What To Do? A Discussion on Lenin’s Indoctrination and Vanguard theories
March 2022
Raul Emilio Fernandez, Havana-Cuba
Translated by Deniz Kizilcec
Marx wrote: Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as [humans] exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, only the consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious. (Marx and Engels, 1978, 158.)
Who was responsible for the Stalinist centralization of power in the Soviet Union? “Lenin” may be an uncommon answer. This question involves Lenin’s most controversial “vanguard” Party theory. It is no exaggeration to say that on the one hand this theory has influenced all proletarian revolutions and all proletarian party organizations in history so far. On the other hand, Leninist vanguard party theory is often accused by scholars of being inevitably bound to lead to Stalinist centralization. In the eyes of them this theory has sowed the seeds of authoritarianism at its roots . This transformation of the Soviet Communist Party gave the Internationale’s “Arise, hungry and cold slaves!” to walk to an absurd irony: Arise, slaves, work for the party cadres!
The basic principle of Lenin’s “vanguard” theory is to promote some advanced elements among the people, because they have a deeper understanding of social reality and they have a deeper understanding of revolutionary tactics, and it is up to these advanced elements to understand “how to do it” and “why to do it” and they will instil these ideas into the masses to achieve the true leadership of the proletariat over society.
Lenin’s “Vanguard” and ” indoctrination theory “ are inevitably connected, which makes the gap and tension between “leadership and being led” embedded in the relationship between the party and the masses from the beginning. It should be noted that “indoctrination” is by no means a bad word for Lenin, but for Lenin it is an operation about “truth” . So, why?
Necessary premise of Lenin’s “indoctrination theory”: the gap between spontaneous consciousness and conscious awareness
“Workers of the world unite!” – “The Communist Manifesto” said, but how will the workers unite? The existence of Lenin’s vanguard theory lies in a basic judgment: the spontaneous consciousness formed by the proletarian collective can never reach the level of class consciousness of the proletariat, that is, to the extent of establishing a socialist society. The upper limit of this spontaneous consciousness is the trade unionism or reformism ideologies.
Lenin summarized what he sees happening in the workers’ movement, and identified the distance he sees between the spontaneous “awakening” of the workers and their consciousness of the entire “social system”. Lenin said: the consciousness of the masses of the workers cannot be genuine class consciousness . . . unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, all strata and groups of the population”.
In other words, Lenin fully believed that it was possible for the oppressed proletarians to stand up and resist, but a man without bread would not think of occupying a capitalist bank. At best, he could only rush into the factory director’s office with a wrench and smash the safe.
And for Lenin workers who unite, at most can only think of electing unions and negotiate with factory owners to demand higher wages. For Marxism and for Lenin, this is not enough, because the basic premise of “trade unionism” is to fight within the scope of the existing basic order, and the object of its struggle is “a more fair distribution” -. The proletariat cannot go so far as calling for the complete destruction of the old order and they cannot demand the public ownership of the means of production.
So how can this gap between “spontaneous awareness” and ” conscious awareness” be filled ? This is the indoctrination work that vanguard party solves.
The vanguard instills the true historical mission of the proletariat into the working class , and makes the proletariat understand that its mission is not just to improve distribution, but to achieve an essential leap in historical stages, thereby making the proletariat the subject of the revolution: thus making the proletariat the main revolutionary force.
Therefore, in Leninism, the proletariat is not directly the subject of the revolution. Marx often defined the proletariat in terms of its “economic status”, while Leninism obviously did not just define proletariat based on its objective status. In some writings of Lenin the proletariat also needs the leadership of the political party to “become” a mature proletariat .
Today, when many people reflect on the Soviet Union and the October Revolution, they always propose some views which Lenin would call as “childish” talk.
Because these people think that: class consciousness should be self-perceived and reflected on, rather than being instilled to working class. If you want to achieve profound truths, you must experience it personally. The reason why the Soviet Union lost faith in the later period was because this kind of indoctrination was unsustainable. But these ideas cannot refute Leninism, but precisely the opposite, in fact Lenin made a criticism of this view.
