Marxism for Dummies?

[Benjamin Hill]

In the latest issue of the Weekly Worker, 802, I sent in the following letter, which got published:

For dummies

I’ve been in contact with the ideas of the Weekly Worker and its forerunner, The Leninist, for about a year now and it arranged many of my uncomfortable ‘gut feelings’ into a coherent picture. For this service alone I would like to thank the comrades of the CPGB for their (often disregarded) work.

But there is a problem too. As the CPGB falls ‘out of tone’ with so many of the far left, many people simply don’t understand what it is that its ideas entail - mostly because these people have only been exposed to their organisations’ version of The Truth. Questioning a whole system of ideas is quite a high learning curve for many and therefore it isn’t at all surprising that the Weekly Worker often gets dismissed as a “gossip rag” and what not. For this reason also the CPGB is only really popular with those who either love to do some leftist train-spotting or hold an ungrateful position as ‘loyal oppositionist’ within their own organisation and try to stir up the battle of ideas.

So to lower this learning curve and introduce other members of the far left (and indeed the working class in general) to the (real) ideas of Marxism, wouldn’t it be a good idea if some literature was written with this public in mind, a sort of ‘Marxism for dummies’, so to speak?

Benjamin Hill

I guess this not only goes for the CPGB, although they're holding a relatively unique position due to their emphasis on actually provoking critical thinking. The main issue with them is the high barrier for new people.

Other organisations, most in fact, have it the other way around: Low barrier literature for new people, but treating the reader as a consumer rather than a potential critical thinker and political activist. Basically the attitude of most organisation is "read our theory to understand reality, follow our line and go sell this newspaper".

Is there no line in between these extremes?

[Benjamin Hill]

I was expecting some more discussion around these issues. Ok, let me rephrase the question: How do you introduce vast layers of working class people to the ideas of self-thinking Marxism (with that I mean not blindly following dogma's but thinking about society in a materialist method)? I'm not necessarily talking about communication mediums here (although that is an interesting topic in itself), but about a framework of content: An open platform of debate and discussion on working class politics.

Or do we really think that we're going to get the masses hooked up to Marxist ideas via our respective agitational paper that has an economistic outlook and ends every other article with what a grand idea socialism is?

[AmericanRed]

If articles from Die Neue Zeit were ever translated into English, I might have some clue as to effectively answer this question.

[Benjamin Hill]

If articles from Die Neue Zeit were ever translated into English, I might have some clue as to effectively answer this question.

Not disregarding Die Neue Zeit, but that'll mostly be useful for historical purposes, although it also contains a treasure on theoretical insights. What we need is a contemporary equivalent of this journal

What annoys me in most papers on the left though is that they treat their readership as passive, rather childish figures that know nothing and should be convinced to the basic ideas of socialism by our enlightened revolutionary leaders, each and every issue. No wonder these papers - The Socialist, Socialist Worker and even The Morning Star - have a readership of only a few thousand each. Outside the UK this is often much worse still. How we are going to build a mass Marxist movement from these mere agitational papers is really beyond me.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Other organisations, most in fact, have it the other way around: Low barrier literature for new people, but treating the reader as a consumer rather than a potential critical thinker and political activist. Basically the attitude of most organisation is "read our theory to understand reality, follow our line and go sell this newspaper".

Is there no line in between these extremes?

A formalized two-tiered or even three-tiered membership structure seems to be the bulk of the solution, and such structure should revisit and critique Lenin's definition of "member." [Per my outline!]

If there is to be a three-tiered membership (a special level for exclusive membership in a "programmatic" committee), I think that even the sectarian World Socialist Movement's "membership tests" don't really cover enough material. Major subjects in labour history (contrasting German Social Democracy with British Labour, political and economic demands raised, etc.), contemporary labour studies ("globalization" of unions), and political economy (classical a la Hudson, Sraffian, post-Keynesian a la Keen, as well as "Marxian" a la Okishio and Marxist) would have to be covered in addition to the usual "obsession" with the Russian question.

[Benjamin Hill]

A formalized two-tiered or even three-tiered membership structure seems to be the bulk of the solution, and such structure should revisit and critique Lenin's definition of "member." [Per my outline!]

If there is to be a three-tiered membership (a special level for exclusive membership in a "programmatic" committee), I think that even the sectarian World Socialist Movement's "membership tests" don't really cover enough material. Major subjects in labour history (contrasting German Social Democracy with British Labour, political and economic demands raised, etc.), contemporary labour studies ("globalization" of unions), and political economy (classical a la Hudson, Sraffian, post-Keynesian a la Keen, as well as "Marxian" a la Okishio and Marxist) would have to be covered in addition to the usual "obsession" with the Russian question.

This sounds somewhat elitist. The approach we should be having, in my opinion, is to spread our ideas as widely as possible. A 2/3-tiered membership is rather the reverse: Holding "higher truths" to an ever more inward group. Many sects operate this way actually and I fail to see the purpose of it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A two-tiered membership is necessary to differentiate between those who are more politically active from those who aren't and are merely dues-payers (I won't use the term "activist" since to me it denotes political folks acting without thinking caps on). This goes back to the Lenin-Martov debate on membership and the SPD model.

I used the wrong term when I said "programmatic committee." Perhaps the term "programmatic institute" would be better, similar to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation affiliated with Die Linke. At least the bourgeois elitists at the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute think programmatically.

Such institute's very formal entrance qualifications (and training for those not qualified but eager to enter) would be an informal third tier and would cover the extensive material I mentioned above.