How Marxists are Formed

[Music] [Music] welcome to Communists of America this recording is from the 2023 National Congress of what used to be socialist Revolution the US section of the international Marxist dependency this year at the end of July we will be founding a new party the Revolutionary Communists of America if you are a member and have not made preparations to attend this historic Congress there's still time to do so right now if you're not a member and you want to attend the Congress reach out to us at the join Link in the description of this podcast any genuine communist needs to be at this event in this episode we are going to play the beginning of a discussion on an organizational resolution that we had last year called how marxists are formed and even though this Congress discussion happened last year it's still very important we always find ourselves having to come back to building the granite Foundation of Marxist theory Antonio Balmer LED off this discussion and without further Ado I will let him explain exactly what this resolution entailed well comrades I'm uh very excited about this session it's one that I've been looking forward to for uh for quite a while and this is a it's on the basis of a resolution that's quite a different uh resolution I think Comm will agree it's a it's a special document that the CC drafted after a lot of discussion it's the product of a lot of interaction among comrades where you've had these kinds of questions coming up popping up in different forms from different angles um in the branches throughout the organization CC meeting after CC meeting also at an international level you can see from the the international organizational resolution that there is definitely there's something in the air about focusing on the ideas the power of the ideas as an immediate priority for the organization and I think that this uh how marxists are formed is a culmination of all of that discussion um it begins with a question right how are marxists formed and a question that has a lot packed into it that's the cool thing about Marxism is that a lot of times you have this very simple thing and you find out there's a lot inside that simple thing you have this elegant Simplicity and behind it is an astonishing depth how marxists are formed can be approached from many different angles on an individual level it's a question that we all ask ourselves how do I become a Marxist what do I need to do what are the habits that that are going to be required of me what does it mean to be a Marxist at what point do I go from wanting to be a Marxist to being a Marxist it's a it's a it's a process so what does that process look like what kind of effort is required there's um also a collective way of thinking about it it's not just an individual thing look at what's happening in the British section hundreds of people coming into the organization saying I'm a communist I want to fight for revolution there's a social side of saying what is it going to take to take those people off the street they scan a sticker they come into the organization how do you make marxists out of them what kind of structure is required what kind of meetings what kind of Branch meetings what kind of reading groups and one-on ones what is it going to take as an organization to produce Maris that's another another side of it and then there's another angle to this a different way of approaching it that over there Marxism On The Rise that's our Banner from last Congress in 2021 and we were talking about a shift in the political landscape there's something happening there's a shift in the mood what does it mean for Marxism to become an influ uial point of reference in the United States for people to say well what is the Marxist position and know what that what they're talking about um that's another way of saying you know how are marxists formed it's not Marxism On The Rise means the rise of a new influence the rise of a new body of ideas that's part of a public debate that's taking place there's as you can see there's different ways of approaching it there's also the question of what does it mean to be a Marxist how did Marxism itself come about and so we'll try to uh cover some of these different angles I think hegel's quotee sums it up nicely though it you know if you stop and think about it you realize there's a lot more to it what is well known and familiar is not really understood precisely because it's well-known and familiar a lot of times you assume okay I got that down I'm ready to move on to the next thing and you realize there was a little bit more to that first step before moving on uh before you can make that progress Hegel wrote a lot about this kind of stuff the process of of cognition what it means to learn something the process of becoming aware of something that you're not aware of before it's a it's sometimes a surprising process it's a it's a paradoxical process because at first you can't know what you're not what you don't know you become aware of it after you realize oh I hadn't quite understood that yet and now now I get it there's a lot about Marxism that's like that and the power of dialectics is the ability to perceive and realize that there's more than meets the eye there's there's form and there's content there's the surface appearance and then there's something happening under the surface I think these questions are are um really fascinating but it's not just food for thought it's not just um it's not just interesting questions that that uh we're asking here it's really urgent questions from a political standpoint we've been talking this weekend about building the the forces of a revolutionary organization that can become the banner of Attraction for that radicalizing layer this the the theme of this Congress without revolutionary Theory there can be no revolutionary movement I think that's one of those quotes that fits what we're talking about one of those things that we can often repeat Without Really digesting how much there is to this sentence right here and and what's behind it uh I want to start by pointing out something an observation that trosy made that was kind of um a surprising one he says one makes the revolution with relatively few marxists even within the party he says here are the collective substitutes for what the individual cannot achieve in 1917 you could say in terms of marxist theoreticians in the Bolsheviks after all those years of preparation lenon and trosky were like the masters of Marxism they understood you had a lot of people that were like semi- marxists passive marxists partial marxists working under the supervision of Lennon and trosky but you know he says that the individual can hardly Master each separate area it's necessary to have experts who can specialize in a certain area of theory a certain political issue but then they supplement one each other one another collectively the organization is greater than than the the sum of its parts that's part of this question we don't all you know we don't reach the the absolute truth as individuals and then oh now I got it I got Marxism now I've learned it collectively it's it's part of it's something that emerges from a room full of marxists something that emerges from a discussion around a table full of marxist putting their Marxism together something emerges from that he says it's not because Marxist ism is a secret science that it's so rare to find you know thoroughly developed Marxist theoreticians he says it's just very difficult to escape the Colossal pressure of the bgea environment with all of its influences and that's part of Marxism part of learning these ideas is acquiring a Firm Stance it's acquiring a backbone ideologically against pressures that's part of what marxists have always defied official bis public opinion but being able to defy that is actually a difficult thing realizing there's an onslaught there's a torrent there's a current sometimes most people follow the current they're swept away with it without even recognizing that they're following a current