“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?
“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?