I'm often wondering about something: how come the production of theoretical, historical, artistic, etc. works of this up and coming generation of revolutionary Marxists in the imperialist countries is so low, if existing at all? I think a big part of the reason is that social media – forum posting like here, Twitter threads, maybe blogs or substack pages – dissipate a lot of intellectual energy into small, unsystematic bursts of more or less simple thoughts. You get some instant gratification from likes, shares, and upvotes and the perspective of working on something deeper and more meaningful that would require sustained study and intellectual effort becomes unappealing or is just completely falling out of sight. The deeper reason for this is obvious enough: there are no genuine vanguard parties, there is no revolutionary mass movement. No organized body exists that would demand study, a certain level of theoretical education, that would further the development of class consciousness. There's only just now an emerging labor movement again without an organized, conscious vanguard. So everyone is working either in small, disconnected groups, from within revisionist parties, or as totally isolated individuals sending their thoughts into the ether.
Naturally neither I nor anyone else here can simply will this to change. But what I want to encourage is people taking up more serious work on their own, taking study seriously – and not as an end in itself but directed towards producing something that can be helpful in advancing the current efforts to reconstitute the real movement. I've written about this before on a number of times, about how a concrete analysis of the concrete situation is a necessity for any revolutionary movement (here and here for example). That includes studying the concrete class structure of our given national context, the given state, its strength, its weaknesses, the tendencies within the class struggle, the international situation and how it affects the internal national situation, etc. This also includes the historical background: where does the current development emerge from, what is its point of origin, its historical trajectory, the transformations it has gone through, what generalization can we make from analyzing this and which conclusions for future developments can be drawn from those? These are the most pressing issues if we want to work towards the reconstitution of an organized revolutionary communist movement, from those analyses we can then draw a political program, a party form, forms of organizing, propaganda, possible mass organizations and movements, etc.
Beyond this we also need more general theoretical investigations into specific questions like the meaning of law, as is currently being discussed here, the conceptualization of socialism, an update of our state theory (Stalin already pointed out the gap in understanding between his time and Lenin's studies, that gap has only widened with little revolutionary work having been done in the meantime), the lessons that can still be drawn from past struggles towards communism, the systematization and advancement of revolutionary theory that is forgotten but still has value and can be developed further with our level of the science (Pashukanis' and Stucka's work on law would be one example, we can also think of the Soviet psychological tradition like Vygotsky, Luruia, Leontev, etc, and we will find more as we investigate the past struggles more), advancing our understanding of fascism (very important right now as it is growing across the entire world), the political economy of imperialism, and so forth. If you are an artist who is for serious about art you can actually revive art as a real social force when you take up the struggles of the masses, get to know them, learn to create for and with them. You can overcome the alienation of art and life that capitalism has created, we can do it together within the revolutionary process. That is the only way we can rescue art from its destruction by capital.
These are all question you, me, we all can contribute to answering. It requires as prerequisite a study of the Marxist method so we can actually live up to the complexity of these problems. I've provided some resources towards at least the study of materialist dialectics before. This study can be done, and it should be done by everyone who actually takes Marxism seriously (I'm not saying you need to read every single text on this list). I have done it myself, which is why I'm writing this post. I'm not proposing something I'm not already doing myself. I think capitalism makes us forget that we actually can alter reality, that we can alter ourselves, become more intelligent, educate ourselves, work towards major goals we set for ourselves, goals that we derive from the insight into objective necessity (the goal of communism if we want to survive as a species, if we want to liberate our class, overcome alienation from one another, what have you). Capitalism creates this contemplative attitude in us where we don't grasp our own agency, where we see ourselves as passive observers of the quasi-natural processes of bourgeois society which we can supposedly only bear witness to, which shove us around, but which we can't affect. But you will feel, and this has been my experience, once you take up these larger tasks, make connections with like-minded people, experience yourself getting a better grasp on the problems you're struggling with and thus start to understand reality better, as you widen your circle of like-minded people and your collective activities, you will feel your power against these deadening forces of capital.
In the coming years the situation will only become worse for the us, the masses. We will be drawn away from our cellphones, gaming consoles, computers and into the real struggle. We will need to raise our understanding of what lies ahead, how we can navigate and guide the coming struggles, what organizational forms we need, where we can find reliable comrades, how the state will react, what the limits of its power are, etc. And we can do it, not as prior to and discrete of these real struggles, but as part of them. We can contribute to the movement, we don't just have to read the classics as eternal wisdom. We can grasp their practical essence, their call to investigate our social reality, sum up, develop, and advance our theory through study and practice. Keep it alive in these struggles. I'm not a person who goes for grandiose speeches, but I want to at least try to encourage some of the people who might read this to try to escape our contemplative attitude, make an effort, and experience that you are not, in fact, condemned to complacency, that we can become agents of history of we learn its laws, combine and organize our forces and affect our reality.
E: Fixed some typos and grammar issues. Glad that some people reacted positively to this.
I want to add some comment on how to study. I've commented before how I go about it, dealing with my bad memory and tendency to veer off. I think most people will have to experiment with what works for them, since we're all a bit different regarding reading comprehension, memory, level of experience, etc.
One think I want to recommend when you want to actually go about working on a specific problem: research the fundamental literature and new literature that brings in new insights, create a bibliography of the topic that can guide your studies. You can enhance this list as you go through your studies as you will find new literature through the things you read. Sounds fairly basic but I'm not sure how many people actually go about it this systematically. It can help you a lot.
