When I got started as an aspiring Marxist a few years ago, I joined the only Marxist org in my area. I was excited at first, but not long after it morphed into a weird Trot cult focused on the chairman. People started leaving until it was mostly Trots circle jerking about how they’re the only true Marxists, all AES are “degenerated workers’ states” that betrayed the revolution, and apparently no one since Trotsky has advanced Marxism in any meaningful way, among many other things. I quietly and reluctantly went along because I was still new and didn’t want to speak on matters I had no knowledge of.
At some point I decided to read some Mao, and after I quoted “Combat Liberalism” I got interrogated by senior members for some sort of perceived “Stalinism”. I got some lecture about how Mao and his “clique” unfairly suppressed the Trots during the revolution, and how Stalin forced the CPC to ally with the reactionaries and how that led to a bunch of people getting killed, or something like that. The point they really wanted to get across was that Mao and Stalin were traitors to the revolution and were not to be trusted. That really shook my confidence, but shortly after that the org suddenly dissolved because the chairman got exposed for… Inappropriate behavior. In retrospect, there were so many issues, I’m not sure what I thought could possibly be accomplished. I got really disillusioned for a long time.
Now I’m wanting to get politically active again, but the problem is that there are no Marxist orgs around in my part of the U.S. I’m not sure how I would go about starting one, and I’m afraid that I’m carrying remnants of not only liberalism, but also whatever erroneous ideas I may have picked up while in the cult.
So with all that said, I’d greatly appreciate advice and reading recommendations to help me start fresh. In particular, I’d love a comprehensive reading list that would help me develop into a proper Marxist-Leninist. Thank you. <3
I am of the opinion that learning to organize is much more important than having perfect politics. Read whatever theory people recommend, it’s always good to read, but you can only understand the theory if you put it to practice by organizing.
Secrets of a successful organizer is a book with all the principles you need in order to organize your workplace or community. Look for any type of friction that exists in your workplace/community and use it to agitate people and work together towards a larger goal. In this process you might meet other leftists who would be interested in meeting regularly to discuss theory and how it’s applied in your organizing.
Edit to be a bit more concrete:
Also I would actually recommend against joining any type of liberal political organisation and just join a union or find an online organisation that can provide free legal support while you organize your workplace or community (psl maybe?). I don’t know the exact context of where you live, but at least in my experience it’s a complete waste of time to join a liberal political organisation. Your time would be spent on internal politics and trying to garner votes for whatever liberal candidate they put forward. This is also a risk with joining a union but at least you could just choose to not be involved with the internal politics if they seem like a waste of time.