples answers, although the questions that I ask, I try to pose them in a way to help generate reflection and consideration on both our parts.
I think the factors that you describe that which discourage the generation of revolutionary consciousness in workers,.especially middle class workers, creates a sort of learned helplessness. Many of us are more or less constantly critical of ourselves and our ability to lead, others don't have these obstacles but their experience only instructed them to reproduce top-down bourgeois models of leadership. Both of these attitudes are absolutely crucial to overcome. But the way to overcome them is to always be in contact with, and taking direction from, the people who are most affected by struggle against the capitalists. Different traditions have different ways of approaching this problem. But if we are to build the objective basis for revolution, it will be built out of the experiences of the toiling classes. The conditions for revolutionary change will be a reflection of the workers and our experiences, so that we see ourselves in the revolution and the revolution in ourselves. Therefore the vanguard party is like a conduit and amplifier. The vanguard takes what exists, organizes it in a sustainable way, and then delivers that energy back to the working class. When the masses feel (read: directly experience) their own power in the party, then and only then is it the vanguard. But as individuals, this means putting peoples experiences first, ahead of any other considerations. This last sentence is the fundamental insight of Marxism, it is what transforms theory and reflection into practice. Imo this requires a kind of radical humility in the face of developing conditions. In this case, our self doubt can actually make us better organizers and leaders. The moment that I was forced to accept my own shortcomings in my organizing, those shortcomings became like strengths. But it took time and patience.
Rather than eliminating supposedly negative qualities in order to become a leader, I just kept trying things, asking for help, reflecting on and developing my own perspectives through writing and talking to other people. It is this process that makes me a leader, the moment I stop it, I totally rule out the possibility of being a part of the vanguard.
Thank you for the thorough response. I just finished going through it, also was diagnosed with ADHD myself quite recently.
I have lived a rather chaotic life. I was born in a small village, it has no history, the soviets built it from scratch and a diverse cast of people started inhabiting it, locals and foreign, with equal rights and opportunities. But then my mother married to someone who lived in the city, a vast ocean compared to my humble little town, now in perpetual decline, things happened and the little ship she and her husband had managed to secure ended rapturing, we were flung into the cold waters and in our most desperate moments a helpful hand appeared, they let us on their ship, but those ended up being pirates, they used us for what they had in mind and tosses us out to a little raft, but it's not our raft someone else owns it and demands a toll from us, as does the sea itself and the ones overlooking it.
I was raised to be an upstanding, hard working and eager to learn individual. I've been entrusted with the last words, of someone I respected and admired, to be a good student, and I failed. I've become alienated and spend my life looking through the spyglass, looking for a solution, trying to understand where did it all go so wrong. Why do some people need to be more than others, why do they insist on conflict? Why hasn't anyone helped my mother? The sort of questions I would ask myself.
But there's an inherent contradiction there. I arrived to this conclusion through the flawed world I was born into. A process which has alienated me and has left me on my own, and yet I wish to help the community, despite those like me being ostracized by it relentlessly, because I know life would be so much easier by working together. The only way to resolve the contradiction is for me to do the opposite of alienation, because I don't need to stay alone. How many others like me are out there? People stuck on their own isolated raft. Every day there seems to be more.
They don't need to be alone, they could be helped to be independent. It's no their fault they were abused by the system and none of them chose to be born like this, in this kind of world. If I could get this thought across to people, who have the ability to make an impact on a scale I'd never be able to, we could turn lives from isolation, loneliness to community. I can only achieve this by going out there and putting myself in positions where I am heard. I should do anything I can to put myself in those positions and ask for whatever help is necessary to accomplish that. I don't need to do this alone.
I'm sure there are countless others who did just that and are lost to history, but collectively they will always be remembered.
Your story, for all of its tragedy, is quite moving. Thank you for sharing it here. I will continue to reflect on what you've shared.
I think your appraisal of the tasks ahead are spot-on. This is exactly what I refer to in my long response, your experiences radicalized you to a point that the cruelty of this world moves you to be more caring, and to model that behavior for others.
I love this quote from Che, especially the vulnerability of "seeming ridiculous":
I think that rather failing as a student you have in fact succeeded in learning something that almost everybody misses, which carries with it the imperative to act, just as you say. We can learn from our experiences or we can ignore them, and many people are able to achieve great scholarly fame, they can just as easily neglect to see the human suffering happening all around them. This is impossible for people like us.
I have very little formal education, I was a "bad student" and only attended two years of art school. I was also raised in a very rural area, but I moved to the city and stayed. But after a particularly difficult period in my life, even with a host of undiagnosed mental illness, I just started studying and reflecting. My ADHD led me to read many introductions and prefaces, many first or second chapters while failing to finish the book, but theres a lot of info in those prefaces, a lot to reflect on for someone who is sensitive and intelligent, but resistant to institutional modes of learning. At the time I dont know what my motivations were, I was merely following the will of my spirit, and there is much that I was confused about.
But those years of reflection and discipline to study and develop in adulthood has delivered many unexpected positive results. Dont count yourself out yet, being able to see through the gunk of illusions does not have a tangible marketable value, but there is always a need for it. It will make you better suited to evaluate and act positively upon your experiences. This has a cumulative affect, although I encourage you to get treatment for ADHD if you are able, at least it definitely helped me to finish all the books I started and never finished, and helps me to organize ideas and themes so they can be communicated effectively. Just, dont count yourself out yet. I would count your experiences and the subsequent "failures" as a sign of your fitness for this work. We must believe that change is possible within people, in order to change the world, and that includes us. I suspect you are a better student than you give yourself credit.