The Soviet Union was formed by transforming the imperialist Russian Empire into a union of socialist republics. This radical process was not brought on by chance; it was a deliberate and arduous process where the working class went from being a subservient class to one that could rule itself.
This miraculous transformation ended cycles of famine and established food stability for all. The economy went from an agricultural backwater to a space-faring superpower. The culture, which was once the setting of Fiddler on the Roof, produced the army that ended the Holocaust. These radical changes required expertise and could only happen because the Russian revolutionaries—the Bolsheviks—took the time to study how to transform society. They had help, though; they had their leader, Vladimir Lenin, to show them the way.
Lenin ran a newspaper to keep the masses informed. He also wrote texts that are fundamental to revolution. Every successful revolution starts by studying the basics. From Mao in China to Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers, every real revolutionary studies Lenin.
Huey P. Newton did not learn to read in school. He had to teach himself after dropping out. But just learning how to read wasn’t enough. More advanced texts required not just reading comprehension, but a process of studying to fully understand what was being presented. The Panthers would host reading sessions so they could study and learn together. Angela Davis remembers her time studying with the Panthers:
“If I still retained any of the elitism which almost inevitably insinuates itself into the minds of college students, I lost it all in the course of Panther political education sessions. When we read Lenin’s State and Revolution, there were sisters and brothers in the class whose public-school education had not even allowed them to learn how to read. Some of them told me how they had stayed with the book for many painful hours, often using the dictionary to discover the meaning of scores of words on one page, until finally they could grasp the significance of what Lenin was saying. When they explained, for the benefit of other members of the class, what they had gotten out of their reading, it was clear they knew it all–they had understood Lenin on a far more elemental level than any professor of social sciences.”
The Panthers were revolutionaries who studied revolution. They took the first steps in transforming society, and it’s up to us to take those same steps and to study those same fundamentals. Real Progressives is holding a five-week book club on Lenin’s State and Revolution. We encourage those who have not read the book to join us. We also invite those who have already read it to come, not only to study it further, but to help those of us still struggling to learn.
We owe it to yesterday’s revolutionaries to become today’s revolutionaries. I hope to see you all there.
