Vanguardism

Vanguardism is the theory that a disciplined revolutionary party can lead workers toward political revolution. It assigns the party a guiding role in developing revolutionary consciousness and organizing collective action.

Vanguard party: A centralized political organization that claims to lead a revolutionary movement on behalf of the working class. This is the organization through which vanguardism proposes to direct revolutionary activity.
What Is to Be Done?: Vladimir Lenin's 1902 pamphlet arguing for a disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries. It is the central early text associated with the case for a revolutionary vanguard.
Luxemburgism: A revolutionary socialist tradition associated with Rosa Luxemburg, emphasizing mass action and workers' initiative. Luxemburg criticized excessive party centralization and stressed the creative role of mass movements.
Communist International: An international organization founded in 1919 to coordinate communist parties and promote world revolution. It spread organizational standards rooted in the Bolshevik model of party leadership.
Democratic centralism: An organizational principle combining internal debate with unified action after a decision is made. It offers a model for balancing discussion within the party with discipline in its public work.
Vladimir Lenin: Russian revolutionary and political theorist who led the Bolsheviks and the 1917 October Revolution. Lenin developed the influential account of party leadership underlying vanguardism.
Council communism: A communist tradition advocating workers' councils as the basis of political power and revolutionary organization. It locates leadership in workers' councils rather than a party claiming to represent workers.
Marxism–Leninism: A political doctrine that developed from Lenin's ideas and became the official ideology of the Soviet Union and other states. It institutionalized vanguard-party leadership as a principle of communist rule.
Class consciousness: Awareness of shared class interests and of the social relations shaping them. Vanguardism assigns the party a role in cultivating this awareness among workers.
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party: A Marxist political party founded in the Russian Empire in 1898 and divided into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. Its disputes over organization and leadership formed the immediate setting for Lenin's theory.

Linked from 9 pages