We need some kind of counter to the "anti-leninism" that infests this site. It starts with the defense of Lenin's idea of the vanguard. Wow me please.

I don't know if I'd really put myself under the "Leninist" banner for various reasons but neither would I consider myself an "Anti-Leninist" so I guess I could have a shot at outlining my understanding of this question...

It is a simple fact that the development of socialist consciousness within the working class is not uniform. Some sections of the working class will be extremely theoretically conscious and practically active (Usually a minority within a minority) while others will hold downright reactionary views.

The workerist/syndicalist/spontaneist types are completely correct when they argue that the working class naturally gravitates towards socialist politics. However even Lenin himself was quite ready to admit this:

"Workers have the class instinct, and, given some political experience, they pretty soon become staunch Social-Democrats." (Speech on the Question of the Relations Between Workers and Intellectuals)

"It is often said that the working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism. This is perfectly true in the sense that socialist theory reveals the causes of the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily... The working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism." (What is to be Done?)

What the spontaneist types miss however is that "bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still greater degree." (ibid, emphasis added) As Marx and Engels state in the German Ideology those who control the means of production and distribution simultaneously control the means of information production and distribution. In capitalist society this allows the bourgeoisie to impose it's hegemony and ideology upon the working class.

Luckily some workers manage to break through the ideology presented to them by capitalism and realise socialist consciousness. However they are only a minority. The question is not then wether or not we should organise in a "mass" way or in a minoritarian way but wether or not we should organise at all. The role of the vanguard party is not to substitute itself for the proletariat but to present and organised and united socialist front which can spread socialist ideals throughout the working class and make the whole working class into a vanguard capable of seizing power.

As a point of interest there was actually an anarchist, Georges Fontenis, who wrote about the need for a vanguard party in his "Manifesto of Libertarian Communism". Relevant link: http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mlc/mlc4.html

Now if only more anarchists could be like Fontenis

I think the best way to do this is to educate ourselves on what a vanguard party is and its role. Here are a few good links on the subject:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/clif...3/05/lenin.htm
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol...01/martin.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luka...story/ch08.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luka...al-mission.htm