If we start from what is before us-not from what we would like, nor from what the texts say, but from concrete experience-the panorama is recognizable: scattered activists, political spaces that think and develop, and at the same time a working class that resists as best it can, that occasionally enters into conflict, but without continuity or stable organization. It is not a total absence of movement, but neither is it a movement capable of sustaining itself, expanding, and recognizing itself as such. And yet, this is not a new problem. The recent history of the labor movement is marked by this same difficulty: the gap between the class's capacity for struggle and the capacity of its detachments to organize it in a lasting way .
Therefore, before answering what our tasks are, it's worth asking ourselves from what perspective we're thinking. Because, when faced with this situation and ask ourselves what to do, we immediately tend to consider: do we focus on building a stable organization within the immediate struggles of our class? Or do we prioritize building a vanguard organization capable of providing direction to that movement? Do we do both? And the question seems sensible. But precisely for that reason, we must pause: if we frame it as a choice between separate tasks that must be combined, we're already starting from the wrong perspective.
To address this issue, we need to take stock. This is the starting point. But the result of this exercise cannot consist of simply organizing tasks as if they were isolated compartments. The risk lies not only in taking refuge in the past or substituting analysis for practice, but in something deeper: unquestioningly adopting a fragmented way of seeing reality. And that is where empiricism comes in: when we treat as separate things that, in practice, only exist as moments in the same process. Without this rupture, all practice is condemned to operate within the very limits it seeks to transcend.
And the truth is that empiricism is at work when we accept, almost without realizing it, that on one hand there is the construction of the vanguard and on the other the evolution of the mass movement. However, if we look again more closely, what we find are not two parallel processes that intersect, but a single process that appears disjointed: detachments that develop without the capacity for real influence, and a class that moves without the capacity for continuity or generalization.
For this assessment to be effective and not remain superficial, it is essential to embrace the need for a deep theoretical foundation. This is not an academic luxury, but a practical requirement to break free from the paralyzing immediacy and empiricism. Theoretical training is the tool that allows us to transcend partial and immediate experience and connect current struggles with the historical development of our class.
It is within this framework that the historical assessment is fully articulated. Understanding reality cannot be limited to what is immediately before us; rather, it requires comprehending the entire process-the advances, setbacks, ruptures, and continuities-of the working class as a historical subject. Only by addressing this framework of totality can we construct a strategic reading of our present; otherwise, our reading of reality will be shortsighted, and our practice will be condemned to repeat past mistakes. Theoretical training and historical assessment are therefore essential to guide strategy and project a practice that not only resists but also transforms.
The problem, then, is not just what to do, but from what perspective we are thinking about what we do. Because when reality is perceived as fragmented, responses tend to be organized in a fragmented way as well . And that is where we need to break free from that mechanistic view to analyze the problem from the perspective of the whole. At that point, the balance ceases to be an exercise in erudition and becomes a guide for action: either we understand the disconnect between the vanguard and the masses as the expression of a single, disjointed process, or we will continue to reproduce the fragmentation in our own practice.
Hence, the most widespread response-though rarely fully articulated-is to accept this separation and try to manage it: building organization on the one hand, "being in the classroom" on the other, and intervening when possible. Here, too, it's worth pausing a bit longer. Because what exactly does "being in the classroom" mean? Is it enough to be in large spaces, to have a presence, to address more or less extensive groups? If intervention doesn't occur within the actual movement of the class-in its immediate conflicts, in its attempts to organize, in the concrete processes where the class negates and transcends the current state of affairs-then that presence remains superficial. And a superficial presence doesn't rebuild anything: it accompanies, observes, or comments, but it doesn't transform.
But even this isn't enough. Because it's not just about being present where the class is moving, but about how one intervenes in that movement. Without a practice capable of connecting these partial conflicts, of extracting a shared experience from them, and of projecting them beyond their immediate context, what remains is a succession of struggles that begin and end without leaving behind a more developed form of organization. And then the problem reappears in another form: on the one hand, an organization that reproduces itself without the capacity to articulate social force; on the other, struggles arise, but fail to connect, accumulate experience, or project themselves beyond the immediate. The separation between prioritizing the vanguard or a stable mass organization solves nothing: it only manages the impasse.
