It seems that the concept of vanguardism has been neglected in favor of populism.

That was the most plain and clear explanation I've seen yet. Thanks for taking the time.

If you're more interested, I'd recommend State and Revolution, as well as What is to be done?

I have the former on my reading list

Good to hear

On my personal opinion, contemporary politics can be called "Politics of Personality"

We all know an organized cadre of supporters is better for the long run than your popularity.

Organisation of unity is the most important, as Lenin said it best

That's why my favorite model of organizing political movements is the Marxist-Leninist vanguard.

Combining Marxist economics and Leninist praxis is pretty based

Even the Nazi Party and the Italian fascists copied the vanguard concept.

And so did the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek

And the Singaporean People's Action Party

Lenin's understanding and contribution to scientific socialism, dialectical materialism, is also notable

Today, what do we have?

Populists like to use the problem-reaction-solution concept, as in bring up contemporary problem, say that you have the key to the solution, and exploit your prior reputation to amplify ypur bid.

We have a lot of revolutionary potential in many, in particular, third world countries, but nothing to lead this potential into revolution, to guide the revolution, to actually do something

Yeah. Populism does not help.

Leninism is definitely in dire needs of visiting those countries

The vanguard concept is the reason why philosophies like Marxism and Fascism were very successful in the 20th century.

To form a vanguard to guide this revolutionary potential into success

Yeah.

As Mao said, "Without the Communist Party, there would be no new China."

That quote summarizes the importance of vanguardism, no matter the ideology.

Exactly, you can't just expect a bunch of workers to do something without organisation or actually knowing what they're supposed to do

Like an army with no generals, no officers

Even anarchist movements need some level of organization at a local level. It makes sense.

Or for populism, an army with one general but no in-between subordinates.

Who's more likely to win? An organised citizens militia with a vanguard to organise and arm, or the same thing except the state controls it

And if it's guerrilla warfare for the citizens militia, then it's likely they would victor

We saw how the Chinese Civil War went down....

Now, I do have huge problems with how poorly communist China was ran, but the revolution was as close to clean victory as it gets.

The CCP were just basically armed peasants but organized by a vanguard.

The Nationalist Republic was basically an confederation of armies led by a strongman.

And who won?

The ones who knew the land.

The ones who had more to lose.

Not to mention the Nationalist generals squabbling on each other.

And the CCP was 'blessed' with the former Manchukuo as their staging ground.

The Nationalists have war-torn land to start with.

iirc, the American Revolution was only possible because the British generals acted like children with too much power, whereas Washington listened to his subordinates, who in turned listened to him.

Manchukuo used to be Imperial Japan's spoiled child.