we know the the the uh the idea that those who say I don't have a philosophy and the repeating thoughtlessly the philosophy that surrounds them they they repeat the prejudices and the main ideas of the ruling class that's what surrounds us being a Marxist means we recognize the current we can see it and then being able to see it helps you take a stand against it and push in the opposite direction that's part of the class struggle that being able to have that counter pressure again that emerges collectively together we we we are able to uh to withstand that current and we create a counterveiling pressure against official bis public opinion but again it's not something that happens on on a you know just by by the nature of joining a Marxist organization and that's it's it's part of a learning process at first you know I I uh I can tell you that when I first joined I would have considered myself myself a Marxist on the day that I joined and I was very happy very proud to be a card carrying Marxist a card carrying communist after to me that was the the end of the journey you know I had been through all kinds of naive eclectic uh political ideas I went through a phase of religious thinking growing up I um I went through a phase of a utopian socialism thinking maybe we can just form a little commune and we can all just work together and we're all just going to uh work for the greater good and show people how happy we are and then it's going to spread and that's you know and then we don't have to use any violence and I came from that direction and then having discussions arriving at the idea no you have to overthrow capitalism making that to me that's like okay that I'm a Marxist I've come to the ideas as of Marxism and if someone had asked me uh I was 16 years old when I joined very enthusiastic in my defense of of Marxism if someone had asked me well what makes you a Marxist I wouldn't have thought um don't you see the hammer and sickle on my shirt I a the back say marxist.com I'm a Marx it was as simple as that and of course I didn't realize that at the time I had very little idea of what Marxism really was I was I knew what I was what I was defending I knew the the banner I was defending I like the hammer and sickle I knew I knew where I stood on the political Spectrum but it takes time to learn Marxism I couldn't have told you I remember a couple years after joining the organization uh attending my first Congress hearing about dialectics and coming back thinking that's there's something to that I feel like I need need to know what dialectics is in order to to understand a lot of other things and that's true you know there is a process of of learning of gaining depth um one of the ways that we can sense our own political development is when we come back to a book that we've read at the time you know I read the manifesto High School loved it understood one out of 10 words or or one out of 10 lines or ideas you know but that was enough to I was very happy with that one tenth of the content trying to piece it together together getting little bits and and and and morsels out of what I'm reading you come back to it years later and it's like wow it's like reading it for the first time so much more jumps out of the page that's where you started to sense I couldn't I didn't I wasn't aware of how much I was skipping over the first time I read it I wasn't aware of like you don't really it doesn't really register what that's saying so you just kind of move on to the next thing and then the next time you read it you realize there's so much more this is such a rich document there's so much more to to learn from that I've had that experience um many times that's something that shows us our progress actually the most recent experience like that was in uh my Branch shout out to nyc1 comrades here we had what is to be done uh this is and and at by the end of the discussion we read it chapter by chapter and Branch by the end of the discussion I think all of our comments were so enthusiastic about this book the last discussion we had the interventions were like I love lenon like I am so thankful for Lennon you know we realized what a remark ably relevant book this is you know what is to be done is like if you understand the argument that's being made here then you're prepared to build something like the bulvik did and if you don't understand it then you're not quite prepared yet it's actually as it depends on understanding um bolshevism it's difficult though and the first time I read it I got little bits of pieces I got a lot of great stuff out of it this time reading it together reading it more deeply and following it more carefully you can follow the line of argument it's so it's so powerful one of the things we realize it's it's difficult because Lennon always wrote for the time that he was in you know he was pelzing he having a a battle to win influence to educate the comrades within a moment within a particular landscape in the in the in the Marxist movement and in the international socialist movement if this was written you know it's it wasn't written for an audience 120 years later it was written for his audience then if it were written for an audience 120 years later it would have been written like this it's the same book comrades read this book Ted Grant said you get out of a book what you bring to it we bring a lot of things you know after you you bring a lot more learning a lot more of a sense of History a lot more familiarity you bring more of a foundation in materialism in dialectics a philosophical Foundation you also bring your own experience we connect it each time we read it we connect it to what what we're going through what political pmics we're having on the on the left today what discussions we're having with context all of that you bring to it and then comrades bring different angles to it we get all of that helps us in in the process of learning and sometimes you make surprising connections from an unexpected thing you read something um that has nothing to do with the discussion you're having tomorrow and you realize that makes me think of the the leadoff we're about to discuss in in Branch tomorrow um I think one of the Urgent uh angles of this whole discussion of is is the precisely the Marxism On The Rise um you know because as we said in the land of mcarthism the land of the Red Scare despite all of their efforts there are 39 million young people who view Marxism in a favorable light those 20 20% of Youth who say communism's their uh their ideal economic system and it makes us understand that we're moving in a direction there's a radicalization that's happening it's a process it's not a snapshot we're moving in a direction it's being driven by history by historical forces but we want to understand where is this going is Marxism what does it mean when we say Marxism is on the rise you could say the favorability of Marxism is on the rise a friendly attitude towards Marxism is on the rise people are open to what you have to say but is Marxism really On The Rise yet are people studying Marxist idea are are 20% of young people reading the manifesto and what is to be done there's more people reading now than ever for sure there's more people that are seeking out these ideas but what's on the rise is more of uh the preliminary it's it's the shift in the mood there's an openness there's a shifting mood that's what's on the rise yet if you had a poll it says what's your what is the public opinion in relation to a materialist view of history or in relation to class Independence the polls would show that the vast majority of respondents have never heard of these mysterious Concepts because the vast majority of them have never interacted with the Marxist a lot of times when we're selling the paper we're tbling out there you realize you're statistically speaking you're the first time that that person has ever interacted with a Marxist someone who studied Marxist ideas and brings a Marxist perspective in that sense you're the mole the molecular process of a new idea