If the problem lies in how we are separating what in reality appears to be one, then the task cannot simply be to "balance" both parts, but rather to rethink them in terms of their relationship. Because the vanguard and the masses are not two distinct subjects that meet from the outside, but rather two dialectical moments in the same process of class organization . In other words, the vanguard is not constructed beforehand in order to intervene later; it only exists to the extent that it manages to organize, connect, and project the real movement of the class. And, conversely, this movement that we perceive as fragmented is not an absence of a subject: it is a still dispersed form of the class's own organization. Framed in this way, the problem ceases to be how to relate two separate things, and becomes how to develop a single process that today appears to us as divided.
Thinking of political organization and mass organization as two distinct objects forces an impossible operation: imagining a vanguard already constituted, closed in on itself, which would then come to relate to a class external to it. But then the question arises that dismantles the fiction: where does this vanguard come from, if not from the very class movement it seeks to organize? What other political material could nourish it, what other experience could shape it, if not the real, contradictory, and unequal struggle of the class itself? As soon as this question is taken to its logical conclusion, the separation collapses on its own. The vanguard does not precede mass organization as a finished subject; it emerges from it, condenses it, and returns it expanded. Nor does mass organization passively await external direction: in its very unfolding, it already produces embryos of consciousness, discipline, initiative, and program. To separate them is to treat as two things what only exists as a single process at different stages of development.
That's why the idea of "relating" the two is, fundamentally, a misstep. Because if they were truly two separate objects, the relationship between them would always have to be explained from the outside: mediation, connection, influence, direction. But that already presupposes what I was trying to demonstrate, namely, that there is one pole capable of organizing and another that must be organized. Reality, however, cannot be divided in this way. The vanguard only exists as the most concentrated moment of the class's self-organization, and mass organization only reaches its historical potential when that dispersed movement begins to take conscious form . They are not two entities that meet; they are two sides of the same coin, which only becomes real when the class begins to organize itself on a higher scale. That's why separation, not differentiation, clarifies nothing: on the contrary, it obscures the process, fragments it, and forces us to think as external to what we are in fact an active part of.
This also forces us to rethink how we understand each of these moments. Because the vanguard, if it is anything more than a self-definition, cannot be measured by its degree of internal coherence or its capacity for abstract thought. Its reality is played out on another terrain: in its ability to insert itself at the points where the class enters into contradiction, to intervene in the processes where that contradiction is organized, and to allow what appears as an isolated conflict to begin to be recognized as part of something broader. It is not, therefore, a matter of "being in the class" in a generic sense, but of being an active part of its real movement: there where the struggle takes place, where attempts are made to organize, where possibilities open and close. Outside of that terrain, what remains is a vanguard that asserts itself as such, but which cannot be verified in practice.
At the same time, this real movement of the class cannot be conceived as pure spontaneity that will, at some point, reach a higher form on its own. Historical experience shows the opposite: that struggles do arise, yes, and that they do become partially organized, also yes, but that they tend to become exhausted, isolated, or absorbed if they fail to connect with one another and acquire continuity. But this limitation cannot be overcome from the outside. It cannot be resolved by waiting for the right moment or by applying prefabricated schemes. It is resolved in the very development of these struggles, insofar as they incorporate elements that propel them forward: greater organization, greater collective awareness, and greater capacity for collective decision-making.
This is where the role of the vanguard comes into play, not as an external force directing the movement, but as an internal force propelling development toward a fundamentally political horizon. But let no one be mistaken: integrating the political organization into the class struggle is not about using the union as a mere conduit to feed the Party, nor is it about manipulating assemblies to impose a line dictated from the outside. That is not vanguardism; it is bureaucratic parasitism. In other words, the vanguard only acts as such when it manages to articulate the struggle around the emancipation of the working class.
