I’m looking for specific suggestions of what I can do to find a group that I can join for the purpose of building a real revolution inside the USA. I’m trying and finding it very difficult. The closest was PSL but honestly my local branch seems kind of limp. That and I’m not academically inclined enough to get through Capital.
People’s movements that included the illiterate made teaching literacy a priority with capital often used as a pedagogical text.
Learning the history and theory is how you understand the revolutionary potential of any given moment.
Bringing everyone who wants to be a part of the movement to a shared level of understanding as equals is how we choose to work with all types of people.
If you just feel like there’s no time to read a book and can’t be convinced otherwise by literally every successful movement in all of history then there are anarchist groups that will put you to work or liberal electoralist organizations that will do the same.
I think this belies an incorrect understanding of equality. We cannot and should not expect every person to have the same level of understanding, that’s not how people work. Equality of outcome is an impossible goal, what is possible is equality of opportunity. Obviously there should be people in the movement with true expertise of the theory in question, but other experts are needed and most people aren’t experts in multiple things.
It’s not just about the revolution itself, it’s about planning the world that comes after it. That means needing experts in agriculture, medicine, architecture, supply chains, manufacturing, cooking, cleaning, and so much more. Even organizing and battle strategies are different skill sets than the ability to read and internalize what is essentially a doctoral thesis, especially one that is about 10x longer and written over 100 years ago.
Also, any movement worth doing should be able to include people with no expertise at all. People who are ready to work for that better world even if they don’t understand all of the intricacies of how it functions or the path to get there. None of that should take away from their equality.
Actual existing socialist movements that became actual existing socialist states successfully taught people to read using the book capital.
None of the roles involved in operating the socialist state or tearing down the bourgeois state preclude literacy.
Experts in their fields need to understand history and theory in order to be able to figure out new forms of organization.
We are not storming the battlements. There are not ditches to be dug. All serious communist movements in the imperial core strive to understand the conditions of the moment and determine how they should respond to them. That requires history and theory.
Again, if you just feel like you’re gonna fly to pieces if you don’t do something, there are anarchist and electoralist groups that will put you to work.
It sucks to have a fire lit under your ass and have the people who did it say “now sit on your burning ass and read this long boring book and have a talk with us about it afterwards.” It’s not something you can make an effective end run around.
But how are you preparing for the revolution?
Here’s a hypothetical. You have all the theory and your group of people for your academic discussions on what that means and how it applies to the modern day, while making sure to keep anyone out who’s unwilling or unable to complete your reading list. One day, in the not too distant future, the time comes. There’s a crisis and the conditions for revolution have arrived and the people are calling for it. How do you react without a coalition? Who’s going to follow you? How do you actually takeover the government without building a community and infrastructure to do so?
It would be so cool if you had done the fucking reading so we could have that conversation.
That’s your problem. You won’t even have the conversation with someone less educated than you.
How do you expect it to go?