a new influence a new force in the political landscape but there have been times when that was happening not just on a molecular process on an explosive dramatic process that's something that we want to learn from how Marxism sank roots in a vast country that had no Marxist tradition no Marxist organizations nobody who considered themselves a Marxist and was able to take off on a on a level far beyond what we've seen so far I'm talking about learning from this history right here learning from how Marxism sank roots in Russia Lennon of course you know you can compare it we all know these headlines that says when did everyone become a socialist and it's like the youth are going to socialism and they you know it's it's just it's like there this frenzy that's moving in this direction compare it to the way lenon described the the the uh the turn of the 20th century it's not just when did people become socialists it was the rise of Marxism he says Marxist books were published one after another Marxist journals and newspapers were founded nearly everyone became a Marxist marxists were flattered Marxist recorded the book publishers rejoiced at the extraordinary ready sale of of marxist literature I.E it was the rise of marxist ideas Marxist reading material Marxist arguments it was the ideas the philosophy the influence of a new ideology was making its way into the political landscape that hasn't that's not the case yet a mood is making its way into the political landscape it's up to us to bring the ideas to bring that to the next level um trosky described here there's a there's a a clip from 18 uh the 1890s um from the caucuses a liberal uh newspaper that was talking about the rise of Marxism here's how he says that trosy says they uh they reported it more with surprise rather than hostility it was like this new this new alien unique thing he says since 1893 this is the newspaper young men representing a singular Trend and advocating a unique program have been contributing to the local Publications they are supporters of the theory of economic materialism right now we don't see headlines that say economic materialism is on the rise or dialectical thinking is on the rise or or Advocates of a new materialist conception of history is that's not you know it's it's uh it's at the very beginning so far but that was storming the landscape and if you think that at the beginning of the 1880s it was starting from scratch zero end of the following decade end of the 1890s everyone was a Marxist how did that transition take place it didn't just it wasn't just the the the political climate it wasn't just it wasn't just the objective situation it's what those Marxist Did They Carried those ideas into the the political landscape and they did it with the depth of Marxism the thing that you can say going back to the emancipation of Labor group the group around panov and five other people a tiny group with zero visibility no influence a tiny voice in the wilderness they achieved what appeared to be a miracle at the time they they seem to have no audience no one really paying attention to what they're writing but the things that they were writing presented the depth of Marxism it's philosophy they explain how Marxism emerged from the thread of the evolution of the history of philosophy out of the Enlightenment they explain the history of materialism giving rise to Marxism and most people weren't ready to read stuff like that and follow what that argument was about but those who did they would read it and they would realize that Marxism is the culmination of the evolution of human thought to its highest point if you realize that and you Rec recognize it that's a pretty special thing Marxism is the highest level of thinking that Humanity has produced yet if you recognize that then you have something in your hands you got to do something with it's powerful it's an eye-opening experience that's what allowed Marxism to sink Roots if the emancipation of Labor group had tried to just win as big of an audience as possible just water it down just give people the ABCs the ABCs of socialism like what DSA puts out or boscar Sinar is ABCs of socialism maybe they would have sold more books from the beginning they would never have sunk roots in that country because you would not have ignited the kind of passion that it took for people to say I am a Marxist now I'm going to dedicate my life to spreading these ideas by sinking Roots that's the tap route that's the depth the anchor by sinking that kind of uh depth helping people understand uh Marxism from a philosophical standpoint they were able to spread something to sprout an army of dedicated marxists that were making their their mission to carry this into the landscape L androski said panov um educated an entire generation of revolutionaries that was the foundation he provided that initial pioneering role now was that enough it wasn't you know panov lost his bearings later on it's not enough just to have a foundation in in theory and philosophy you need that but then you need something beyond that you went from panov to Lenin you know Lenin took the same the same approach we need the the the insistence on theory in fact they both share this in fact lenon took this from panov you know this idea you need to have that Foundation but Lenin took it to its next level you take these ideas and then you build something unbreakable with them you take the ideas and it's not just a foundation you're going to build something unyielding on the basis of the ideas you build an organization of people who understand them of people who translate that into discipline into revolutionary will into commitment an organization that can transformed Society the second part of this the Revolutionary movement it's not just people who are out on the streets with banners what does it mean to build a revolutionary movement means a force in society that is capable of overthrowing capitalism a force that is capable of going up against the ultimate resistance of this ruling class and overcoming it coming to the other side if you want to have that you need theory for that you need cohesion you need an ideology that's shared you need political homogeneity that's what lenon understood better than anybody else the history of bolism is history of four in that organization of people who had a shared perspective they saw the world through the same eyes Marxism was their Collective compass and that's what gave them the power you read all these uh the police reports of sism looking at the the progress of bolshevism and they're like freaking out about how it's they're they're far better organized than anybody else they have a much stronger will they're more effective they're they're actually sinking Roots everywhere and what was the secret to all of that success Theory it was philosophy it was those books over there that was the secret that's the thing that gave them that special ingredient the iron discipline to become a Force and that's why Lenin's attitude towards all uh opportunities for clarification all debates lonard always described looking back he described the process of bolism as um you know this this process of of uh pmics of ideological battles with different currents that were all meant at sharpening a particular line creating a demarcation a delineation um leftwing communism another great book in one of our uh we have over there there's a chapter I don't even have to quote from the chapter I'm just going to tell you what the chapter is called says it all very descriptive chapter 4 the struggle against enemies within the workingclass movement which helped bolshevism develop gain strength and become stealed it's a great chapter you should read it you should read it as well but just knowing the title that's the way that Lennon saw in fact that was the process it they became stealed because of each poic and that's why you know people from the outside were critiquing them actually um some of the members of the emancipation of Labor group themselves didn't understand the importance