Political Education
A Note On Political Education
With a growing membership in our caucus, political education has become an important question. Our caucus is focused on outward-facing work. We want to make communist base building into a popular practice. Often this means setting aside focus on political education, especially since many are more home in the political education group than they are knocking on doors, helping to build unions, etc. Yet, a lack of political education can threaten external caucus work. Externally, base building projects can sometimes become apolitical, or even economistic, without persistent attention paid to the political dimension of our organizing. It’s for this reason that we have developed this political education program. The courses below are only offered for caucus members and for invitees from our base building projects. But we are presenting this list in full for all DSA comrades to look at if they wish.
CC Political Education Curriculum
The following political education curriculum was approved at the 2021 CC national convention.
Course 1: Marx and the capitalist mode of production
- Class 1: Marx, Karl – Communist Manifesto; Thesis on Feuerbach; Selections from German Ideology (links forthcoming)
- Class 2: Marx, Karl – Capital, selections (link)
- Class 3: Marx, Karl – Capital, selections
- Class 4: Choose one—selections from: Romance of American Communism (link); selections from Proletarian Journey (link)
Course 2: Political strategy and action
- Class 5: Lukács, Georg – “What is Orthodox Marxism?” in History and Class Consciousness (link)
- Class 6: Lenin, Vladimir – Selections from What is to be Done? (link forthcoming).
- Class 7: Lenin, Vladimir – “Left-Wing Communism” selections (link); Lukács, Georg – “Legality and Illegality” in History and Class Consciousness (link)
- Class 8: Boggs, James – American Revolution selections on unionism, automation (link); