The RCP has officially launched the Pillars of Communism tour across British campuses.
Leading party members will be travelling from city to city to tackle the fundamental theoretical cornerstones of Marxist theory, with meetings planned on Marxist philosophy, the women’s question, the state, imperialism, and why capitalism is in crisis.
We have already held successful meetings in Bristol, Reading, Leeds, LSE, and Edinburgh, covering our position on the state, the myths of Marxism, and the lessons of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The Pillars of Communism tour is all about waging a struggle for ideological clarity. We want to answer the big questions – to understand society on a deeper level, so that we can struggle to change it.
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Communist students across the country are now educating themselves in the fundamentals of Marxism, to prepare for these meetings.
In the latest issue of The Communist, Anton Parocki from the Sheffield Communist Society explains the importance of studying Marxist philosophy.
Why we need Marxist philosophy
Anton Parocki, Sheffield University
To talk about the need for philosophy, first we must understand what philosophy is.
How do we understand and interpret the world? How do we know what to believe and what conclusions to draw? This is the role of philosophy – to understand what reality is, and how we make sense of it.
In everyday life, ‘common sense’ and simple logic is enough. Things mostly stay the same each day to the next, and we can get by without a conscious philosophical method.
But when we start to ask the bigger questions – about science, history, morality, wars, economics, and politics – ‘common sense’ reaches its limits.
But when people turn to academia or the internet for answers, what they find is often sorely lacking.
In universities, courses like sociology, politics, and economics are full of ideas whose purpose it is to attack and distort Marxism, and to defend the rotten status quo.
Postmodernism, for example, is a very popular philosophy, which denies that we can really know anything about the world, that there is no such thing as an objective truth. This is a direct attack on Marxism, which posits that we can uncover the laws of nature and society.
Feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory – which are all rooted in postmodern philosophy – reduce the fight against oppression to superficial changes to language and thinking (“discourse”) at an individual level, rather than the sweeping, fundamental changes that communists fight for.
This is the ideological swamp that young people must wade through. And we want to reach out a helping hand to everyone who wants to pull themselves out of it.
As communists, we want to change the world. But to change anything – from an engine part to an entire social system – you must first understand how it works. This is why a clear, scientific philosophy is crucial.
The philosophy of Marxism is called dialectical materialism.
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It is a dialectical philosophy, which means we understand that change and contradiction are an essential part of how the world works. Everything is constantly changing, often in unexpected and abrupt ways, and the dialectical method helps us make sense of this.
It is a materialist philosophy, because we understand that there is a material world out there which can be understood. Through practical interaction with the world – labour, experimentation, and scientific research – we can uncover the logic of reality.
We aren’t just interested in describing how bad the world is. Most young people already feel this anyway, and know that something radical needs to change.
The job of a communist student is to provide an explanation for the various problems young people are concerned about: war, imperialism, the climate crisis, exploitation, and oppression. And above all, we want to provide the solutions. Only Marxism can achieve this.
The ruling class has every means at its disposal to spread its ideas. The task falls on our shoulders alone to spread communist ideas.
So if you are serious about changing the world, and you want to train yourself into a Marxist, we invite you to join the meetings we are holding across the country on ‘The Struggle for Truth: Why Communists Need Revolutionary Philosophy’.
