The vanguard, in Marxist theory, is a special form of organization that arises as a response to two fundamental problems: the weakness of the spontaneous consciousness of the working class, and the tendency toward compromise that sooner or later befalls every mass organization under the full conditions of capitalism.
According to Lenin, workers on their own, without the help of revolutionary theory, never achieve more than trade union consciousness — meaning they know how to organize a struggle for better wages, shorter working hours, or safer working conditions, but they do not know how to connect these partial struggles into a comprehensive attack on capitalism as a system. This trade union consciousness forces them into negotiations with the bourgeoisie, into the acceptance of reforms, and into forgetting the revolutionary goal. If the movement is left to the workers themselves, it will sooner or later land in the embrace of liberalism — as happened, according to Lenin, with the German SPD.
So let us look more closely at the example of the SPD.
German Social Democracy was the leading socialist movement in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, but it was precisely its example that convinced Lenin that a new organizational form was necessary.
The SPD was, in fact, composed of two parts: a political party and the trade unions, which represented the actual proletariat. Initially, the party rejected Bismarck's social legislation, seeing it as an attempt to bribe the working class, but the trade unions saw social reforms as beneficial for their members. Over time, the trade unions took over the leadership of the SPD, demanding that the party follow their pragmatic course. The activists gave in, and the movement began to make compromises with the German state. The SPD first abandoned revolutionary rhetoric, then also strikes as a means of pressure. Eventually, it supported nationalism and colonial expansion, which was in complete opposition to the internationalist character of Marxism. The culmination of this process came in 1914, when the SPD voted in parliament in favor of the war budgets for an imperialist war. For Lenin, this was final proof that the SPD had betrayed the socialist cause.
Its transformation revealed two fundamental shortcomings: first, the proletariat is capable only of "trade union consciousness," which forces it into negotiations with the bourgeoisie. Second, party activists are vulnerab
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