of uh of this of this kind of sharp Fierce pmics by the way this is a fierce poic you read it he's he grips onto his enemies he doesn't let go there was a there was a member of the emancipation of Labor Vera zulich who was more of a her temperament was more you know let's all get along do we really need to have this kind of like a vicious approach she told uh Lennon one time this is trosky recollects this she told lenon one time plov he's a a greyhound he shakes his enemies and then he lets him go but you you're a bulldog he says she says you have a deadly bite and and in the anecdote she suich tells strasky and then lenon repeated that oh a deadly bite he liked it he had that bull if you read this you can see the method of a bulldog here but it was not gratuitous he wasn't just doing it to attack his enemies he was doing it to transmit ideas to his followers to the marxists to help people understand this is where the line is you have to and that sharpness that line is what created the Power of that ideological cohesion among the the Bolsheviks in fact in a general sense this applies not just to a proletarian Revolution the B Revolution was also preceded by a storming right the storming of the bastile was preceded by a storming of the philosophy that gave it all of its Authority a 300-year process of preparing the ground ideologically for the the rise of the Bazi marks and Engles definitely understood that so again that's that's you know this is uh there's a lot more depth in in this uh one sentence than we often stop to to think of about I want to talk about about how Marxism itself was born um it would obviously be a whole other session um Marxism itself but just a brief account because I think it's an awesome awesome story and an awesome achievement uh by two young Geniuses and you know we we often talk about you know leaps forward in human understanding are achieved by standing on the shoulders of giants Marx and Engles themselves were giants and they were standing not only on the shoulders of giants they were standing the enlightenment they were standing on an entire era of Giants and they were and what they did was achieved it was not just the the the Geniuses the thing the roots that they were drawing on and tying together it was the the time and the place as well it all came together Marxism couldn't have been invented hundreds of years earlier than it was it was the fruit of its moment and it's a beautiful moment it's it's beautiful the way that it all came together right then and there they lived in a time of intense social and philosophical ferment The Bu was kind of rounding its peak actually some of the best achievements in bah thought were kind of coming to to fruition right then and there and marks and Engles took it to its next level and then it it scared the Bazi deeply because they they realized what it meant for them but you think about it all the scientific breakthroughs that were taking place right then and there uh you know cells were discovered in in the 17th century but only in the 1830s did they realize all plants in and animals are made of cells the first law of ther thermodynamics the the the idea that energy transforms from one form to another discovered right there uh within decades Evolution the idea that one species gives rise to another these discoveries happened at a time that allowed philosophy to take a step forward that gave rise to a more advanced form of materialism more advanced form of understanding the the material Universe at the same time the Industrial Revolution was was Full Steam those things were coming together especially in England Mech mechanization the first application of mechanized of large scale mechanization to to agriculture I think in the 1830s was the first mechanical reaper think about what that what that changes for for feeding the world steam uh production rail the first time that marks and Eng Les met in well not the first the second time they met in 1844 uh a month earlier the first Telegraph had been sent I mean that's these things were taking place it was all happening and it was that those advances helped to unleash a new world Outlook um I think also we should say Hegel in particular P personified that era it was the the results of the Enlightenment a 300-year period but he kind of synthesized it and all of that came together they came out of that environment of the the young hegelian philosophy in Germany which is a pretty narrow window of time it's pretty awesome that they were they were then ready to take all of that Hegel had an encyclopedic approach he synthesized all the he his he was the first one to write a a history of philosophy that runs through the whole thing gives you a picture marks and Engles took that on board but then they went from Germany into these New Horizons angles to England the The Roaring center of the Industrial Revolution marks to France the the site of the French Revolution but also the site of French materialism the key place to understand the fruits of the Enlightenment and to be able to tie all these things together um I want to talk about what they tie together but first just this is something that I I learned that I was really um impressed and inspired by there's uh something that gives you a flavor of the spirit of of uh Marx's Philosophy from the beginning Marx was 23 years old when he wrote his Doctorate his doctoral thesis on the subject of two Greek materialist philosophers Democritus and epicurus Greek adamus who anticipated a very modern view of of basically a modern materialist view of nature as early as the fifth century BC marks and Engles were very interested in the ideas of the ancient Greeks for for many good reasons they knew their way around it well and it's um a lot of the modern uh scientific thought had its roots in that period in a less developed embryonic form but there's a striking comment in the in the preface in the he wrote a forward to his dissertation and he makes a reference to the Greek myth of Prometheus and um the name was familiar I don't really know my Greek mythology so I looked it up it's it's the F it's famous for its image of eternal Al torture the Greeks have this this imagery right of this guy Prometheus is chained to a rock and an eagle comes and excruciatingly devours his liver and then it grows back and the next day it's repeated and every day for eternity he has to suffer this um this torture the interesting thing is why he has to suffer it the Gods uh sentence him to that that state of Eternal torture for defying the gods to help Humanity Prometheus gave fire and the power of civilization to humanity to lift Humanity up when the gods wanted the humans to be submissive and they wanted to them to be in the dark and Powerless and ignorant and Prometheus defied them and his name means foresight or forethought he knew what was going to happen and he took the decision to help Humanity lift up in defiance of the Gods even though there was going to be uh Eternal suffering to pay for it and when one of the Servants of the Gods approaches him and says are you still happy with your decision he says rest assured for your vile slavery I would never exchange my own unhappy lot that was the line from Prometheus he says let me put it simply I hate all the gods those are the words of Prometheus that Marx quotes in the forward to his dissertation he and Marx says Prometheus is the most noble Saint and Martyr in the philosophical calendar the Defiance of all the gods all authority that was a spirit of the ancient Greeks that was a spirit that ran through the enlightenment as well the idea that the human mind is higher than these gods that have been created we have the faculty of reason we are capable of understanding of getting to the truth by having as a starting point there are no Gods this world wasn't made by gods so let's start asking how was it made that's the beginning of actual a search for for knowledge for Truth for Philosophy for science it begins by moving past um religion the enlightenment spans like I said three centuries