Vanguard Parties

Fetch Headings.ExtraData
Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
Particularly recommended items are flagged with a red logo:

Connexions Library

Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism
Rowbotham, Sheila; Segal, Lynne; Wainright, Hilary
Book
1979
A call for various fractions of the left to unite and work for a socialism through grass-roots activism.
Facing Reality
James, C.L.R., Lee, Grace C., Chaulieu, Pierre
Book
1958
Inspired by the October 1956 Hungarian workers' revolution against Stalinist oppression, as well as the U.S. workers' "wild-cat" strikes (against capital and the union bureaucracies), the authors look...
Facing Reality 45 Years Later: Critical Dialogue with James/Lee/Chaulieu
Goldner, Loren
Article
2003
According to Goldner, "In 1958, Facing Reality was an important book, uncannily anticipatory of the historical period which would unfold over the following 15 years. Its main assertions are still bein...
The Invading Socialist Society
James, C.L.R.; Forest, F. [Raya Dunayevskaya]; Stone, Ria [Grace Lee Boggs]
Book
1947
History has shown that in moments of great social crisis, its farthest flights fall short of the reality of the proletarian revolution. Never was the proletariat so ready for the revolutionary struggl...
Lenin and the Vanguard Party
James, C.L.R.
Article
1963
To believe that Bolshevism, or to be more precise, Leninism, would under the circumstances advocate or preach the theory of the vanguard party is to continue slander of Leninism, but not to his theory...
Leninism vs. Debs's Socialist Party: The Communist Fight Against Black Oppression
Article
2015
Articles by Eugene Debs, written as polemics against racists within the Socialist Party, are eloquent in defending black people against racism, in calling for working-class unity across racial lines a...
Listen, Marxist!
Bookchin, Murray
Book
1969
Murray Bookchin takes on the 'Marxist-Leninists' who are destroying the New Left.
Manual for Revolutionary Leaders
Michael Velli. Compiled and edited by Lorraine and Fredy Perlman
Book
1972
A devious satire aimed at Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists, and vanguardists of all stripes.
Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 to Today
Dunayevskaya, Raya
Book
1958
Dunayevskaya argues that Marx's theory is the generalisation of the instinctive striving of the proletariat for a new social order, a truly human society.
The Masses & The Vanguard
Mattick, Paul
Article
1938
The leadership principle, the idea of the vanguard that must assume responsibility for the proletarian revolution is based on the pre-war conception of the labour movement, is unsound. The tasks of th...
The Myth of Lenin's 'Concept of The Party': What They Did to What Is To Be Done?
Draper, Hal
Article
1990
Lenin protested more than once that his initial formulations in WITBD were being distorted and misinterpreted by opponents, after which he went on to clarify and modify. If we want to know Lenin's 'co...
National Catechism
Bakunin, Mikhail
Article
1866
Bakunin sketches out his vision of an anarchist social and political revolution, stating that "in order to prepare for this revolution it will be necessary to conspire and to organize a strong secret ...
Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy
Luxemburg, Rosa
Article
1904
Rosa Luxemburg's contribution to the debate within the Russian Social Democratic movement on party organization and democratic centralism. Luxemburg joins Trotsky in warning of the dangers inherent in...
Organizing for Workers' Power: Beyond Trade Unionism & Vanguardism
Sofri, Adriano
Article
1968
A discussion of the problem of "vanguardism," and the role of leadership in revolutionary organization, and its evolution through different stages of class struggle, by Adriano Sofri of the Italian so...
Origin and Function of the Party Form
Camatte, Jacques
Article
1961
The central thesis that we wish to state and illustrate is that Marx and Engels derived the characteristics of the party form from the description of communist society.
Portugal: The Impossible Revolution?
Mailer, Phil,
Book
1977
The story of what happened in Portugal between April 25, 1974 and November 25, 1975, as seen and felt by a deeply committed participant.
Presenting Insurgent Notes
Article
2010
We take our Marx and Engels seriously. Recent history, beginning perhaps (in the US) with the UPS strike of 1997 and the 'battle of Seattle' in 1999, now quickened by the abject financial and ideologi...
The Program of the International Brotherhood
Bakunin, Mikhail
Article
1869
Bakunin maintains that his revolutionary anarchist vision "excludes any idea of dictatorship and of a controlling and directive power." but then goes on to say "It is, however, necessary for the estab...
Rejecting the "Vanguard" Party: Against The Current vol. 86
Bustillo, Fred
Article
2000
In the September-October, 1999 issue of Against the Current (#82), Sam Farber's review of Daniel Singer's book Whose Millennium? deserves a few comments. Like Farber, Singer and numerous other revolu...
Revolutionary Catechism
Bakunin, Mikhail
Article
1866
Bakunin believed that workers were very far from being able to attain revolutionary consciousness on their own. To imbue the masses with this consciousness and to prevent the deformation of a resultin...
Revolutionary Organisation and Open Letter to IS
Article
1972
A 1972 pamphlet incorporating two previously published texts, 'Revolutionary Organisation' (1961) and 'An Open Letter to I.S.' (1968). They are presented as "a contribution to the serious discussing n...
Socialism and Revolution
Gorz, Andre
Book
1967
Representative democracy in every industrially advanced country is in a state of profound crisis. But we have been accustomed for so long to accept democracy in the form of its outward appearances and...
Theory and Practice of Idealism in Trotskyism and the ISO
Roger D., Rachel M., Adrienne J., Christine D., Andy L. and Brian B
Article
2013
We have come to conclusions there is a theoretical underpinning to the problems we (and others) experienced in the ISO, such as continually erroneous perspectives which rarely were assessed, a leaders...
Thinking of Joining the ISO?
Binh, Pham
Article
2013
A critical examination of the ISO’s methods, practices, and structures compared to those of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) which the ISO holds up as its org...
Toward a Revolutionary Socialist Party
Hallas, Duncan
Article
2002
Duncan Hallas, a now-retired leading member of the Socialist Workers' Party (Britain), wrote this article at the beginning of the 1970s with an eye toward a layer of radicalizing workers and student a...
Trotskyism and the vanguard party
Diemer, Ulli
Article
1974
One of the most consistent achievements of the Trotskyists over the years has been to drive people away from radical politics. The number of burned-out and alienated ex-Trotskyists greatly exceeds the...
Vanguard, Vanguard, Who's Got the Vanguard?
Schneider, Michael
Article
1972
A critique of Leninist vanguard-party theories and practice, especially as manifested in the new left groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Published in the May 1972 and August 1972 issues of Libe...

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

International Bolshevik Tendency
The International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) is a revolutionary socialist organization founded by former cadres of the international Spartacist tendency. We urgently seek to participate in a process of ...
Marxists Internet Archive
Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.
News and Letters
An organization of Marxist-Humanists standing for the abolition of capitalism, both in its private property form and ins its state property form. We stand for the deveopment of new human relations; wh...
Trotskyist League
Works to build a revolutionary internationalist workers party to fight for socialist revolution.
Workers' Vanguard
Newspaper of the International Communist Leage (Fourth Internationalist).

Sources Experts & Spokespersons

Sources Library

From the Connexions Archives

Marxists Internet Archive
Website
Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.
News and Letters
Serial Publication (Periodical)
Articles from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.
The Red Menace
A libertarian socialist newsletter
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1975
Articles on topics such as socialism, Marxism, anarchism, work, popular education, organizing, wages for housework, Leninism, bureaucracy, hierarchy, jargon, prostitution, obscenity, science fiction, ...