Therefore, separating the construction of the vanguard from the construction of mass organizations is not just a mistake in approach: it's a way of blocking both. Because a vanguard that isn't built in this process is reduced to a self-reproducing structure, incapable of influencing the reality it seeks to transform. And, conversely, struggles that fail to articulate themselves beyond the immediate are condemned to start over again and again, without ever regaining real strength after each retreat. The consequence is well-known: on the one hand, an organization without roots; on the other, conflict without continuity. And between the two, a void that isn't filled with willpower, but with practice.
But if this is the problem, then so is any practice that reduces intervention to managing the immediate. Because the struggle for immediate conditions, in and of itself, does not automatically transform into political struggle . It can even become exhausted by its own repetition if it fails to overcome its isolation. The point, therefore, is not only to organize conflicts, but to organize them in such a way that they become accumulated experience, collective capacity, a broader understanding of the class's position within society as a whole. This is where theoretical elaboration ceases to be a separate moment and becomes an intrinsic necessity of practice: not as discourse added from the outside, but as a synthesis of what the struggles themselves contain in a dispersed form.
However, understanding this profound connection between our work and the life of the labor movement should not lead us to the old mistake of dissolving our specific organization into the union. The union brings together the exploited simply because they are exploited; our organization, on the other hand, brings together those who already have a conscious will to destroy the system. We need to maintain our strict ideological autonomy so as not to be swept along by the inertia of daily struggles, so as not to end up condemned to begging for a few more crumbs from the boss.
Our goal, the political horizon toward which we are pushing, is not a slightly less miserable agreement. It is the definitive expropriation of the means of production and the liquidation of the State with the consequent abolition of class society.
Believing that the union, through its mere quantitative growth and the inertia of the strike, will by itself solve the problem of political power and the liquidation of the State is a mirage that history has already charged us for in blood, in a paradigmatic way, after the days of May '37.
To chart the course toward that material goal, we anarchists need a clear revolutionary program. A program that is not limited to grand slogans, but that defines the steps, the demands for rupture, and the strategy of confrontation against capital.
But we know full well that revolution isn't decreed from an office and that a program is a dead letter if it lacks a method for taking root among the working class. We are not shepherds to guide a blind flock, nor is our program a list of orders for a passive mass. If the people don't emancipate themselves through their own strength and will, the revolution will be a farce.
Our ideas and our program only take shape when the militant becomes immersed in the struggles of their comrades. Our task is not to command, but to use our historical tools to forge a proletarian culture of combat in every strike, every assembly, and every conflict. And what are these tools? Direct action, so that the problems are solved by those directly affected, without delegating to politicians or bureaucrats; direct democracy and federalism, to structure the strength of the class from the ground up; and the constant practice of solidarity.
These practices are not the program itself, but tools through which we demonstrate in practice that workers are perfectly capable of managing production and social life without the need for masters.
It is precisely this practical requirement that determines the relationship between our detachment and the broader workers' movement. A specific organization isolated from the working class is sterile; but a mass devoid of revolutionary culture easily falls prey to reformists, opportunists, and bureaucrats. Only by walking together, with us being the leaven that ferments within the mass, will we pave the way.
If we accept this to the fullest extent, then there is one unavoidable consequence: we cannot wait. We cannot wait for the class struggle to "emerge" before intervening, nor for conditions to "ripen" so that the vanguard can find its place. But what exactly does waiting mean? In practice, it means postponing the task to an indeterminate future, as if the development of the conflict were a process external to our own activity.
However, the reality is different: material conditions are not an external fact that is merely observed, but something that is also produced . They are produced to the extent that there is intervention, organization, and sustained conflict.
And if this is the case, then the recomposition of the avant-garde cannot be conceived as a separate, preliminary phase, resolved on a theoretical level and then "applied" to reality. It necessarily unfolds on the very ground where these conditions emerge.
This forces us to be more specific. Because if we speak of a "real movement of the working class," where is it most clearly expressed today? Not in just any space, nor in any practice, but, yesterday as today, wherever the working class comes into direct contact with the material conditions of its exploitation and is compelled to organize. Where the bourgeoisie confronts, as such, those of us who sell our labor power. In this sense, the sphere of work, and in particular the trade union arena-understood in its broadest sense-appears as a privileged space and the unavoidable battleground for our intervention . Not because it exhausts the horizon of the struggle in itself, but because it concentrates contradictions that can be developed in a broader sense. It is there that exploitation becomes immediate and where the need for organization ceases to be a slogan and becomes a practical and tangible demand for the majority of our class .