it begins in the 16th century starts to gain momentum in the 17th and it really blooms in the 18th century in the leadup to the French Revolution and those great advances are basically successive steps in the direction of materialism this idea that there is an objective reality independent of the mind that the world is made of a material universe and there's one reality um there's no gods and there's no pre-existence there's no heaven or hell it's it's a pretty straightforward simple scientific idea to us today maybe but it was surprisingly uh difficult for humans to arrive at that basic stance at a basic materialist stance and for an entire period a thousand years in the the Dark Ages there was an attempt to extinguish that idea in the Christian Middle Ages the Dark Ages the early shoots of of the bua Enlightenment were the shoots of pushing that back something coming through the concrete a little bit let's start to question this again let's start to break this this down but at first it was very tentative the the early materialism came from British empirical materialists Francis Bacon Thomas Hobbs they were born in the 16th century John Lock came later he was born in the 17th and they basically they were you know reality comes from the senses and so it's it's a beginning of like let's let's look at objective reality let's treat this as a material world let's start to study it but when it came to the question of God they sort of sidestepped it well we can only know reality through our senses so we can't really know about God so I don't really have much to say about that and they kind of sidest stepped it uh they actually took the route of deism right you okay there's a God maybe but he just set this all in motion and then he got out of the picture he doesn't interact with us anymore so it's a way of saying you know okay maybe there's a God maybe there's not doesn't really matter um it's a it's a partial step towards Atheism in the 18th century this form of materialism was imported from Britain to France and then the French took it to its logical conclusion before the French put Louie the 16 in the guillotine they put God in the guillotine they were the ones that said yeah bold Fearless unflinching atheism they had no fear they were ready to bring it all down and that's what that's the kind of Step In philosophy that prepares the way for a great Revolution like uh like the French Revolution now as heroic and advanced as they were French materialism was the height of of the Enlightenment materialism um condac was the the first that brought it in from Britain to France UMES halvas and hbak were the others um you can there's a lot of yeah there's a there's a whole thread to follow there um by the way follow it comrades follow that thread this is an amazing resource to to have a proper understanding of how Marxism came out of what those roots are those Rich Roots it's definitely uh worth history philosophy we're well stock back there uh take them all comrades make sure that we don't don't take KN back um but there was a limitation to the materialism of the Enlightenment they didn't apply materialism first of all it was very mechanical it was limited by an idea of like Newtonian mechanics the world is kind of on a balance it's in an eternal Circle and it it works as a machine and even humans and animals work like machines it had it had a a mechan it wasn't dialectical you know and in addition it didn't apply materialism to a view of human society the the materialists of the enlight assumed that once you have humans that have a conscious will well basically they decide what they do and then human society and human history is a result of what humans do the ideas that they have they idealism snuck back in when it came to looking at history that's the thing that Marxism changed that's the the leap forward that brought materialism to its height and ironically it was Hegel who helped take that step an extreme idealist helped bring materialism to its final conclusion because what was needed the missing ingredient was the dialectical method which Hegel brought to a to you know to a really to a his systematized um nothing is eternal Hegel looked at everything as a part of a process the materialists had gotten into the habit of we need to analyze everything let's just classify it Everything is Everything fits into its box we need to put everything into its category Hegel says the categories are giving rise to other categories everything is part of an unfolding process everything is in the process of becoming something else it's an evolutionary perspective and a revolutionary perspective sometimes there's a Leap Forward everything contains something else within it and it's in the process of becoming that other thing that was the perspective that was required um because he looked at human history itself also as an unfolding process it had a direction humanity is moving in a direction um so marks and Eng Les what they did was they they took that framework and they understood they they were able to say what is that thread what is the driving process what is the direction it's the it's one mode of production giving rise to another they said even though humans have conscious desires even though they think humans don't decide what mode of production you're born into and you don't realize how much that mode of production shapes your thinking and your environment and your upbringing and all the traditions and institutions that surround you so it's not consciously decided there are laws to history and it's not determined consciously it's determined by some something else what is that something else it's the class struggle it's the rise of the productive forces that have been given steps forward by one mode of production after another each mode of production has a certain ability to bring things forward but it's limited eventually the productive forces instead of advancing they start to get held back and then you're prepared for another revolutionary step forward that's the way that Society unfolds marks and Engles were the first to apply materialism to human society and the implications that flowed from that are what are Marxism today I mean that's that's the thing that they achieved there is no mode of production that's Eternal that's a revolutionary idea because it means the ruling class it rules today it's not going to necessarily rule tomorrow no in fact no institution is eternal the family structure itself everything that we're told that is that is natural that is normal that is uh morality laws the authority of governments all of that is in the process of becoming something else and it's not that it's all random it's that there are class interests behind it the domination of a given ruling class is Justified if it's advancing the productive forces if it stops doing that and holds them back it's no longer Justified which means there is historical justification for bringing a ruling class down these are powerful very threatening ideas in fact this was the reason that the Bazi went from using materialism as a weapon against feudalism as against the the absolutist monarchy as against reaction to to realizing we've picked up a weapon that's dangerous put that down and they did they they turned their back on materialism in one field after another look at the recent issue of um inde defense of Marxism the fall of woman that the article that Fred wrote anthropology had arrived at materialism with Morgan and then they realized that's bushism put that down and they and then they went to Boaz and they said no no no no more materialism in this field they did the same in economics the the labor theory of value wait that means that workers lab is producing all value well that then we have a class struggle you know put that down they they let they left they turned their backs on materialism in every social science we were talking we had a little conversation about this last night when was the turning point when when the the ruling class really went on the offensive you know when it was this was