There are very important and substantive reasons why youth, seemingly all over the world, are critical and suspicious of movements guided by centralized leadership. In the past this type of leadership has proved necessary in achieving aims such as overthrowing governments and states, however when in power there were strong tendencies to the reversion to oppresive (hierarchical?) social relations where the basic people were not adequately brought into the decisionmaking process.

So radicals are left with a paradox that leadership seems absolutely necessary to go up against the ruling classes but that leadership has been historically unable to transform itself (or has become transformed?) after seizing power in ways that were consistent with its egalitarian goals and ideals.

It seems that while a critique of leaderless movements is necessary, they go alongside a bigger re-evaluation of the party-class relationship, namely how does a leadership organization maintain its strong ties to the masses even as it begins to assume greater responsibility as the movement grows and questions of overturning and re-constructing the state get put on the table? Without speaking to this question it is hard to get with genrations who have (for good reason) become dis-illusioned with traditional communist notions of leadership.

<b>Some reflections after reading...</b>

VI Lenin

<i>What is to be Done?</i>

Rosa Luxemburg

<i>Organizational Questions
of the Russian Social Democracy</i>

<i>If the party possesses the gift of political mobility, complemented by unflinching loyalty to principles and concern for unity, we can rest assured that any defects in the party constitution will be corrected in practice. For us, it is not the letter, but the living spirit carried into the organization by the membership that decides the value of this or that organizational form.

The unconscious comes before the conscious. The logic of the historic process comes before the subjective logic of the human beings who participate in the historic process. The tendency is for the directing organs of the socialist party to play a conservative role. Experience shows that every time the labor movement wins new terrain those organs work it to the utmost. They transform it at the same time into a kind of bastion, which holds up advance on a wider scale.</i>


SYNTHESIS.A word and concept most of us have heard bandied about the communist movement for some time now..

I believe that now at this current stage of history,an opportunity,which did not exist in past eras (which at that time had no significant material basis),now in fact does have such material basis,has the potential for becoming a concrete reality on both organizational and ideological levels.Has now the potential for a synthesis of two distinct political tendencies...Vanguard party vs Social democracy..

This synthesis to which I refer would be a process of revolutionary transmutation of leadership and organization by permanent mass plebiscite,Democratic referendum by the People on questions of quality of leadership,goals and direction.

Today,with the existence of incredibly advanced Communication technologies,awesome computerization capacities,vast social networking,omnipresent media..it would be well within the realm of possibilty to take Democracy,accountability,transparency,to staggering new heights which would make the old communist paradigms of organization,leadershp and struggle look like "model t's" compared to a brand new "Porsche" ..(my choice of example...does not necessarily imply an endorsement)..

Talk about Democratic Centralism!

... this would be DC 24/7/365 instantaneous feedback..polling,opinion,commentary,talk shows,we could even have clowns like Jon Stewart or Colbert commenting on party Policy and styles of leadership....etc etc etc
....( I could even imagine Jon Stewart wryly commenting how Leader has a terrible singing voice..or how he is abhored by the goofy looking hats being worn by Leader..etc etc etc)...WHY NOT??

...it would be sort of like a Kasama Project on steroids..

For leadership.... no more hanging out within the walls of the Kremlin or inside the Imperial Palace in Beijing..

<B>This time the Revolution will be televised!</b>

I think both Nat W. and Chicanofuture raise some interesting points and questions. I do not pretend to have the answers. But what I don’t think is that all the cumulative events and experience can be reduced to simply (“the”—which is implied) “vanguard party vs. social democracy.”

I would say, speaking about the U.S. in particular, that among Leftists and revolutionary-minded people, there is a tendency to be “gun”-shy (both literally and figuratively) about a vanguard party, as well as democratic centralism.

But more importantly, things do not develop in some <i>vacuum </i> nor are they divorced from the objective situation and developing subjective forces. Nor does a vanguard party – not just in name only – simply emerge because “we’re” hoping against hope that it (and its assumed correct political line--harrumph) will, and will therefore provide the kind of “leadership” “we” see fit.

