Basics,
Part 6
Wal Hannington, 1896-1966
Vanguard
In politics, the word “vanguard” means the professional
force, human framework or “cadre” which can lead the mass movement of the
people on a revolutionary path.
The relationship of the revolutionary vanguard to the mass
organisations of the people is similar to the relationship of a doctor to the
people, or of accountants and lawyers to businesses, or of an architect or an
engineer to builders and their clients.
The vanguard is made up of professional revolutionaries.
The revolutionary vanguard is a servant, and not a master.
The vanguard party of the working class serves the working class, and does not
boss it. Nor does it substitute itself for the working class.
The working-class vanguard party, which is the communist
party, is not separate from the mass movement. It is intimately involved with
the mass movement at all times and at all levels. The vanguard party educates,
organises and mobilises. As a vanguard, it must have expert knowledge about how
mass movements in general, and especially about how the primary mass
organisations of the working class which are the trade unions, work.
To deal with this crucial matter (i.e how trade unions work)
here, in the download linked below, is a text from the Marxists Internet Archive’s Encyclopaedia of Marxism, written
by Brian Basgen and Andy Blunden, two comrades who clearly have vast experience
of what they are writing about.
This text is empirical and experiential and there is nothing
wrong with that, because experiential is exactly what trade unions and other
mass organisations are. Trade unions arise out of the existing consciousness of
workers as it is found under capitalism. In many ways, workers emulate
capitalist forms of organisation. Their initial purpose is to get a better
money deal in exchange for their labour-power in the capitalist labour-market.
Trade unions are in the first place reformist, not
revolutionary. Nor can trade unions become revolutionary without the assistance
of professional revolutionaries, organised separately as a communist party.
Lenin dealt with this relationship in “What
is to be Done?”, which we will look at tomorrow.
Trade unionists who think that they can dispense with the
assistance of a communist party - the ones known as “economists”, “workerists”
or “syndicalists” - are on a road to ruin.
Rules of Debate
Crucial to the democracy of mass organisations are the Rules
of Debate and Procedure of Meetings. These are a bit like language, or political education, or the Internet, in the
sense of being communistic, and not given as authority. They are not imposed by
a “state”. There is no institutional enforcer of these rules. They exist in
society, but without a “state” to enforce them.
For example, the South African Communist Party has no given
Rules of Debate or Standing Orders. Unfortunately this does not prevent people
from claiming “Points of Order”!
The nature of the notional “rules” is such that they are
only effective to the extent that they are understood in common by the members
of any particular gathering, and enforced by these members.
Wal Hannington [1896-1966, pictured] was well known as a
communist leader of the unemployed workers’ movement in Britain in
the 1930s. Our summary of his 1950 booklet “Mr Chairman” is included with this
item on Trade Unions because communists involved in trade unions need this
knowledge of rules of debate and procedure of meetings, as well.
Hannington wrote: "The Chairman is there to guide the
meeting, not to boss it." This is the most valuable message in his book.
The Rules of Debate and the Procedures of Meetings are only justified to the
extent that they liberate the people present. They become useless when they are
felt as a burden or as an obstruction.
The point is not for the Chairperson to “keep order”, or for
individuals to be bullied down with “points of order”. The Chairperson serves
the meeting, and the meeting needs to know how to guide the Chairperson.
Everything works best when everybody is familiar with the generic Rules of
Debate.
- The above is to introduce the original reading-text: Worker
Solidarity and Unions, MIA, Meetings, Hannington.