Because the “vital interests ” of workers are by no means socialism or communism, they are just striving for higher wages and better working conditions , which are necessarily limited to distribution of wealth and income – or as Marx said, limited to “ bourgeois class perspective”.
The tension within Leninism here lies precisely in the contradiction that workers tend to only focus on immediate interests and not focus on long-term interests ; if workers rely on their focus of immediate interests, then a true proletarian revolution will not happen.
Obviously, it is reasonable for this “indoctrination theory” to be criticized as “directly escorting” Stalin’s centralization of power, because since there is a “vanguard and indoctrination”, this inevitably means that there is a problem of “leadership” and “discourse power” in the relationship between the party and the masses, which inevitably presupposes a difference in status (paradoxically, based on the vanguard theory, this indoctrination work is absolutely necessary). But to make the proletariat a true fighting class, it would be impossible rely on the labor unions fighting against the organized bourgeois state apparatus.
After all, the bourgeois state cannot sit idly by and ignore the workers’ unity, and the bourgeois state has already used various methods to carry out ideological propaganda and public opinion offensives to stigmatize the proletarian movement and show the proletarian movement as a violent, bloody and show the proletarian movement as synonymous with barbarism and backwardness. On the other hand, the materialization (aleination/reification) phenomenon produced by capitalist society itself has also shaped the thinking of people in society, causing people to lose the consciousness of “practice”.
Under the combined influence of these internal and external factors, the “vanguard theory and indoctrination theory” of Lenin became a technically necessary choice.
The legitimate premise of “indoctrination theory”: Marxism as advocating the truth
But the next question is: even if “indoctrination” is necessary, is it a “ necessary evil ” or can we say it is still evil?
According to our usual understanding, just like our criticism of bourgeois consumerism, doesn’t “indoctrination” mean a kind of decpetive ideological control? Isn’t “indoctrination” synonymous with “brainwashing”?
In the eyes of Leninism the answer is certainly no. It seems that the “necessity” of argumentation is the most important, but it is precisely the argument for the “legitimacy” of Lenin’s vanguard theory that constitutes the fundamental difference between the proletarian parties and the bourgeois parties.
This is not because the proletarian parties have gained natural justice or legitemacy because they represent the proletariat, or this is not because some individuals have extraordinary genius, exceptionally talented and these leaders have transcended the obscurity and propaganda made by the bourgeoisie and gained the truth, but because in Lenin’s view, Marxism represents the truth therefore, the proletarian parties which have mastered Marxism will also become political parties that have mastered historical truth .
The truthfulness of Marxism ensures and guarantees the truthfulnes of the Leninist style parties, which in turn makes “indoctrination” completely different from the indoctrination used in so-called exam-oriented education of today. In the exam-oriented education of today indoctrination means mechanical repetition of basic knowledge, while Lenin’s “indoctrination” has the meaning of “enlightenment” and for Lenin it is a kind of “truth operation . ” On the contrary, proletarian political parties and bourgeois political parties often resort to different “public will”.
Proletarian political parties do not pursue the rebuilding of order by building social consensus on the basis of chaos and disorder, but instead establish themselves on an objective foundation of order called “Marxism” at the bottom logic.
There is room for discussion on this issue within the foundation of Marxism, but without Marxism, there is no need for a consensus (public will) reached by society —- because it can already be declared “wrong” in advance due to its departure from Marxism. This makes all Leninist style parties necessarily appear more authoritarian compared to bourgeois parties.
Here, any party does not appear out of thin air. In fact proletarian party represents the crystallization of the proletariat’s spontaneous reflection on the current situation. and is a qualitative transformation of some people’s thinking from unionism to socialism.
Therefore, according to Lenin’s many writings, the proletarian party does not produce truth , it only discovers truth by using scientific Marxism and tells these truths to the proletariat. Therefore, in this sense, the “indoctrination” mentioned by Lenin is not only harmless, but the “indoctrination” is also necessary and legitimate based on the gap between spontaneous consciousness and conscious awareness.