a turning point 1917 they realized these aren't just threatening ideas these people can take power with these ideas that's when they went on the offensive against materialism that's when they they became the mortal enemies of materialism and in the result we see today The Bu turned its back on the enlightenment as a whole they disavow the enlightenment as a whole that's what postmodernism represents no there is no progress at all there is no truth there is no reality it's it's all we're not interested in that anymore there's nothing to learn from history um all of that it really just scratches the surface I I really recommend not only that comrades uh read the history of philosophy this final book pitch this one revolutionary philosophy of Marxism we produced this in 2019 just be careful be careful if you start highlighting this because sometimes it's hard to stop and then it turns into its opposite and then you got start underlining but this is a powerful tool comrades this is really an achievement that the story it's not it's uh it's it's a compilation of the little bits and pieces the gems of marxist philosophy that have made it into all the classics all in one package in 2018 we put this together there an excellent um introduction by Alan Woods in here uh this is you know Alan Woods is working on a book on Marx's philosophy that basically puts it all together Marx wanted to do that in his lifetime didn't have the time to do it until that comes out this is the next best thing comrades don't don't wait for the other book to come out get this one first and in 2019 the whole organization read it and we had so many excellent discussions that really were a leap for forward that's what what gave so many comrades a foundation um so get your hands on this and and read it together with with other comrades um it really describes in in particular the Ludwick forbach and the end of classical German philosophy describes how these threads were tied together and I think it's such an inspiring um colossal achievement but what do you do with an idea like that you know imagine that marks and Engles everything we've just described it's it's pretty cool stuff right it's kind of mind-blowing imagine coming to this realization for the first time yourself with a buddy you know marks and angles and they they realize that the things that they're submitting to the radical press are following the same thread actually the the the Revolutionary press at the time it was the it's the the German French just an explanation of the way this worked the Prussian state had rules on censorship for for uh for Publications they would have to all go through the censor but if you had a 300 page book it didn't count as a as a newspaper so the sensors didn't treat it the same way so they would put all a Year's worth of Articles into a one massive book and in fact all the writing that marks and Engles did when they realized that they were following the same thread is in one massive book of like three or 400 Pages there was only one issue ever published of the the yisha um but that's when they realized they imagine you open the book and you realize everything that this Marx guy is writing and everything this angles guy is writing from Manchester from Paris they're saying the same things so then that's when they get into correspondence that's when they realize the first time they meet in Paris it's just a casual meeting he's going he's just just traveling through they end up St a discussion that goes on 10 days imagine what that discussion was like conf imagine the the excitement of realizing the materialist conception of History realizing that you've just tied together the things that brought philosophy to another step forward you've just achieved what Darwin achieved for biology and more you've just achieved that for human history you you've got a glimpse of the ideas that are going to lead to the next step forward from capitalism to a step towards a classless society you can just imagine what kind of excitement and and enthusiasm they were filled with in those 10 days in uh in Paris but what do you do with an idea like that you get to work you start finding ways to spread it you find someone else by the ones and twos who can understand your idea who can transmit it who can absorb it and of course a good starting point is getting the ideas down on paper so they wasted no time who was it by the way that said where to begin with the Revolutionary press you got to begin with getting the ideas into a publication that was marks and Engles who said that who answered that question in that way and that's exactly what they did actually while they were in those 10 that 10day meeting in Paris they they already started PMZ against the young hegelians someone else had written something against the the contributions of marks and Engles and um they they agreed let's just let's just answer them and they start PMZ and they they have a draft ready they were going to they were going to split the draft 30 pages from angles 30 pages from marks Engles is very uh punctual he's he would bang things out he had his 30 pages ready to go at the end of the 10 days Mark said I'm just going to keep working on mine I got to I got to I a few months later he gets 300 pages from marks and that became the holy family that was the the first thing that they collaborated on you read it there's a lot of I I can't recommend reading the whole thing because it's it's extremely dense but there's some sections that are brilliant again running through the history of Enlightenment materialism um which is in here by the way that excerpt you can find right in this book but that's that's the way they started working the next year they wrote the German IDE ideology together again 700 pages in the end they couldn't find a publisher for it but um you know they said it was a process of self-clarification they were finding out where where they stood and the way that they clarified their ideas was against other ideas by they would tear down the arguments of other opponents but in its place they would stand up materialism with example after example with argument after argument that's the way that Marxism came to be Marx himself was a bit of a bulldog by the way if you see the the pmics that he had against pone against all of these other thinkers of his time there was a certain shared uh quality in the way that they would um that they would pisze so you know it's you can see elements of bolshevism from the very first days it was a sort of uh a bolshevism of the 19th century the original bolshevism of marks and Engles is a remarkable thread of of continuity there's it's very familiar um not just because they were pizinger not just because they had a sharp an assistance on Precision of their ideas but because they were building a Bolshevik organization in effect if you look at the way that they started building it was by the ones and twos it was contact work um the first organization that they had as uh one that's gone down in history the the league of the Communist League which had formerly been the league of the just right with the slogan all men are brothers and they they tear it down there's a the movie the young Karl marks they tear down the banner and they put up workers of the World Unite in its place that was an organization that was one over from utopian communism to Scientific Socialism um an interesting thing that I learned is that in 1839 you think of you know the league of the just was kind of a wishy-washy like Kumbaya let's get along it wasn't like that they actually had organized an Insurrection against the French government in 1839 together with um with Blan and a lot of and it was horribly failed and from that experience they went to London and started setting up reading groups say we need to figure out our ideas before we do something like that again and there was a it was a shift you've seen that shift many times in history the narodniks went through a shift like that we're going to throw we're going to throw a bomb under the Zar and that's