ANARCHIST COMMUNISTS: A QUESTION OF CLASS
4.3.
The Role of the Vanguard
As we have said, the need for political struggle, with all its complexities, its strategic subtleties and its dark side, leads to the creation of a political party, or vanguard, which detaches itself from the masses in order to protect the masses' interests, the only possible relationship being that of delegate. The party, guardian of orthodoxy and the only strategy for the salvation of the exploited, is the course of the correct line to follow and becomes separate from the class it seeks to represent. In fact, in its Leninist variety it must be formed by elements which do not come from the proletariat. This is because the workers (not to mention the peasants), being squeezed under the weight of their daily needs (economicism), are incapable of understanding the difference between their immediate needs and their historical needs, the satisfaction of which will lead to their emancipation.
For Anarchist Communists, the party (a word which Malatesta himself used), or the political organization of the Anarchist Communists, plays a role only within the proletarian movement. In other words, from within the daily struggles, it seeks to develop the class consciousness within the proletariat, to promote (as part of the proletariat's clash with the bourgeoisie) a revolutionary strategy which can allow consciousness of the historical needs to develop among the exploited, starting with their daily needs. In this case, the party does not make the revolution for the proletariat, it does not direct it in the proletariat's interest, it does not govern it for the good of the proletariat. It simply exists within the process of growth and emancipation of the proletariat, seeking to convince the rest of the proletariat that the ideas it promotes are a suitable way of reaching the goal. In order to do this, the party must develop analyses, proposals, reflections and must function as an enzyme for revolutionary development, as the historical memory of past victories and defeats and the fulcrum for a critical and useful re-examination of these.