Because I feel like I'm in one.
I believed in the necessity of a vanguard party for a long time, but...material conditions. If there were a well-defined leader—even of something like the protests in PDX—they would have already been imprisoned on trumped up charges or Fred Hampton'd. Likely the former at this time. Historical evidence suggests this is the case, as do present conditions. Based on how brutally we're seeing the police treat anonymous members of the antifascist resistance, it's getting really hard to imagine how it could be possible to have anything remotely resembling a leader, or even a party with a membership list and regular meetings.
I understand the implications the lack of a central organizing structure has on our ability to effectively resist the state, but because of how everything has played out so far it seems like this might...actually be working in our favor. At least, considering what's unfolded up to the present moment I have a hard time picturing it going better if we had defined leadership that the state was able to target right out of the gate.
There's also the fact that (at least I'm ready to concede this at this point) that the US in its entirety isn't going to undergo a socialist revolution backed by the masses, and that the most likely scenario heading in that direction is a balkanization with the emergence of something better as one of its fragments (most likely west coast/PNW). Such a something better would be more likely to (successfully) take the from of an autonomous region similar to Chiapas or Rojava, versus a traditional socialist state amidst a sea of late/post-war capitalism.
Finally, another thought regarding material conditions...who are the people out there at this very moment resisting the state? It's anarchists. No one, myself included, is effectively organizing any type of meaningful ML resistance to meet this moment, but there are folks out in the street fighting cops every single night. They are the ones doing the work, and all we can say about it is "hmm, sure looks like we are approaching revolutionary conditions". But...it's other folks doing the work, and we're sitting around hoping to cash in on it later.
I'm getting ready to jump ship.
I mostly agree with everything you said except that part. Any dominant structure (whether it is stateless or not, it really doesn't matter), only lasts as long as it is "winning". Saying we only need to win once kinds of imply that this victory couldn't be co-opted or re appropriated by revisionists and opportunists. There is no such thing as "one final victory".
Fair point. In theory, so long as the revolutionaries and their ideological descendants work to better the material conditions of the working class, then socialism will only need to win “the big fight” once. Of course, any governmental system can be thrown into peril via natural disaster (hello climate change!), failing economies, or by any other declination of the material conditions that allows other ideologies to rise. Hopefully, by the nature of socialism’s prioritizing of the working class, then the administrators of it (or perhaps lack thereof) will imbue that prioritization in decision making to ensure that the masses are cared for. That will be up to the post revolutionary society to figure out, how to “defend” the revolution, from reactionaries, corruption, and overly complicated bureaucracy that prevents meaningful working class improvement. Let us hope that whoever does bring about the revolution recognizes your valid point in addition to the revolutionary situation