The proletarian party here becomes the intermediary between historical truth and mass movements: after the party achieves insight into the inner logic of the historical process, the proletarian party then “educates” the workers and makes them a conscious tool for achieving historical goals .
Comprehensive reflection on Leninism: Was It a Destiny that Leninism would lead to Stalinism?
Many people in history have asked why the Soviet Union went from the enlightened Leninist politics to the paternal Stalinist politics. The usual answers always attribute the problem of centralization to Stalin’s personal desire for power, or to the objective situation of the Soviet Union’s internal and external difficulties. Of course, they all have certain rationality. But there is another dimension to thinking about this issue philosophically, which is: is Lenin’s political enlightenment just an illusion, a simple continuation of the people’s enthusiasm in the October Revolution, and is Leninism actually bound to lead to Stalinism?
In fact, the inherent tension in Lenin’s vanguard theory is not only between “spontaneous consciousness” and “conscious awareness,” but also between the “real working class” and the “ideal working class.”
In other words, there is an inherent tension between the “inherent natüre of” and “empirical existence of” of the working class . The more we rely on the “inherent nature” of workers to determine that the working class will become the subject of the proletarian revolution, the more emphasis we will put on “external experience” to make it become “ideal working class” . In other words, the working class already has the inherent potential to become a revolutionary subject, and what the political party has to do is to force this potential to come out and be realized.
On the road to realizing its own potential, either (firstly) the working class matures itself through efforts to transit from spontaneity to self-consciousness (which is judged to be impossible); or (secondly) the Marxist party will export “correct true knowledge” to the working class (this is seen as the only path).
The second option means that those who grasp the truth are the revolutionary intellectuals in the political party who have achieved a truthful understanding of the objective process of history through Marxism.
And these revolutionary intellectuals instrumentalize the proletariat in order to realize the “objective inevitability” written in advance in history. When the judgments of revolutionary intellectuals are correct, the working class will inevitably sacrifice its short-term interests for the long-term interests of working class.
When the judgments of revolutionary intellectuals are wrong, this manipulation will turn into an authoritarian disaster. Both the two aspects meant that there was a lack of space for the masses to act on their own initiative.
In other words, the technocrats dominance and authoritarianism of the middle and late Soviet Union periods may have already laid their seeds in the theory of Leninist party. And when faced with opposition from the workers, the legitimacy given to the party by Marxism as the bearer of truth will become the defender of all Party’s policies. At this point truth will suddenly turn into complete ignorance.
Why Misunderstanding on Lenin’s theory failed to be corrected? The stagnation of and the Sovietization of Marxism
In fact, it can be found that although Lenin’s party theory has embedded the possibility of moving towards centralization, this party theory is still positive in Lenin. The transition from Lenin to Stalin was certainly inevitable, but there could be opportunities for correction of Lenin’s ideas—as long as the theory continues to develop.
The problem is that the theoretical work of the CPSU became conservative after Lenin’s death. A large number of important theoretical workers were either criticized or shot. The “Sovietization of Marxism” actually tended to stagnate . Therefore the basic principles of Marxism gradually became dogmatic.
Neglect of theoretical development has fundamentally shook the basis of the legitimacy of the Leninist “vanguard” Party: mastering the truth .
On the one hand, in the view of the Soviet Communist Party, Marxism was interpreted as a knowledge oriented towards practice and revolution (that is, Marxism was interpreted as a knowledge for “doing things”), and it implied the destruction of the old world. Therefore, for later Soviet Marxists: Marx’s explanation of the contemporary world was completely obscured by his criticism of the contemporary world.
As a result, the Soviet Union was often unable to fully and truly understand the capitalist world at that time, nor was Soviet Union able to fully understand the historical stage Soviet Union was in in respect to building socialism. Because the things Soviet Union was facing were indeed beyond Marx’s time. Marx could not give ready made answers for the problems faced by the Soviet Union.
