Vanguard or Avant Garde

This is the second of a two-part article written by Alexander Riccio. The first part, “The vanguard debate in history,” appeared in PR #113 in February, 2019. Dialectics of oppression and leadership New insights on oppression, its different forms and logics, cast doubt on the proletariat as revolution’s vanguard. With deeper understandings of domination came new theories for dismantling power and strategies for accomplishing utopia. As well, multiple formulations on the vanguard different than the proletariat have been offered. [Read More]

This is the first of a two-part article written by Alexander Riccio. The second part, “Towards a new vanguard theory,” will appear in PR #114 in March, 2019. Vanguardism is alive and well in the 21^st^ century, yet it rarely gets named as such. One hears often of the need to ‘center’ particular forms of leadership; the leadership of the working-class, or Indigenous people, or Black people for instance. Centering at times refers to placing a particular object of struggle at the forefront of all issues, as in calls to consider climate catastrophe the primary concern for the Left, or the crises of reproduction as the major issue which folds every other into its purview. [Read More]