Eric Beck wrote:
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 11:52 AM, Matthias Wasser
> <matthias.wasser at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think the question we've been avoiding is: what does the revolutionary
> > vanguard eat?
One problem in stating it that way is that I don't believe there is anyone on this list who holds to the concept of "the revolutionary vanguard." That is as obsolete and empty as the idea of voting our way to socialism.
Thhe vanguard concept only worked in wars of liberation. The Bolsheviks did not operate, as it turned out, as a vanguard, but only as a group able to recognize a revolution when they saw it. That, of course, is essential, and it is difficult to know how such a group (or groups) ready themselves to make that recognition.
As I have said many times, a revolution is simply an unexpected occurrence within the context of a highly militant mass movement. Who was the Vanguard of the '60s? The Montgomery NAACP is one good candiddate. Others?
Carrol