- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Closing the ranks?

In Reply to: If anyone wants a revolution without a party leading it, don't let me stop you posted by Stoller on October 25, 1999 at 18:48:58:

: If I call a party that will 'bring understanding, thus acquired and clarified, to the working masses, to spread it with increased enthusiasm, to close the ranks of the party organizations and of the labor unions with ever greater energy' (Engels) a 'group of class conscious workers struggling to command understanding and clarify the way ahead "communist understand the line of march" IIRC the Manifesto' (you, emphasis added) INSTEAD of a vanguard (a party necessary to lead the workers into the socialist future---me), what has changed?

It seems that 'closing the ranks ...' implies the eventual separation of the organisation from the least class conscious workers, the ones who need leadership. This would generally leave the party in the hands of the more affluent workers, i.e. "... a portion of the bourgeois ideologists who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole" (The Communist Manifesto, "Bourgeois and Proletarians"). Is this wrong?

Follow Ups:

• Yes---to the bourgeois forces Stoller October 26 1999 (1)
  • A note on the quotes Stoller October 27 1999 (0)