This is the new millennium, right? So how can we afford to be so inflexible that we interpret historical experience, and try and simply/dogmatically apply it to the present and developing situation?

The May 4th Movement in China (1919) gave birth to the Chinese Communist Party, not the other way around.

And the original rise of Zapatero (who became Prime Minister) and the Socialist Worker’s Party in Spain is not all that surprising if anyone one of us had lived under the overwhelming 39-year fascist dictatorship of Franco, plus more years under his successors. And now look at what’s happening in Spain today.

One thing I think we can sum up is that la lucha continua.

Also, with sweeping changes in revolutionary struggle and uprisings, i.e., the utilization of social media to popularize events on a much broader scale and more immediately—literally going viral, does anyone really think that the more advanced (or communists) in say Egypt, aren’t checking in with comrades-in-arms in Yemen or Tunisia?

I may be wrong on this—wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong—but I almost get the sense that after the initial revolts in Egypt, which involved millions, and the ouster of Mubarak (who is now claiming he has cancer—“sympathy for (one of the) devil(s)”), and that the military took over, some people thought the Egyptian people were done for. No leadership of a communist vanguard party (as we know it) was going to be the Egyptians’ ultimate demise.

Meanwhile…here’s what’s been happening in Cairo over the last 3 days…(with my italics). And of course the “new” rulers in Egypt saying the proverbial all is <i>disruptive</i> to their agenda—just a bunch of youth hell-bent on destruction.

<blockquote>“Protesters who first took to the streets to demand the overthrow of Mubarak, have begun to shift their anger to the ruling military council, accusing it of using Mubarak-era tactics to stifle dissent.

The clashes began Tuesday evening when some 100 people, claiming to be relatives of the uprising's victims, tried to storm a ceremony held at a Nile side theater to honor the memory of 10 protesters killed in the uprising. Clashes between them and security guards at the theater began when they were denied entry. The men pelted the theater with rocks.

Police arrested seven of the attackers, but the rest headed to the road outside the state television building across the river. <i>They persuaded relatives of the victims staging a sit-in outside the building to join them. Together, they marched to the Interior Ministry, where they clashed with police and later headed to the nearby Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising. They battled the police again until authorities ordered the police to pull back.

There were an estimated 6,000 protesters at the peak of the riots late Tuesday night. </i>

Tahrir Square was closed to traffic on Wednesday, but about 1,500 protesters remained out on the streets.

A key youth group, April 6, described the police's handling of the latest protests as "brutal" and called in a statement for a sit-in in central Cairo to protest what it said was the failure to implement many of the demands from the uprising and to show solidarity with the families of the uprising's victims.” </blockquote>

While the militant (and advanced) youth united and mobilized even more people, I would imagine that at this time, the vast majority of those who were in Tahir Square are not going to be coming out in droves over the next few days or even weeks. That too could change as things escalate and contradictions become heightened. But none of this is automatic. And neither is the emergence of a vanguard. IMO that vanguard (and perhaps stronger and more concentrated leadership of a new type) will emerge more out of necessity.

What I glommed onto with Chicanofuture’s quotes from Lenin &amp; Luxemburg was this:

“For us, it is not the letter, but the living spirit carried into the organization by the membership that decides the value of this or that organizational form.”

On another thread, about Gramsci—Labor Shall Rule (in Comment 24) asked this question, which I thought a good one:

“What is the “revolutionary way”?

Surely even amongst Kasama supporters, contributors and lurkers, there are a multitude of interpretations of what that means, and that includes notions of leadership and vanguard parties.

And those revolts will not lead to socialism.
The need for a Party of the Leninist type asserts itself again and again.
It is disheartening to see millions in revolt with nowhere to go.
The revolts die down, and the same capitalist system remains.
Bleh!

