As of late, I’ve been trying to get back into reading political theory to prepare myself for college. I started out by reading a collection of Lenin’s works, written from before the 1917 Revolution to after. While reading these chapters, however, I found myself having to re-read the same pages over and over again, and even then I was not really understanding what he was saying. Anyone who has read political theory, particularly Marxist theory, knows how incomprehensible many pamphlets and books may be. Political theory is wordy, dense, and makes reference to many different people and events. Frankly, it’s usually an extremely complicated and pretentious jumble of words that can only be properly understood by academics or people with deep prior knowledge of the topic in question. This seems counterintuitive considering the whole point of political theory (in the Marxist sense) is to educate people and help them reach a point (often referred to as class consciousness) where they can effectively participate in a revolution against the current system. In fact, Lenin himself said, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement” in his pamphlet What Is To Be Done? Given the importance of theory to the struggle, one would expect it to be written in a manner which is accessible for the masses.
Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that works such as Lenin’s pamphlets were written over one hundred years ago in Russian and then translated into English. Because of this, it is hard to understand the theory—most people are missing the necessary context. Russian peasants and workers in the early twentieth century were reading and (presumably) understanding the arguments of the Bolsheviks. Pamphlets were being printed and distributed throughout Petrograd and there was political discourse happening in the streets among industrial workers and “intellectuals.” As mentioned, the whole point of publishing this theory was to inspire a revolution among the masses, and they clearly succeeded in doing so. However, all these years later, much of this theory has become inaccessible to everyone but historians and students of the Russian Revolution.
The ideas expressed in Marxist theory from the twentieth century are still very much applicable to our current world. Similar to back then, society is being shaken at its core due to political instability and disillusionment with the current economic system, —workers are being oppressed and the gap between the wealthy and the working class is growing. The issue is that the intended audience from before is no longer the audience consuming these works. As I read through Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, I kept wishing for a translator of sorts, to put these concepts into words I understood. Usually upon reading a pamphlet or book written by a Marxist, I need to go on YouTube and look up summaries of what I just read because I feel like I processed absolutely nothing. Those YouTubers who make crash course videos on Marxist theory are life savers: I’ve learned more from them than I have from any esteemed nineteenth or twentieth century author. This got me thinking: this is exactly what the revolutionary movement needs. There need to be people who study Marxist theory and then “translate it,” whether it be into short books, podcasts, infographics, videos, or other accessible formats. Anything to spread these ideas and make them easier to understand for the everyday person would be a benefit. Additionally, I really wish we learned more about political theories and economic systems at school, but people would protest and call that “Communist propaganda.” Regardless, theory should be more accessible; it shouldn’t just be a group of twenty-year-olds on Discord debating each other over something Engels wrote. If once more people have learned about the theories of Marxism and been able to see past the anti-communist fear mongering in our country, perhaps we will be a little closer to an upheaval of this entire system.
Resources if you’re interested in learning more about communism, specifically Marxism:
- Communist Party USA: Online Marxist School from May 20 to June 10 (free and you can choose to come to just one of the classes, some of the classes, or all of the classes).
- In Defense of Marxism: An online newspaper with current events (workers strikes, negotiations, etc) and theory.
- Marxists Internet Archive: Practically all the theory ever published in a variety of languages.
- @Marxism_Today on YouTube: “Left-wing political educational content, video essays, history, cultural analysis and more from a modern Irish socialist republican, Marxist perspective.”