“Read theory.”
We say this all the time. It’s basically an expression, isn’t it? It can be advise, bragging, scorn, mockery. It’s all become a bit ephemeral.
That’s not to say that people shouldn’t read theory. Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. Even so, isn’t it a bit silly to suggest, even implicitly, that being a Marxist or communist boils down to a familiarity with the source material? If that’s not book worship, I don’t know what is.
I understand that this is, on some level, an accusation. I am suggesting that many of our communities are caught up in a somewhat liberal, idealist mindset. We all have an ideology, a set of opinions about the world which we express and propagate at the expense of our competitors. Can we seriously deny this is what we are doing?
If Marxism-Leninism is a science, there must be some technical aspect. What are we supposed to do in the world? How do we do it? And how do we know if it’s working?
If Marxism-Leninism is a science, there must be some technical aspect. What are we supposed to do in the world? How do we do it? And how do we know if it’s working?
Check out the book The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism it covers this in its intro:
The word “science,” and, by extension, “scientific” in Marxism-Leninism has spe- cific meaning. Friedrich Engels was the first to describe the philosophy which he devel- oped with Marx as “Scientific Socialism” in his book Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. However, it should be noted that the English phrase “scientific socialism” comes from Engels’ use of the German phrase “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.”
“Wissenschaft” is a word which can be directly translated as “knowledge craft” in German, and this word encompasses a much more broad and general concept than the word “science” as it’s usually used in English. In common usage, the word “science” in English has a relatively narrow definition, referring to systematically acquired, objective knowledge pertaining to a particular subject. But “wissenschaft” refers to a systematic pursuit of knowledge, research, theory, and understanding. “Wissenschaft” is used in any study that involves system- atic investigation. And so, “scientific socialism” is only an approximate translation of “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.” So, “scientific socialism” can be understood as a body of theory which analyzes and interprets the natural world to develop a body of knowl- edge, which must be constantly tested against reality, with the pursuit of changing the world to bring about socialism through the leadership of the proletariat.
The book focuses on, as it says on the tin, The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism. It wants you to understand the philosophical methodology behinds Marxism-Leninism. Its a translation of a Vietnamese college course on ML theory that is required study for all college students.
So you must strive to have a Marxist-Leninist Worldview (The whole of an individual’s or society’s opinions and conceptions about the world, about humans ourselves, and about life and the position of human beings in the world.) and to build that worldview within you requires reading theory. You want to test your worldview against objective reality often and regularly.
Can you link to the book you’re talking about? I’m having trouble finding it.
https://archive.org/details/intro-basic-princ-marx-lenin-part-1-final/page/n1/mode/1up
Yeah I forget the book has like 3 names.
“Luna Nguyen’s groundbreaking translation”, “Banyan House Publishing”… Luna Oi!
This is a fantastic resource comrade. Thank you. Off the top of your head, do you know of a place I can find more textbooks or classroom-like material from communist countries available in the US? Either in print or digital?
If Marxism-Leninism is a science, there must be some technical aspect. What are we supposed to do in the world? How do we do it? And how do we know if it’s working?
The whole point of Marxism-Leninism is not to ‘make’ a revolution, but to prepare the conditions for revolution. We shouldn’t expect everyone to read theory, theory is just for the vanguard. But Marxists-Leninists should focus on improving mass consciousness before anything else. Every action should be subordinated to this particular task. An organization should exist solely for that purpose, until the task is achieved
I think “prepare” isn’t the right word here. Capitalism creates or “prepares” the material conditions for revolution. ML theory is a philosophical methodology to help you analyze your country’s and community’s specific material conditions and adapting you’re revolutionary praxis to those conditions. Each revolution will be colored by its specific material conditions and without a systematic approach you might miss the path forward. We do not set the conditions for revolution. We identify those conditions, through application of theory, and use that information to build a revolutionary movement.
Capitalism creates or “prepares” the material conditions for revolution.
Each revolution will be colored by its specific material conditions
We do not set the conditions for revolution. We identify those conditions, through application of theory
It’s true that we do not set the conditions for the revolution. But only a half-truth. There are material, but also subjective conditions. If the people disapproves the revolutionary movement, it won’t ever succeed. And even some material conditions are in our control, the extent of the organization of the revolutionary movement is a material thing. There are people involved.
Every revolutionary movement in the past featured intellectual, military leadership of groups of people or organizations. It’s our responsibility to prepare these conditions for revolution. But the revolution itself won’t happen by our choice.
Yes we agree. Your comment is an expanded version of what I meant by “We identify those conditions, through application of theory, and use that information to build a revolutionary movement.”
What you’re describing is praxis, the act of engaging with the material world so as to change it. The material world includes these “subjective conditions” you’re taking about. Those conditions are the hearts and minds of other people, and through practical activity in the world we shape and change the world.
Material Conditions are just the conditions under which the intellectual or military or working class or petty bourgeoisie groups live under. We must be able to identify how these groups are uniquely exploited. Then, take that information and use it to build solidarity across those groups.
Obviously were both being a bit pedantic with language here lol, but I often feel that specificity of language is important because we do not want to have misunderstandings, which is easy to do when words can have domain specific meanings and more general meanings.
Gotta read history in tandem with theory. We don’t have time to reinvent the wheel for every movement. Learning about the nitty gritty details of past experiments is one of the first steps towards building our own experiments. I think a lot of the problems on the left stem from consuming abstract theory without understanding the material conditions from which the theory was refined.
“Read theory”, to me, is a first but very important step. The more people read theory, the more people really understand why the movement exists. Unfortunately, after we actually read it, not everyone can put it into practice.
Person who read the books might not have union in his workplace, or being a communist in his environment is really unpopular and could harm him physically or mentally. In this situation, what can he actually do? How can he put theory into practice? And that, to me, the question majority of communists deal with all the time.
In this situation, the best way to utilise knowledge we got is to share it, try to push our ideas into masses because red scare didn’t go anywhere, myths about USSR, China, communism are still here and although they look more like a rotten corpse than actual arguments, people still fucking use them.
And that’s what most of us already do, which is great. I personally do it all the time, but it is not easy, even family members (or especially them) could be really hard to convince that communism will not take their food or make them all use the same toothbrush.
Trying to make people understand, or even listen, is not an easy and a very lengthy process. Some give up, some push forward, but if you don’t have any other means to help the movement, what can you actually do?
Unions, orgs, local communtiy organizing.
Start there, share your theory within those; you will find applying theory to real life, accessable things that you can go out and do tomorrow will be best suited to these three things; Used well they will propel any project you put your theory into, as they work and are accurate in modern day conditions.