Tellnolies. True enough that the upsurges among the youth are very welcome and inspiring. I would love to be in Greece right now!
The capitalist-imperialist system is more and more obviously a ghastly impediment to the continuation of life on the planet.
The need for revolution, REAL revolution will assert itself again and again.
Here and there we have very sophisticated leadership, as for example, with the RCP and its amazing constellation of seasoned leadership.
We must continually strive to unite around what is scientifically verifiable, and forge a core of leadership for the revolution we need, I mean of course, proletarian-socialist revolution.
All please rise now for a singing of Lennon's IMAGINE.
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky...
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

.

For all you more well-versed M-L-M history buffs, what revolts, uprisings, and even revolutions against the entrenched State, has led “directly” to socialism? I can’t think of one.

Even in revolutionary China, with humankind reaching new heights, where revolution and the building of socialism was a beacon light for the world’s people—where there was a revolutionary M-L vanguard party, with Mao at its helm--wasn’t/isn’t it true, as Marx explained , (the first stage) of socialism would be "in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges"?

So if revolutionaries recognize and struggle against the birthmarks of the old society, how can we not at the same time recognize and struggle for the seeds of the future, that just might be cropping up before our very eyes. Instead of the entire “Arab Spring” being viewed as roads to nowhere (but not Ted Stevens’ bridge to nowhere), could we not view these massive upheavals as dress rehearsals, shoots in the political landscape that will hopefully be playing for even bigger stakes?

And I can’t help but think that there is a tendency to look at what is going on in the Middle East and elsewhere, especially among some in the U.S. through (a somewhat limited) lens of where U.S. revolutionaries are situated, and basing some of our summations on what our experience is/has been.

It is safe to say that the majority of the Egyptian people are not (at this point) battling for socialist revolution—but you can bet you’re arse that there are communists and socialists in the mix. The original demand was to get rid of Mubarak—whose overpowering dictatorship spanned 40 years. Mubarak--, who as we and most Egyptians know has been in bed with the U.S. imperialists. Their basic fight and demands were for human and “democratic” rights… isn’t that understandable? And because the system has not been dismantled (au contraire), contradictions have been heightened, and politically charged battles continue and have been heightened.

And I think it is a danger to wall off, or think of these battles as isolated “incidents.” Or that the imperialists always have the upper hand. What effect, for instance, has Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, etc. had on the Palestinians’ struggle for self-determination, and has the shift in world public opinion surrounding the revolts in Egypt, etc.not in fact made things more difficult for the Israeli government and the U.S.?

And what were some of the precious lessons the Egyptian people <i>en masse </i> (not just the youth) learned in Tahir Square, etc.? Were those lessons not a microcosm representative of and birthing of a potentially new and more collective society?

Maybe I am misinterpreting what Red Amadeus is saying, but my impression is—that with a “Leninist” party in the lead, that will make all contradictions disappear. The Leninist party becomes the panacea. A straight line to somewhere?

What I think is apropos to this discussion is something TNL raised on another thread (about psychology). He had mentioned the quote “communism springs from every pore of capitalist society,” and went onto say:

<blockquote> “I constantly find communist content in the seemingly most unlikely places and sometimes wonder if i delude myself, but generally think that it really is everywhere (e.g. in the animated film, Ratatouille, Remy’s father insists that “you can’t change nature” and Remy says “Dad, nature IS change.”) </blockquote>

Well, something I've been meaning to ask TNL--I would like to know, beyond <i>Ratatouille</i>, and with other more concrete examples, how he sees communism springing from every pore of capitalist society, and does he, or anyone else think that what is going on in Greece, Spain, the Middle East, Nepal, India, et al. play some sort of significant role in his vision?

It appers to me that the protesters in Egypt are not fighting for workers to control all of the productive forces (socialism). It seems that they want some sort of "humanitarian" gains maybe the right to vote within a liberal democracy or something of that sort. So, what they in essence are doing is making demands on their system that probablhyyh cannot be met by their system in its current form. If they do continue to fight the demands that they seek will probably lead them to some sort of "western democracy" which isn't really a democracy at all. I would like to see socialist leadership and perhaps a Leninist strategy develop (a strategy that focuses on workers using a coordinated strategy to seize the means of production)... but that is not what the people want!