A Necessary Introduction

Welcome to The Internationalist Vanguard. You may be wondering what exactly The Internationalist Vanguard is. There is both a long answer and a short one.

The long answer is that The Internationalist Vanguard is a blog dedicated to alternative thinking. This means you will be able to read regular posts about many things: politics, economics, social and environmental issues, as well as current events. From time to time, you may even read reviews of books that are of particular importance. Perhaps some day The Internationalist Vanguard will appear as a print publication of some kind. But not today.

The short answer, of course, is that The Internationalist Vanguard is an idea. Or rather, a collection of ideas. It will grow and change over time, as all ideas do. Maybe it is best to leave it at that.

It may have occurred to you that “alternative thinking” is a vague, undefined term. This is not a mistake. The ideas put forward by The Internationalist Vanguard do not belong to any one formalized school of thought. Many ideas now considered to be outside of the mainstream were once commonly accepted and produced tangible benefits when applied by people around the world.

Yet Francis Fukuyama claims to have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that, with the collapse in 1991 of the “communist” regimes in Eastern Europe, we have reached “the end of history.” That the evolution of human social relations has finally reached its apex in neo-liberalism, which has ushered in an age of unlimited growth and prosperity. Perhaps we should then kick back and enjoy our newfound wealth and good fortune.

Then again, perhaps not. 17 years into this new golden age, some disturbing trends are appearing.

Here in the West, the social programs that the working classes sacrificed so much to achieve in the first half of the 20th century are being systematically plundered and dismantled by government. Corporate privilege is reaching levels not seen since before the Great Depression. The gap between rich and poor is growing by leaps and bounds, and civil liberties are being severely curtailed.

Abroad, “developing” nations seem to be doing very little developing. Saddled by self-perpetuating debt that grows with each passing year, the poorest nations are in worse shape than at any time in recent memory.

It is this contradiction between the “end of history” and the stark reality of our times that The International Vanguard intends to address. This will be done by offering ideas and analysis of the current situation in our society and the world at large.

However, The Internationalist Vanguard makes no claims to infallibility. Dialectics teaches us that no idea can be embraced with any confidence that has not prevailed against every possible counter-argument. In this spirit, feedback from readers is not just encouraged, but considered vital to the development of useful ideas. Readers are encouraged to leave comments on the blog itself, or respond directly to internationalistvanguard@gmail.com.

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This month marks the 90th anniversary of the world’s first successful proletarian revolution. On 7 November 1917, the worker and peasant masses of Russia took power into their own hands. People’s power in the Soviet Union lasted less than a decade before the Revolution was betrayed. Yet it still seems appropriate to invoke the hope and idealism present during those momentous days in Petrograd as recorded by journalist John Reed:

“It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government, to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an ‘adventure’. Adventure it was, and one of the most marvelous mankind has ever embarked upon, sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast and simple desires.”

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