Practical Marxism?

If Marxism-Leninism is a science, there must be some technical aspect. What are we supposed to do in the world? How do we do it? And how do we know if it's working?

Check out the book The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism it covers this in its intro:

The word “science,” and, by extension, “scientific” in Marxism-Leninism has spe- cific meaning. Friedrich Engels was the first to describe the philosophy which he devel- oped with Marx as “Scientific Socialism” in his book Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. However, it should be noted that the English phrase “scientific socialism” comes from Engels’ use of the German phrase “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.”

“Wissenschaft” is a word which can be directly translated as “knowledge craft” in German, and this word encompasses a much more broad and general concept than the word “science” as it’s usually used in English. In common usage, the word “science” in English has a relatively narrow definition, referring to systematically acquired, objective knowledge pertaining to a particular subject. But “wissenschaft” refers to a systematic pursuit of knowledge, research, theory, and understanding. “Wissenschaft” is used in any study that involves system- atic investigation. And so, “scientific socialism” is only an approximate translation of “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.” So, “scientific socialism” can be understood as a body of theory which analyzes and interprets the natural world to develop a body of knowl- edge, which must be constantly tested against reality, with the pursuit of changing the world to bring about socialism through the leadership of the proletariat.

The book focuses on, as it says on the tin, The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism. It wants you to understand the philosophical methodology behinds Marxism-Leninism. Its a translation of a Vietnamese college course on ML theory that is required study for all college students.

So you must strive to have a Marxist-Leninist Worldview (The whole of an individual’s or society’s opinions and conceptions about the world, about humans ourselves, and about life and the position of human beings in the world.) and to build that worldview within you requires reading theory. You want to test your worldview against objective reality often and regularly.

If Marxism-Leninism is a science, there must be some technical aspect. What are we supposed to do in the world? How do we do it? And how do we know if it’s working?

The whole point of Marxism-Leninism is not to 'make' a revolution, but to prepare the conditions for revolution. We shouldn't expect everyone to read theory, theory is just for the vanguard. But Marxists-Leninists should focus on improving mass consciousness before anything else. Every action should be subordinated to this particular task. An organization should exist solely for that purpose, until the task is achieved

Gotta read history in tandem with theory. We don't have time to reinvent the wheel for every movement. Learning about the nitty gritty details of past experiments is one of the first steps towards building our own experiments. I think a lot of the problems on the left stem from consuming abstract theory without understanding the material conditions from which the theory was refined.

"Read theory", to me, is a first but very important step. The more people read theory, the more people really understand why the movement exists. Unfortunately, after we actually read it, not everyone can put it into practice.

Person who read the books might not have union in his workplace, or being a communist in his environment is really unpopular and could harm him physically or mentally. In this situation, what can he actually do? How can he put theory into practice? And that, to me, the question majority of communists deal with all the time.

In this situation, the best way to utilise knowledge we got is to share it, try to push our ideas into masses because red scare didn't go anywhere, myths about USSR, China, communism are still here and although they look more like a rotten corpse than actual arguments, people still fucking use them.

And that's what most of us already do, which is great. I personally do it all the time, but it is not easy, even family members (or especially them) could be really hard to convince that communism will not take their food or make them all use the same toothbrush.

Trying to make people understand, or even listen, is not an easy and a very lengthy process. Some give up, some push forward, but if you don't have any other means to help the movement, what can you actually do?

Unions, orgs, local communtiy organizing.

Start there, share your theory within those; you will find applying theory to real life, accessable things that you can go out and do tomorrow will be best suited to these three things; Used well they will propel any project you put your theory into, as they work and are accurate in modern day conditions.

i tried reading das kapital multiple times, 1 book by lenin 1 time and always failed in under 10 pages. has this happened to you too? if yes, try stalin! (not claiming he was the best or smartest theorist or whatever, and i dont claim to understand "communist science", but this dude knew how to summarize and explain complicated shit)

Theory, and along with it, a crystallizing of what your core motives are (supporting the working class, supporting the colonized and siding with their liberation efforts) seem important for grounding your ideology in more than empathy (where a lot of everyday liberals end up). I mean, empathy is critical. There is a reason The Black Panther Party did their breakfast program for kids and that much of organizing begins with building material support networks locally. But if all you have is empathy and no theory, you get a lot of this sort of, "People should be nicer to each other. How? Idk, we'll raise them to be nicer and put 'be nice' posters everywhere I guess. Or maybe we'll throw some money at charity without examining the power dynamics that go into such structures."

Theory helps us understand power dynamics, which is something that basic empathy doesn't do. This is something liberals can be a bit shy about at times. "You mean you want to take that power stuff extremely seriously? That's kind of scary." One class's interests over another. Caste divides and how those inform interests. Why it is that someone who can readily agree with you on one issue with little effort can come to such different conclusions on another issue, some of which is a difference in their position in class or caste.

Then there is dialectics, which at least in western imperial core discourse (I can't speak for elsewhere) may need a lot more attention, with regards to making it more easy to understand and learn about. I've grappled with it some, but I still feel like I don't quite understand the extent of what is being said there. However, what seems evident to me from the amount I have grappled with it is that it is perhaps the most important component of theory and a component that you are not likely to find in the imperialist educational systems much at all. Understanding the nature of contradictions and how they interact together seems the most fundamentally grounded away from idealism; you are looking in and examining how things develop and how to grapple with those developments, rather than simply trying to impose an external ideal through sheer force of will. Not to be confused with incrementalist electoralism under imperialism, which is more like saying, "Never do anything too disruptive." Dialectics recognizes that the contradictions will sometimes lead to, sometimes must lead to, very disruptive developments.

I feel like I'm only brushing the surface of these points, but I offer them as something to consider for "why theory" and what value there is to be had in it, along with what practice can look like.

There is a dialectic between theory (or head knowledge) and practice. To be a Marxist is to do both things, working through that dialectic to evolve yourself as a practicianer. Additionally, to be a Marxist in practice necessitates interaction with an organized group of other Marxists. This interaction will challenge you to resolve conflicts between ideas, theories, strategies and so forth and develop a practical version of democratic centralism for your organization.

Those who think that Marxism is just learning theory aren't actually practicing Marxism. They become purists and commit the error of dogmatism. Many Trotskyists fall into this camp (I won't say all Trotskyists, but I'm still looking for counter-examples). It's why a Trotskyists probably knows Marxist theory better than I do but is also the most useless leftist on the planet (and can often even become useful to the bourgeoisie!).

If you only ever read theory and do not put it into practice, you are simply doing so for some personal reasons, like to feel smarter than others because you have an insecurity. This is not just useless but dangerous because people like this can sound really smart and like they know what they're talking about for new leftists. But because they offer no real solution to the material problems of those around them nor any practical avenues for the proletariat to direct their anger and pain from capitalism towards revolutionary action, it drains the energy away from more serious praxis.

Praxis is the hard part. It's why many don't do it. But it's what actually makes any of this make sense.

"The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." — Karl Marx