going to be the revolution realizing that doesn't work we need to have reading groups you realize that the step towards Revolution is on those shelves over there you need ideas you need clarification you need a foundation many people have come to that realization at different points in history in in the history of the Revolutionary movement you look at the first organization that they had the Communist League um the structure of it was quite familiar they had branches of between three to 10 comrades each they met weekly for political discussion they had lead offs on perspectives they had contact work reading groups groups they had Aggregates which they called Banquets they had weekly socials every Saturday they would have socials which at which they did singing uh to get the get the whole family together it's familiar stuff they had congresses um they had a pre-congress period in the branches and then they would discuss the documents that were drafted at a congress level and elect the national leadership it's Democratic centralism it happened from the very beginning it wasn't an invention that came later it's the result of marks and Engles figuring out how do we get our ideas into the hands of the working class how do we build an organization that is going to be rooted in these ideas you need Democratic centralism for that task in 1847 when the Communist League tasked marks and angles with drafting The Communist Manifesto the organization was our size today in the United States they had 30 branches they had just over 300 members actually the following year the 1848 revolution breaks out and they they all take up arms and join the barricade they actually dissolve into the revolution they went from from Theory to practice right it was a bit too soon actually they they ended up falling apart and having to regroup it was a very difficult period afterwards and they regroup in the form of reading circles workers discussion groups that's the way that Marxism took root for the first time um actually Engles right after the the defeat of 1848 I believe it was yeah immediately after in Switzerland he finds a contact 22-year-old wihelm Li some some of you might recognize that last last name his son was Carl leick um but he would go on to become a founding leader of the SPD years later William leick recruited another young uh communist who had found a booklet and became radicalized by a little booklet that he found in his 20s a worker AUST bevel the the the the foundations of the mass forces of Marxism which became a mass influence even by the end of engel's Lifetime started with the ones and twos it started with the quadr that they spent countless hours discussing corresponding with all these letters fixing their their Pro trying to fix a lot of their problems trying to educate it was the ones and twos that created the foundation for something that became the strongest Marxist party in the world at its time at the right before World War I it had over a million members 15,000 full-timers 90 daily newspapers 62 print shops that was the height of the SPD that when Marxism became a mass force of course in Germany as we said in a country where there was a a population with a certain intellectual tradition a habit of thinking theoretically but all of that that that if you look at the final result you could say wow look at an organization that has 15,000 full-timers and 62 print shops and 90 daily newspapers and you know can get 4 million votes in the elections it looks like this massive thing but where did it begin with a reading group it began imagine going to that Congress in 1847 and one of the discussion documents is the manifesto and you the conference can submit resol can submit amendments to the manifesto that was the beginning with those with with the ideas with the discussions they were able to build the foundation of something solid that's how Marxism sank Roots it's happened there's only one way for Marxism to become a mass Force it's this way it's bushism going back to you know I'm starting to run out of time but some of the qualities that all the marxists shared you know and something that we all need as individuals to become marxists is a deep respect for the power of ideas and study habits that were intense you read about Marx in uh in Paris when he's he's digging you know he realizes that he's on the verge of a breakthrough unhealthy spending three four nights without any sleep because he's just going from book to book and he's he knows that he's he can sense that he's on the verge of something he had a drive you know in correspondence with his father actually his father to said um you I I can tell that your soul is governed by a demon I I can't tell if it's a Heavenly demon or a fian one he says but in any case he was something inside of him like something that that gripped him that he couldn't let go all the Great marxists have had that they've all tapped into that you read about trosky saying I strained every nerve in my body to understand the ideas I couldn't you know you're unsatisfied until you get them you have to have that hunger in order to make that progress if you don't have the hunger you won't you won't eat you won't consume it you won't you won't be able to to pursue it but all the marxists have had that and I think it's something that we need to tap into it's also not just an isolated thing it happens from interaction imagine when marks and Engles put their heads together and they realize you've been doing this reading I've been doing this reading Boom you know the the the effect of bringing that together or trosky for the first time interacting with the emancipation of Labor group The editorial board of isra his first um Exile in uh in London in 1902 he was his eyes once again mind blown look at the Quality I have so much to learn that's the thing that that said that that that pushed them to say I need to get to that next level when we have those moments where we say I just realize there's so much more to this than I than than I appreciated that's a that's an opportunity for growth comrades that's that's something we can say I'm going to be like trosy and strain every nerve in my body until I've worked through this entire pile and that's the the that's the process I think we've all had moments where we we get a glimpse where we fall in love with Marxism you you get a glimpse of how profound these things are and it's a beautiful and necessary moment for um for for our learning process so that's that's an important idea in this resolution is that it becoming a Marxist is something to fight for it's not something that happens automatically it doesn't happen just through through osmosis and I think we also have to analyze you know if you if you're inspired to raise your political level then it's not enough to say in the abstract I want to read more or I want to be a better Marxist you have to have a battle plan what is the change that you're going to to make what are the obstacles that stand in your way and each of us have to figure that out for ourselves there's different we we all have different things that are maybe holding us back um on our study in a general sense you could say this country is working against a long a longtime intellectual tradition aversion you know not just like the the influence of pragmatism and empiricism it's not just the it's the the lack of any theoretical tradition in this country we were talking to comrades about how hard it is sometimes you're talking to a contact who's brand new to this stuff for the contact to realize yeah we're we're fighting for a revolution we we think we can overthrow capitalism In Our Lifetime and the most urgent way that we're preparing for it is this reading group that we have and the Contex the contact is wait no don't we need like guns or shouldn't we prep you know like what there's a there's a certain impatience that that impatience has deep roots in this country by the way and the impatience itself is an obstacle if you want to have a really unyielding Granite Foundation something really