this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Historically, this just doesn't work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as "MAGA Communism." Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.
In the lead-up to the Russian Revolution, there was disagreement over the necessity of reading theory. The SRs thought it was unneccessary, and got in the way of unity. Lenin and the Bolsheviks disagreed, as theory informs correct practice. The SRs became a footnotez and the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing the world's first Socialist state. One of Lenin's most fanous lines, from What is to be done? is "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary practice."
As studying theory is necessary, people will realize you're repackaging Socialism. This will backfire, and people will realize they've been tricked. This will hurt the movement.
As for Dialectical Materialism, in a nutshell it's the philosophical backbone of Marxism. It's an analytical tool, focusing on studying material reality as it exists in context and in motion through time, as well as their contradictions. If you want an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list that will teach you the fundamentals, I have one here that I made.
I don't think we should be emulating Lenin or the USSR. I think that's what is backfiring.
"Read theory" is how they trick us, forcing us into dogmatic religious-like application of historical texts.
Why don't we write theory? Marx and Lenin weren't gods. They got things wrong.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR. I don't see what is "backfiring," if you could elaborate on that I'd appreciate it. The thing is, the USSR broadly got many things unquestionably correct. They also had missteps, and we can learn from those just as much as we can from their achievements. The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
As for reading theory and "dogmatism," this is indeed a problem, but not as big a problem as avoiding theory. You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
As for new theory, there is new analysis all the time! Much of older theory absolutely holds up, especially Marx and Lenin, but new theory exists too. I am currently reading Michael Hudson's Super-Imperialism, which analyzes the modern form of the US Empire and how it extracts wealth as a debtor country. The reading list I made has older theory I consider essential, as well as newer works.
One might say that Marx is like Newton, describing/discovering many things and setting a foundation for their field. Saying "we shouldn't read Newton because his stuff is old" or that his ideas are wrong simply because they are old is ludicrous. Both of them probably had things they got wrong, sure, and newer theory corrects this, but they still set the foundations.
While one might not read Newton directly in school, so for some Marxist theory it is too (see Elementary Principles of Philosophy teaching DiaMat), but Marxs books that haven't been superseded in this way should still be read.
Fantastic way of putting it! People have iterated on Marx and Lenin, but the basic building blocks were first set by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, and as a consequence modern theorists use those tools in new conditions. You must still engage with these tools to have a better idea of how they apply to modern contexts.
Similarly: Saying we shouldn't read theory, is akin to saying we shouldn't learn science. You are going to have a very difficult time doing particle physics if you have no understanding of the world. Exactly as we say that without theory you are just going to be redoing the same stuff, so would every scientist have to rediscover the basics.
100%, excellent point comrade. For any onlookers, the concept she is describing here is the foundation of Marx's notion of Scientific Socialism, analyzing human development as a science like any other in order to master its trajectories. Just like fire was once dangerous and sporadic for cavemen, the advancements in understanding how to start and control fire leaped development forward. So too can mastering the laws of human societal progression and organization.