The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

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NapLajoieonSteroids
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The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

What are the differences between a revolutionary vanguard and an aristocracy?

Not trying to be cute about it but I've been reading a few things lately, ranging from anarchist to communist and (a few what I'd consider fascist) writings, and I'm having a bit of trouble distinguishing between the two beyond the more obvious, immediate and superficial differences; especially when they've been put into practice. What am I missing here? It has to be something big because I can't seem to find any criticism comparing the two except 'kinda maybe' ol' Mikhail Bakunin. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places?

I'd like to get other people's thoughts here on the two concepts, if I can; and any reading material would be welcome.

Related to this, distantly perhaps, but:

Has China become a fascist state? Did its vanguard lead it there?
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Endovelico
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by Endovelico »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:What are the differences between a revolutionary vanguard and an aristocracy?

Not trying to be cute about it but I've been reading a few things lately, ranging from anarchist to communist and (a few what I'd consider fascist) writings, and I'm having a bit of trouble distinguishing between the two beyond the more obvious, immediate and superficial differences; especially when they've been put into practice. What am I missing here? It has to be something big because I can't seem to find any criticism comparing the two except 'kinda maybe' ol' Mikhail Bakunin. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places?

I'd like to get other people's thoughts here on the two concepts, if I can; and any reading material would be welcome.

Related to this, distantly perhaps, but:

Has China become a fascist state? Did its vanguard lead it there?
I guess a revolutionary vanguard becomes an aristocracy when rank and power becomes hereditary. As it has up to a point happened in the USSR and in China and, at least at the top, in North Korea.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

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Parodite
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by Parodite »

"Socialism makes capital mistakes, capitalisms makes social mistakes."

Can't remember who invented this, but thought it kinda cute and true.
Deep down I'm very superficial
noddy
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by noddy »

i spose its lots of things all blurred into eachother and academics love definition categories but the world isnt quite that simple.

the sucessful vanguard becomes the aristocracy so while at the start of the cycle the split between the new school and the old school is obvious, this breaks down over time and the middle of that transfer is very blurry indeed.

i dont think you need heriditary transfer to make this happen because institutions take on their own character , thusly the chinese communist party can easily turn into the chinese fascist party, the significant thing is the group of humans and their power base, not the crap that comes out of their mouths which is only meaningful in the rhetorical fashions of the day, they dont believe it, they just say what their power base wants to hear and this can change over time.

most of us post modern types struggle to tell the difference between fascism and communism because its a small pool of authoritarians looking after their supporters and rogering everyone else, its the same system - noncs pretty graph sort of covers that, however its very merkin so im not sure its accurate beyond merkin rhetoric.

we tend to say that democracy and meritocracy are good (best of vanguard) and totalitarian and nepotistic are bad (worst of aristocracy) and let that take us where it will, we have tried to make the vanguard permanent and avoid the aristocracy stage but this is failing us as all our allegedly separated institutions become comfortably familiar and cooperative - acting more like a single party with factions than actual competitive separate parties, its more like the chinese setup.

queue simple minded and 'humans' :)

like most free minded folks i have a soft spot for cooperative anarchy however i do understand that creates a constant source of low level conflict and it is always open to being destroyed by a well oiled empire - it only works in smaller groups and doesnt scale very well.
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Parodite wrote:"Socialism makes capital mistakes, capitalisms makes social mistakes."

Can't remember who invented this, but thought it kinda cute and true.
I like this too, I'm gonna to use it. I'll attribute it John Parodite.
Endovelico wrote:
NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:What are the differences between a revolutionary vanguard and an aristocracy?

Not trying to be cute about it but I've been reading a few things lately, ranging from anarchist to communist and (a few what I'd consider fascist) writings, and I'm having a bit of trouble distinguishing between the two beyond the more obvious, immediate and superficial differences; especially when they've been put into practice. What am I missing here? It has to be something big because I can't seem to find any criticism comparing the two except 'kinda maybe' ol' Mikhail Bakunin. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places?

