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ABC of Marxism

Carl Cowl

ABC of Marxism

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Appendix
How to Organize and Conduct
Successful Study Groups


Thousands of workers are seeking a way out of conditions becoming daily more intolerable. In every community it is not difficult to bring together a group willing and eager to study Marxian science, provided they have the assurance that the study will really teach them how to understand and influence the world they live in.

In assembling the group, select elements who not only want to KNOW but who want to PUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE TO USE. Windbags and dilettantes looking for a place to spout off should be excluded at the outset.

Size of Class: Too large a class is an obstacle. This course implies intensive study. When there are more than ten or twelve many members of the class will not be able to discuss and digest the material properly. Six or eight is a good size to begin with.

Object of the Class: Marxism is not an academic study. It is a training for action in the class struggle. This training, of course, will open up NEW FIELDS OF STUDY. But the mastery of each new field increases by that much the value of the student’s ACTIVITY. The goal of the study of Marxism therefore is a combination of scientific study and revolutionary action.

Organization of the Class: Library: Before beginning the class it is important to have available for use the reading material indicated at the end of each lesson. Demos Press will supply almost all items on the reading list at cost. But there are certain inexpensive elementary Marxist works that every member of the class should be required to own. These are: The Communist Manifesto, Value Price and Profit, Wage-Labor and Capital, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. These items constitute the beginning of a Marxist library. Copies for all should be on hand at the first session of the course.

Registration: Impress on the applicant that he is registering for a complete 10 week course of connected study and not for a weekly forum. Unless he intends to go through with the entire course, the registration should not be made. Strict adherence to this rule will immensely improve the character of the course.

Fee: Experience has shown that charging a nominal fee establishes a sound relationship between the member and the course as a whole. It also makes for regular attendance and a greater concentration on the subject matter. Where the fee cannot be paid in a lump, it can be paid in installments, but not for each session. The latter rule is necessary to discourage casual attendance. Where a worker is unable to pay the fee free tuition may be offered after consideration by the class committee.

Records: Strict record should be kept of registration and fee payments, of attendance, of the reading done by each member outside of the class and of the written answers to review questions made in the class. For this purpose a secretary or class committee (according to the size of the class) should be elected to assist the class leader.

Class Leader: Often the biggest obstacle to a successful class is the lack of a qualified leader. By “qualified” is not necessarily meant one who has great Marxist erudition, but rather one who has the ability to guide, stimulate and integrate the class and the material with life and the class struggle. Very often inexperienced people possess this quality. For such leaders, the following is presented as guiding principles:

  1. The members of the class do not expect you to know it all. Assume you are on the class, learning and profiting along with the rest. Earn the recognition of the class by PREPARING yourself between sessions on the material assigned. Admit you do not know when you don’t. Never give a phony or evasive answer to a serious question.
     
  2. When a question arises which you are not immediately capable of answering, assign the point to a member of the class to look up and report at the following session. At the same time ALWAYS DO SO YOURSELF. At first there may be a problem where to look for the desired information. If there are no local sources available, Demos Press will always be glad to get it for you. Be honest with the group consistently and you will build up your integrity and, in the final analysis, the integrity of the movement.

Class Method:

  1. Marxism is not a set of dogmas to be memorized. It is a method of thinking and a guide to action. Every obscure or “unreasonable” point can be resolved by discussion and demonstration.
     
  2. Encourage the habit of NOTE-TAKING, both at home and in the class. Every member is expected to jot down:

    (1) points NOT UNDERSTOOD;
    (2) points with which he DISAGREES, for discussion in the class; and
    (3) definitions, formulae or striking statements which he considers worth preserving.

    The notebook will become a valuable treasure of information and material.
     
  3. Make the following clear to the members of the class: In this elementary course they cannot hope to cover and assimilate the material simply by listening to the lecture and discussion. They must make up their mind to spend not less than one evening per week studying the material assigned. As many of the class as can should get together during the week to argue out points. In any case each member is expected to come to class prepared to give a report on all of the assigned reading. Three quarters of the value of the course is lost to those who merely sit and listen.
     
  4. REGULARITY OF ATTENDANCE is essential. Better an individual not attend at all than drop in once in a while. The casual visitor demoralizes the class and hampers continuity of study. He raises questions previously dealt with and wastes the precious time of the group by raising questions the class has already covered. Strict adherence to this rule will amply repay the class. Casual attendance will convert the class from one of intensive study to the open forum type of loose discussion.
     
  5. Aim to COMPLETE THE COURSE or do not start it. Every uncompleted course makes the following course harder to begin. Go through with it. In doing so the morale of the members is lifted. They can say: WE HAVE GONE THROUGH this course – as something definitely accomplished. This will redound beneficially to the leader and to the class. Both the leader and the class as a whole will learn HOW TO CONDUCT the course.
     
  6. Each session should be roughly divided into three parts of one half hour each. The entire session should not be over one and one half hours long. The first part is devoted to discussion and digestion of the reading material assigned the previous week. After determining and recording how much of the assigned material each member has read, two or three questions should be dictated for answer in writing. The written answers should be discussed by the entire class. The second part should be devoted to a presentation by the class leader of key material for the following session. This key material can be found in the text of this pamphlet. After assigning the reading for the following session the leader then, in the third part, throws the floor open for discussion of all the points of agreement and disagreement recorded in the notebooks.
     
  7. The object of CLASS DISCUSSION is to stimulate workers to think out problems for themselves. The leader should prepare leading questions designed to do so. Do not allow the more capable comrades to monopolize the floor. Spread the questions around to cover all comrades, not forgetting the shy and backward members of the class. Let them present their own ideas, even if wrong. The class can criticise and discuss them. Allow the members to correct their own errors. A good leader will talk little – except in the second (lecture) part – but will guide the discussion, so that the class itself will develop the point of the lesson.

Practical Work: There will become evident, after the class has progressed three or four weeks, a close and living connection between the subject matter and the actual labor movement. The leader should plan, together with the League unit – where there is one – or with the class committee, various activities designed to illustrate that connection. Union and labor defense mass meetings, political demonstrations, picket lines should be visited and participated in. Leaflet distributions to industrial plants, visitations and discussions with contacts and reports of their arguments for or against Marxism should be made to give the class a practical understanding of the functioning of a revolutionary Marxist organization.

With these simple rules as a basis, and with others that the class leader will develop through his own experience, serious groups can take great strides towards the development of a new cadre of revolutionary Marxists in this country.

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“Marx and Engels have left a monument stronger than any granite, more eloquent than any epitaph. They have left us a method of scientific research, rules of revolutionary strategy and tactics. They have left an inexhaustible treasure of knowledge which is still serving as a fathomless source for the study and comprehension of surrounding reality.” – from Marx and Engels by Riazanov.

 
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Last updated: 7 August 2019