solid if you want to achieve depth if you want to send down a tap route in the political landscape of the United States you can't be impatient you have to have the depth you have to fight for the depth and you have to realize the things that are holding back the the depth so I think I I hope to hear in the discussion what you know daily habits we can use to to implement this we threw out a few ideas in the resolution each comr has to decide what uh what changes they they want to make in their own study habits I think the important thing is reading every day making a daily reading habit finding a way to weave it into your every day because if you just go to Branch once a week you're going to absorb something but that's the slowest way to progress if you're reading every day and you're reading for yourself you look at your reading not as a chore not as an obligation to your branch not as a a duty that you're assigned but as something that nourishes you as your daily it's your steady diet of political inspiration of theory you're becoming a better Marxist by consuming this every day find the time carve the time sometimes it's a question of how do you make the time to uh you know to read there's also it's it's something that's becoming more rare you know as we point out in the resolution there's a lot of headlines I saw that say if you used to love to read years ago curling up with a book and now you can't seem to get past a couple Pages you're not alone and there's all these statistics about a decline a sharp decline in society in um in Reading habit so that's again we're moving against that stream as well Mark said his favorite activity is Pastime was Bookworm we have to become bookworms we have to develop that habit and if we didn't grow up with it that's fine you're a bivic so that's one of the obstacles that you can get over we want to understand that you need to read if you want to be a revolutionary you need to absorb that trosy said socialism needs democracy like the body needs oxygen we require we are Marxist cadr require reading require Theory like the body needs oxygen it's not a secondary thing it's an essential thing you need a steady diet of the idea specifically the classics by the way I know sometimes comrs say do we need to you know shouldn't we just Branch out more Beyond Mark angles Len and try and in my experience the problem isn't insufficient branching out that comrades have too narrow of a diet on the contrary I think the more common danger is that you read a book and then you move on to the next title and you you you figure you're working your way through the classics without actually stopping and absorbing the content line by line and that that for me that's confirmed every time I go back us and I realized even just reading the the classics volume one the manifesto State and Revolution the trans utopian scientific these amazing brilliant texts yeah they're short we put them into an intro that doesn't mean they're simple uh ABC's water down ideas those are rich things every time I come back to them I realize this is so much more there's so much more here than I appreciated last time I read this um so that was try's advice when you're beginning don't spread yourself too thin don't be it's not a race to read one book after another I'd rather instead of reading 10 books in a shallow way read one in a very thorough way follow the line of argument line by line follow the thread the things that that go over your head stop and look them up we have Wikipedia we have the the use of the internet as well to supplement um follow it and make sure that you make it your own that's the way that you can establish Your Own Foundation um I just want to you know wrap up saying that it's also a question of how you know how marxists are formed isn't just an intellectual thing you know it's a question of build it's it's linked to how revolutionaries are formed the two go go hand in hand it's we also have to find time itself find energy the energy comes from from uh from the reading but you know time management was always a concern for the for the great marxists actually you read the correspondence of marks and Eng Les they were all angles was the more punctual of the two he was always telling marks just you don't it doesn't have to be perfect just get it published we need this out he was worried you know are we going to have enough there was always projects that they wanted to get done tragically a lot of projects that they weren't able to complete in their lifetime but you know trosy himself as well you read he wrote a diary that was published um a diary in Exile from 1935 36 in um in France he's talking about some of his own personal Reflections I need more time he could see the writing on the wall he could see what Stalin was doing to one after another of his of his relatives even his political Children Killing Them you he could see what was coming he had foresight this was the the person who said foresight over astonishment he knew that he didn't have that that much time he needed just enough time to make sure that you could sink that route and it wouldn't be extinguished that the tabot would not be severed that's the thing that that was the task of his life he was a Prometheus he knew what was coming for him he could see it I mean you you see what what happening in the Soviet Union you see the stalinism thing he's he knew that as an individual he wasn't going to turn the tide against it but he could give something to the struggle for the future that's what trosy gave he sank that route and there was a moment just like in the history of of materialism where it looked like for a long period it was going to be extinguished like this idea almost got completely it almost disappeared there was a period in the postwar boom after trotsky's death when it looked like that flame was going to be extinguished where looked like it had come to the end of The Unbroken thread Ted Grant is the person who kept that flame alive comrades Ted Grant was the one who kept that unbroken thread from going out it's thanks to Ted Grant that the organization now keeps that flame going we're Fanning that flame this weekend we represent The Unbroken thread this organization looks at the ideas of Marxism and treats them in a way that no other organization on the face of this planet uh treats Marxist theory there's no other organization that is doing what we're doing that is trying to train cadres using the history of philosophy using materialism and dialectics in fact even the Bas has turned their back on the enlightenment their own history of philosophy there's no other Force but this organization that is preparing cadres for the task of revolution in the way the only way that they can be prepared com so that's really the task that we have how marxists are formed we have the ideas that we need we just need to make sure that we form those marxists because Marxism On The Rise depends on us being that force in the political landscape that carries the ideas into the battlefield let's prepare for battle [Applause] [Music] [Applause] comrades if you are a member and you have not made plans and preparations to attend the 2024 founding Congress of the RCA definitely do that now this discussion that you just heard is just an example of what kind of conversations we are going to have and the kind of conversations that you as a member need to be a part of to participate in the Democratic process of our organization if you're not a member and you want to attend this Congress definitely reach out through the join link that will be in the description of this podcast there's still plenty of time to prepare to get to this Congress the only way that we will be able to make ourselves into marxists and create a mass Communist party for the first time is if we educate ourselves build the granite Foundation of Marxist theory and organize very seriously and that starts at the highest body of our organization the congresses so any genuine communist should not miss this event we hope to see you there a [Music]