When its theories lagged behind reality, the Soviet Communist Party could only drive old-fashioned tractors onto the highway. And with the neglect of theoretical development and the one-sided promotion or exaltation of practice, the revolutionary passion of the Soviet Union often overrode scientific rationality, and the power of theory to explain reality became increasingly weak.
When new social contradictions emerged, the Soviet Communist Party, which lacked new interpretive resources, could only analyze new problems and respond to them based on the “class contradictions theory” and respond to them according to the basic principles of “class contradiction” theory – which, as you can imagine, inevitably led to a series of “purges” type disasters in 1930s: to a series of disaterous “elimination of counterrevolutionaries”.
This was the inevitable social consequence of the one-sided development of natural science and technology development and the neglect of philosophy and social science of by the Soviet Union.②
On the other hand, proletarian revolution and publicly owneed production were all the Soviet Communist Party’s understanding of Marxism at that time. The shortcomings of Marxism’s lack of a complete political theory were inherited by the Soviet Communist Party.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union achieved great successes in accordance with Marxism at the level of the October Revolution and in the implentation of the Five-Year Plans. However, Communist Party of the Soviet Union could not put forward effective scientific theories in social governance and in political civilization construction, and the public-owned socialist mode of production did not give rise to a new superstructure of politics with a public character or to a new, public political superstructure. Under such conditions, the abandonment of economic alienation has given rise to political alienation.
As long as we admit that the revolutionary transition period is different from the socialist construction period, we must admit that it was wrong for the Soviet Communist Party to continue and directly inherit (without necesarry changes) its system of the revolutionary period in the new era of socialist construction period.
The socialist economic system inevitably required a brand new political system, but the Soviet Communist Party did not achieve effective exploration regarding this dimension.
In fact when “Marxism owned by the CPSU as the truth” was unsustainable, the legitimacy of the Soviet Communist Party became to rely on “creating truths” – this was the “Ministry of Truth” that has been immortalized in memes.
Under such negative conditions, the truth was no longer the insight of the revolutioary intellectuals within the party and did bot rely on scientific Marxism to understand the truth of the times, but it was only the creation of a suitable theory based on the results of the compromise of interests within the party, instead it was crowned as truth through propaganda. If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight, but if there is a clown under the crown, truth becomes the accompaniment of a comedy, the truth will become the foil of a farce. In other words, if the proletarian party starts trying to “produce truth,” then things can easily get out of control.
Conclusion
Even so, Lenin’s controversial ideas on this issue cannot be concealed, and people today have also begun to reflect and write a lot on the theory of proletarian party.
One school of thought argues that since the proletariat wants to achieve a complete break with the bourgeoisie, it is doomed to be wrong to try to establish a “party”. Therefore, in the eyes of these people a decentralized struggle strategy should be adopted. We should no longer use a centralized war type of conflict strategy, instead we should rather lead a decentralized and slow/gradual revolt against capitalism through the continuous excavation and widening of the cracks within capitalism, which would draw in more and more people into the revolutionary movement.
The other school of thought talks more directly and argues that the identity of the proletarian party should be shifted from that of “leader” to that of “educator”. The task of the Marxist political party is to guide the masses at the appropriate time, while the methods and abilities of revolutionary struggle are gradually developed by the masses in the practice of struggle. This means that the proletariat is not matured by the Marxist political party, but the proletariat matures spontaneously. Political parties cultivate, nurture, and guide the struggle of the masses, but they should never attempt to take over the leadership of mass movements.
The former school of thought constitutes the struggle strategy within developed capitalist countries, while the latter school of thought constitutes the struggle strategy of the masses in the marginalized world of capitalism such as Latin America. Obviously, such contemporary ideas are all trying to avoid the resurrection of Stalinism through different theoretical adjustments , because they firmly believe that no matter what the socialist system is, one thing is certain: socialist system definitely represents greater freedom than capitalism.