The concept of professional revolutionaries, alternatively called cadre, is in origin a Leninist concept used to describe a body of devoted communists who spend the great majority of their time organizing their party toward proletarian revolution. This core is usually very small, and as a consequence is sometimes cited for being the cause of the return to capitalism of the so-called 'Communist states'. Most Marxists argue that a cadre core is necessary in one form or another. Trotskyists do not believe that professional revolutionaries or vanguardism are to blame from the eventual totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union, its satellite states, and the People's Republic of China. Instead they cite Stalinism as the cause, coupled with an unprepared proletariat. In Lenin's original work the purpose of the cadre is to educate the masses and essentially bring the entire population to the level of "professional revolutionaries". Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... This article is about communism as a form of society, as an ideology advocating that form of society, and as a popular movement. ... A communist revolution is a social revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, normally with socialism (public ownership over the means of production) as an intermediate stage. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... This article is about one-party states ruled by Communist Parties. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... In the context of revolutionary struggle, vanguardism is a strategy whereby an organization (usually a vanguard party) attempts to place itself at the center of the movement, and steer it in a direction consistent with its ideology. ... The concept of Totalitarianism is a typology or ideal-type used by some political scientists to encapsulate the characteristics of a number of twentieth century regimes that mobilized entire populations in support of the state or an ideology. ... The term satellite state, by analogy to stellar objects orbiting a larger object, such as planets revolving around the sun, refers to a country that is formally sovereign but that is in fact dominated by a larger hegemonic power. ... For architecture, see Stalinist architecture. ...

Basing themselves on What is to be Done?, the pamphlet that bore the idea, Trotskyists and other communists today advocate for a "mass party" with a membership of millions of working class people, thereby maximizing, in their view, direct participation in the revolution and the subsequent revolutionary government. What Is to Be Done? (Russian: ) was a political pamphlet, written by Vladimir Lenin at the end of 1901 and early 1902. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ...

See also

• Cadre
• Vanguard party
• Vanguardism