Zorro [he/him]

You might be selling your friend short. Not everyone needs to understand all the works of former revolutionaries. The communist movement has many facets and requires all kinds of people with different skill sets and life experience.

One reason why some people might find it difficult to understand the concepts in ML literature, is because they find it difficult to envision it put in practice. This is why, for those people, it is beneficial to get some practical experience before diving further into the literature. Once they experience hang-ups in their own organizing, they might find help in some of the literature that directly relates to their hang-ups.

I won’t say that communists shouldn’t strive to always continue their education, but if someone does not grasp the words that they’re reading, then they must try something else. My biggest critique on communists reading lists is that they do not offer practical advice on how to start organizing, so many communists read all the books without putting the words to practice because they’re not sure how. Most organizing is local, and thus depends on location and existing local structures.

Here’s a few ways someone could get started on gaining practical organizing experience:

• Talk with people you come across, try to understand their grievances, their relation to capital and how they perceive their relation to capital.
• join any sort of political organisation that does more than just reading, and switch organisations if you feel like it fits you better. It can be climate justice, indigenous justice, international solidarity, a more general socialist organisation, a renters union/collective, neighbourhood mutual aid, whatever exists in your area and fits your vibes.
• join a union and become an active member
• unionise your workplace
• form a renters union

Some of these options are more intimidating than others. Some will be more directly involved with revolutionary struggle than others. The main goal is that one gets to experience the economical, social and political landscapes and the way in which class struggle shapes those landscapes.

Judging by your comments, you might like hexbear, lemmygrad or one of the non-liberal anarchist instances (I don’t remember which ones are good).

You are allowed to call death to Nazis on hexbear