Why is a Vanguardism bad?

Yeah, in theory. In reality, people get attached to positions of power and begin reluctant to releasing them. It later becomes a system of oppressive power. Trusting a human ruler to be nice to them who they rule is the naivety the descends into hegemony.

The first poster ITT that manages to accurately describe the vanguard model and it's origins should receieve a fucking medal. Might not happen though in a board dominated by anarkiddie strawmanning.

Why don't you do it?

I was speaking rhetorically m8 but thanks for the input

I'm not on my PC but whatever. The tightly-controlled vanguard model was just an idea developed in response to intense Tsarist repression, it wasn't supposed to be the endgame of all revolutionary political organization nor did it entail a small group of intellectualls ruling over society. During the revolution the party membership numbered well into the tens of thousands, sporting people drawn from the soldiery and peasantry. Excessive layers of bureaucracy had developed by the end of the Civil War but it wasn't a result of a small, closed party seeking to become oligarchs.

What "position of power" is a vanguard in? What's so appealing about being on the shortlist of people who dedicate themselves for such an unrewarding cause?

Power corrupts as long as power applies to all spheres of society, is tied with money, or is an end in itself. That's not the type of power that revolutionaries who live in fear of persecution and can't get jobs but have a muh privileged saying in what a small-circulation magazine will print have. Before these people have a small, almost impossible shot at political power they must dedicate their lives to nothing but a cause that demands sacrifice after sacrifice and never gives anything back. They're not in a position to "oppress" anyone.

And this is what a vanguard is for. It's a structure aimed at giving cohesion to the powerless masses. It can't exist without them, so it can't oppress them.

And of course, you can always play the "but after the revolution" card (as if that was the fate os most vanguards…) but history shows us that revolutions who also happen in a spontaneous way, without preexisting bodies coordinating it, also tend to lead to the centralized, oppressive political system that the Bolsheviks are guilty of afterwards. In fact, despite everything, the Bolshevik vanguard had a lot more mechanisms in place preventing a coup and dictatorship than any revolution before.

Circumstances allowed it to happen, but Stalin, unlike Cromwell, Saddam, Napoleon or whoever else, couldn't consolidate power without consent of many influential members within the revolutionary apparatus.

Ha, I actually laughed.

I guess if you're talking in truly idyllic terms they don't occupy any position of power, but as a historical rule the vanguard's role is crystallized via bureaucracy. Of course they come to occupy the most influential roles if and when revolutionary action is successful. I'm not an anarchist but always have a hard time disagreeing with them concerning this one issue because it seems so mindbogglingly self-evident that the vanguard will always become the elite.

Can you just shut the fuck up already with your philosopher kings? You keep repeating this shit over and over. We get it, you read a summary of the Politeia on Wikipedia and didn't like it.

Those who advocate for communism and yet oppose vanguard have to agree with one of these:
Both of which are equally delusionnal. Hence, vanguardism is not bad.

A vanguard emerges out of every revolutionary situation. It's seriously just logic. Marxism-Leninism doesn't necessarily equate to Vanguardism. Even Mahkno realized the necessity of a vanguard to a successful revolution and criticized anarchists who embraced the more chaotic form of "inspiring" the masses through propaganda of the deed on behalf of their various organizations and he was correct

The issue with the Marxist-Leninist form of vanguardism isn't really as that it expects the worst out of people and thus tries to apply "philosopher kings", it's more that it invites corruption by trying to ORGANIZE a vanguard of individuals who believe themselves to be the most class conscious or enlightened rather than participating in the revolution and allowing the vanguard to arise autonomously (not that this is an advocation of autonomism, quite the opposite) and then steer the revolution in whatever direction it will go.

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Buddy, the philosopher kings aren't supposed to come up with kind suggestions, they rule.

Thus hierarchy.

because anarkiddies are easily >triggered

It isn't. Every movement, revolutionary or otherwise, needs leadership. This isn't a bad thing. Vanguardism isn't about establishing a hierarchy of "experts" to rule over the working class, it's about the most class-conscious members of the proletariat taking initiative and leading the workers to liberation.
I found this article to be really helpful
marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/partyPR46.html

It's not. Read some fucking theory.

After you make this point to the anarkiddes, their argument usually just devolves into

All of you are fucking embarrassing

Anyways

Vanguardists believes that it is impossible for the proletariat to become class-conscious without them. According to Lenin "isolated from [the party], the working class movement becomes petty and inevitably becomes bourgeois." [Collected Works, vol 4, p. 368]. He further wrote in "What is to be Done?" that "[c]lass political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is only outside of the economic struggle, outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers", and that "[m]odern socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge…The vehicles of science are not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia." [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 112, 108].

