Correct me if I’m wrong. The vanguard party theory states that evidently, not every single proletarian will have class consciousness at the point of the revolution, therefore the class-conscious proletarians should lead it, no matter if it’s a relatively small group, right?
There are so many radlibs despite worsening material conditions that sometimes I wonder if these people will ever be able to gain class consciousness. As far as I understand, the whole point of a vanguard party is that we can do without these people on our side, right?
Not quite, I would say. I recently read one of the PSL’s publications, Revolutionary Education: Theory and Practice for Socialist organizers (very good book!), and it talks about how the Vanguard is like a spear head.
On it’s own, a spearhead isn’t very impactful. The handle and the butt of the spear are very important parts of what make a spear useful! The handle and butt in this scenario would be the mass support that we as socialists have to try and get from the masses.
It’s not enough that we have small knit groups where we all have good politics. That alone just makes us a book club, really. To seize power you need mass support. I don’t think there’s a specific number on how large/ small it needs to be, but I would imagine the larger the better. Of course, you do need to ensure ideological and moral firmness in your recruits!