I'd like to get other people's thoughts here on the two concepts, if I can; and any reading material would be welcome.

Related to this, distantly perhaps, but:

Has China become a fascist state? Did its vanguard lead it there?
I guess a revolutionary vanguard becomes an aristocracy when rank and power becomes hereditary. As it has up to a point happened in the USSR and in China and, at least at the top, in North Korea.
Yes, that is one thing that sticks out. In self-identified communist or socialist countries (or those working towards it,) a hereditary mechanism (habit?) arises and you end up like China with "princelings" who are regarded as part of the vanguard and party by birth. I cannot think of any examples where it did not happen when the revolution survived past the first or second generation or its charismatic leaders.

These similarities cannot be stretched too far, however. We have plenty of examples of the children of the vanguard not inheriting a position at the table- it has always been much harder to strip an aristocrat of his inheritance. I could see communist apologia stating that no one accounted for in the vanguard would be there without some merit; the child of a revolutionary would be almost primed from birth to share in the revolutionary consciousness and until the proletariat can finally overcome the whole system and the state withers away, we will have to live with such arrangements. No one says the American Republic failed because John Quincy Adams was the 6th President and son of the 2nd- he was well qualified in his own right and participated in the emancipation. So what's the problem with Kim Jung Un continuing the struggle his grandfather started?

Inheritance isn't the primary similarity between the two, at least for me. Going back to the origins of the concept, even before Lenin popularized it, it was proposed as a type of class or party selected to govern and protect a certain virtuous, ideal. Saint Simon and Comte both use the lack of one to explain away the problems of the revolution and of course, the need for one to safeguard the revolutionary enterprise. By the time you get to Karl Kautsky and Lenin, you have them advocating something that sounds like a militarized nobility with a striking functional resemblance to the old military aristocracy already populating Europe. In theory, the vanguard (on the eve of the final revolution?) would include everyone, but then as Lenin speculated, the leadership positions would be filled by those earlier revolutionaries. I would even go so far as to read the general idea of these select as consisting their own estate.

And of course, you have a situation where one family can claim control of all the thrones of Europe, yet each country remained sectarian because of its aristocrats.
With communism, you can have one shared international idea of governance which remain sectarian because of its differing vanguards.

My point is something like this: so much of communism, when followed through, appears as an ironic application of the old throne&alter regime; almost like they literally mean the term revolution- as in, a 360 degree turn.
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Endovelico
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by Endovelico »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: My point is something like this: so much of communism, when followed through, appears as an ironic application of the old throne&alter regime; almost like they literally mean the term revolution- as in, a 360 degree turn.
I subscribe to the view that we are genetically inclined towards an authoritarian, hierarchical power structure. Therefore it isn't surprising that even the equalitarian revolutions end up in authoritarian, aristocratic systems. Democracy is so rare because it is an intellectual construction which goes against all our instincts. It takes a lot of work and dedication to keep a democracy, and most of us soon get tired of the effort.
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Enki
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Re: The Vanguard vs The Aristocracy

Post by Enki »

Endovelico wrote:
NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: My point is something like this: so much of communism, when followed through, appears as an ironic application of the old throne&alter regime; almost like they literally mean the term revolution- as in, a 360 degree turn.
I subscribe to the view that we are genetically inclined towards an authoritarian, hierarchical power structure. Therefore it isn't surprising that even the equalitarian revolutions end up in authoritarian, aristocratic systems. Democracy is so rare because it is an intellectual construction which goes against all our instincts. It takes a lot of work and dedication to keep a democracy, and most of us soon get tired of the effort.
I think we are inclined toward a dialectic seeking an equilibrium, but as we cannot achieve an equliibrium there is an elastic waveform that goes back and forth with it. Funny thing is that authority restrains authority. i.e. We get tough on crime and cops get overzealous and run amok and then authority clamps down and restrains cops which then appears as loosening restraint upon individuals.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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