In other words, the working class can't be expected to liberate ourselves: we must depend on bourgeois intellectuals to give us proper guidance!

Any talk of vanguards merely seeking to be leaders and not power for their party is refuted by their own writings. From 1904 onwards, the organisational principle of Bolshevism was "centralism…proceeding from the top downward." [Collected Works, vol. 7, pp. 396-7]. The tasks of the party were to (1) convince the majority of the people of the correctness of their programme and tactics, (2) capturing political power, and for the Party to (3) administer Russia as the governing party. [Op Cit., vol. 27, pp. 241-2]. This is confirmed by Trotsky who wrote that within Russia "the last word belongs to the Central Committee of the party." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 107]. Lofty goals for a group that supposedly only wants to provide leadership.

Not to mention the party's organisational principle of "democratic centralism" merely reproduces bourgeois political structures. "The most important principle of democratic centralism is the election of the higher party organs by the lowest, the fact that all instructions by a superior body are unconditionally and necessarily binding on lower ones, and existence of a strong central party leadership whose authority over all leading party comrades in the period between one party congress and the next is universally accepted." [Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 1920, vol. 1, 198]. In other words, lower party members elect the higher party members, and then the higher party members make decisions that are binding on everyone. And the only thing they can do if they don't like those decisions is to elect new people to make decisions for them. Hmm…sounds familiar…

This doesn't make any sense: the class-conscious part of the proletariat IS the vanguard.

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It's a good idea, but there's a lot of potential for corruption.

If just a few members of the vanguard support their own interests over the common welfare of the proletariat, we all suffer.

I haven't implied anything of the sort. Is the fact that people from other backgrounds embrace the proletariat's cause a problem to you?

It depends. If they wish to join the working class in their struggles, then be my guest. If they want to take charge and believe the working class will be lost without their "intellectual guidance", as suggested by Lenin, then they can fuck right off back to their comfortable bougie life.

Literally just quoting single sentences from entirely context-based works. How about this, OP, read some full-bodies of literature. You can make it seem like any cherry-picked conclusion is reach from sentence excerpts.

yeah, me. If you're anti-vanguardist, what is your proposed organizational method for achieving the revolution

Please, then, do clarify the sentences then if the surrounding context makes the sentences say differently than what they clearly say.

I'm being serious: instead of going "hurr hurr cherrypicking" and effortlessly dismissing everything I wrote, how about you, yknow, make a fucking argument? Instead of "lol how would you even revolution" explain why the "democratic" centralist model of everyone unquestionably taking orders from the top brass of the party is the only way we can abolish capitalism.

Allow me to reformulate:
The part of the population (whatever its background) conscious of the historic role of the proletariat and embracing it IS the vanguard.

Even if you formulate it that way, it doesn't change why me (and others) oppose "vanguardism" i.e. centralism and party dictatorship

These are Kautsky's words, not Lenin's (it's important, even if Lenin agrees with Kautsky here).
Kautsky is talking about the past! He is basically explaining why it is Marx, a non-proletarian, who first discovered the historic role of Proletariat.
But, and you didn't bother quoting this, he clearly specifies that, at the time when he talks, some proletarians have already acquired this knowledge.
His point isn't that class-consciousness must come from outside the class. This is merely a consequence of his actual point. A consequence, moreover, valid only at the very beginning of scientific socialism (that is, already invalid when Kautsky writes).
His actual point being: class-consciousness, the knowledge of the historic role of Proletariat, doesn't appear spontaneously. It needs to be taught. But wether the teacher is a proletarian or not makes no difference.

You do realise that opposing the party dictatorship means: sharing power with other parties? That, if they're "other parties", by definition, that means they do not share the objective of a communist revolution? That, if they do not share the objective of a communist revolution, one way or another, they will actively oppose it?

Honestly this. Havnt heard it put in such a good way before.

Russia would have been so much better with that socdem provisional government. I never understand why M-Ls call themselves left or socialists.

Or the soviet union, and therefore russia now

It has a really shitty record of bringing socialism, plus there's no evidence that centralized and hierarchical organizations fare better against infiltration and COINTELPRO. It's all just founded in the old Christian meme that surely we need rulers, lest we'd tear the world apart.

what do you mean by this