At its core, the vanguardist’s self-assigned task is to decide what is “revolutionary,” craft a blueprint for all of society, and seize the power necessary to impose this blueprint on the world. The word “Vanguard” itself expresses the idea that this select few is the necessary leader of the unthinking masses toward “revolution,” rather than the “masses” themselves. They justify this with ideological concepts like “democratic centralism” and “historical materialism.” This highly theoretical view of human society and history puts the machinations of the vanguard above the concerns of individuals and whole societies, creating a rationalization for harming colossal numbers of people. The underlying power dynamic is hidden behind a smokescreen of ideological necessity: they claim to know the only true path to revolution, and to stray from it is to betray the struggle and lead us all to certain doom. This is great for them and bad for the rest of us, both in theory and practice

A lot of the constant drum-roll about “read more theory” you’ll hear from them is grounded in this. One needs to keep reading ML theory until they become enlightened enough to lead the revolution. And if you don’t believe that’s should be the case, you obviously haven’t read enough theory yet.

Anyway, nice zine. I saw so many of these red flags in the Greek KKE and surrounding small parties. Good people to have a beer with, and with their heart largely in the right place, but useless revolutionary potential which causes massive churn and burnout of radicals.