Marxists do not disregard the role of great individuals on history. What Marxists disregard is the notion that history was arrested, so to speak, waiting for the great movers of history to propel it forward by being born great and having the innate correct ideas to push it so. The Marxist answer is that it isn’t ideas beamed into people’s heads from nothingness that drive history, but ready-made, constanrly evolving material conditions that shape and influence how we understand the world and the ideas we have.

Vanguards are not “elites.” In general, in any class, there are the more politically advanced, the less politically advanced, and the median. The vanguard is the solidified, organized section of the politically advanced of the revolutionary class. This organization allows the working class to rally around a spearpoint and press forward with its mass. Revolution without a spearpoint cannot be successful, nor can revolution be without mass support.

The reason for this outlook is dialectical and historical materialism, as opposed to liberal idealism. Marx advanced Hegel’s dialectical idealism, which was the most advanced way of interpreting the world pre-Marx, and was able to turn it right-side-up, creating dialectical materialism. This outlook, when applied to history, becomes historical materialism. History becomes the movement of material processes, economic movements, technological progressions, and class struggle. Capitalism did not come into existence because someone thought of liberalism, but gradually grew from small owners of capital moving from simple reproduction into reproduction on an expanded scale, then into winning conflict against the feudal lords, thanks to advents such as the steam engine.

Returning to your question, we disregard the idea of elites as the prime movers. Instead, material forces, class struggle, technological movements, economic forces, the whole of how we produce and distribute and the impacts of that mode of production are the drivers of history.

Hope that makes sense! If you want to read more, I made an introductory ML reading list! Feel free to check it out.

A person is only as great as the group of people standing with them.

Take Alexander - now remove his generals, his tutors, his retainers, his officials, his servants, his soldiers, his subjects, his slaves, and even his horse.

What is left? Just a man with a sword. Where is the greatness in that? Can he still build an empire from Egypt to India? Of course not.

History is written by collectives; change is brought about by collectives. There may be one name & face that stands out above others but this doesn’t mean it’s the only one that matters.

Lenin wasn’t alone. Stalin wasn’t alone. Mao wasn’t alone.

We are not alone and that’s exactly why we’re a threat to those in power.

“Great” men don’t exist. Momentous times exist. Positions of authority and power exist. In momentous times decisions are made by individuals in positions of authority and power. It is easier to remember the individuals than to remember what caused them to have to make the decisions and what other paths they could have chosen.

Elite theory isn’t “wrong” so much as it is just part of the story. Elite theory describes a reoccurring phenomenon as if it is permanent and not a temporary cycle. Marxism describes the underlying reasons why that phenomenon exists and why those conditions will stop existing.

Elite theory compared Marxism is like “what goes up must come down” compared to Newton’s Law of Gravity. Newton’s law describes the amount of attraction between all things and variables required to make something “go up without coming back down.”

Marxism is not a political theory or a description of the overthrow of capitalism. Dialectical and historical materialism are tools for analysis. Those tools show the inevitable fall of capitalism due to it’s contradictions and that Communism is the inevitable conclusion of human society (provided we don’t self destruct) This is why Communism was originally called “scientific socialism” and why Marxism is referred to as the “immortal science” it is the Scientific Method applied to history and politics.

To put it simply, Marxists use a materialist framework to analyze history. “Historical materialism” was developed by Marx and Engles who analyzed the material conditions of people, groups, institutions, etc. and how those conditions gave rise to historical events. Elite Theory posits that individuals, often rulers or small groups of powerful people, shape history by enacting their will. This analysis is often linear, with delineated actions of elites and responses by other elites. It rarely accounts for the other factors that do not pertain directly to the elites.

An Elite Theory analysis of Osama Bin Laden would likely land on simple terms (jihadist, terrorist) and motivations that are divorced from his own personal history or the material conditions of his life (he hates America for its freedom because he is a Islamic fundamentalist). A Historical Materialist analysis would investigate the economic and societal structures that informed Osama bin Laden’s (ie, his material conditions). What you find with historical materialism is that even elites arise from the interaction between economic and societal forces, and that really anyone with their same material conditions could affect history, albeit with their own motivations and outcomes that nonetheless can be analyzed through a materialist framework.

Elite Theory is simple history, often prescribing powerful men’s actions as the only force behind history. It’s an old, ahistoric theory that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, even if you don’t use historical materialism.

Plekhanov deals with this topic and many closely related issues is his On the Role of the Individual in History (1898) essay. I would recommend you read this in its entirety first.

I am struggling to see how so many revolutions would have succeeded merely by waiting for the masses to rise up by themselves?

This is not the ML dialectical materialist view. If you’re interested in exploring the relationship of masses and elites, which you’ve probably observed only in the reactionary West, I would recommend this essay from Roderic Day: Masses, Elites, and Rebels. When you read past revolutionaries like Lenin praising the proletariat for being revolutionary and holding the correct ideas, that’s not them sucking up to them, it’s a real description of a revolutionary proletariat in a revolutionary time lead by a communist party. Also, this short text by Stalin covers a very brief overview of the dialectical nature of these relationships.

Maybe you would also be interested in Gramsci’s writings about intellectuals and political parties from his Prison Notebooks, or dialectical materialist philosophy in general.

Some recommendations: there are more good essays on the topic on Red Sails, In Defense of Materialism - Plekhanov, The Dialectics of Nature - Engels, The Dialectical Biologist - Lewins and Levontin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism - Lenin