But even here, it's important not to oversimplify. Simply "being in the union" isn't enough. If intervention is limited to reproducing existing inertia-delegation, passivity, powerless negotiation-what is reinforced is not the class's capacity, but its limitations. The point is something else entirely: to intervene in these spaces to push forward processes that go beyond the status quo. To foster forms of organization that engage the workforce as members of the working class, to promote collective decision-making, to sustain conflicts that allow for the accumulation of experience and trust. Ultimately, it's about transforming the union into a battering ram for class political struggle, not merely a tool for managing conflict.
And it is in this process that the vanguard reconstitutes itself. Not as a result of isolated internal development, but as the product of a practice that manages to articulate, even if partially and contradictorily, broader sectors of the class. Because the vanguard is not measured by what it claims about itself, but by what it is capable of bringing into being in reality: organization, struggle, continuity. Outside of this framework, all growth is merely apparent. Within it, even modest advances can have strategic significance. The question, then, ceases to be whether we are building a vanguard or building a movement, and becomes whether our practice is capable of concretely advancing the organization of the class as a whole.
Accepting this is not comfortable, because it shifts the center of gravity. It forces us to stop thinking of the avant-garde as a separate space that strengthens itself before intervening, and instead understand it as a function that only exists in its exercise. It also forces us to abandon waiting, to break with the idea that there is an "appropriate" moment that will arrive through the mechanical self-propulsion of capital's objective contradictions. That moment is not given: it is built . And it is built under adverse conditions, with partial advances, with errors, with setbacks. But either it is built, or it is not built at all.
Hence, the task admits of no postponements or shortcuts. Rebuilding the vanguard is nothing other than rebuilding, in practice, the class's capacity to organize, fight, and win conflicts through its own strength. It is not a problem to be solved before intervening, but rather during the intervention itself. It is not a phase, but a process. And in that process, every organized space, every sustained conflict, every advance in self-organization and collective consciousness is not a preliminary step: it is already part of the outcome.
Because, ultimately, the question isn't whether we intervene more or less, or whether we are more or less present. The question is what kind of capacity we are building. If the intervention succeeds in getting the class to organize itself, to accumulate experience, to broaden its horizons, and to begin recognizing itself as a collective subject confronting the entirety of the social order, then there is recomposition. If not, all effort tends to dissolve in the immediate. The vanguard, in that sense, is nothing other than that developing capacity. And for that very reason, it cannot exist apart from it: either it is built within the real movement of the class, as an active part of its transformation into a political subject, or it ceases to be the vanguard and becomes something else. Recomposing it is not a preliminary task. It is the process itself.
Either the vanguard exists within the actual movement of the class , pushing it forward and transforming itself with it, or it does not exist .
T. Morago
1 This article continues the strategic debate opened by T. Mora in "Anarchism and Vanguard" ( Libertarian Regeneration , March 2024). The development of our historical assessment and the analysis of capital as a whole will be addressed in future publications. Here, the aim is to ground the discussion in the material relationship between the specific organization and the working class as a whole. Addressing and resolving this tension in real conflicts is the necessary step to materialize any organizational recomposition.
2 This does not imply undervaluing organization in the sphere of social reproduction (housing, consumption, etc.), which is indispensable for the survival of our class in the face of secondary expropriation. However, the dilution of our forces on fronts disconnected from production generates sterile activism where the proletariat only offers an asymmetrical associative power. Priority intervention must target production and logistics (the supply chain), since it is there that the class wields structural power: the real capacity to disrupt the engine of capital, that incessant drive toward the self-valorization of value through the extraction of surplus value.
3 Despite this, the very development of capital exacerbates, strains, alleviates, and transforms the contradictions that decisively affect the state of the class struggle. The question, then, is how and in what direction we transform reality, given specific material conditions.
https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/06/22/recomponer-la-vanguardia/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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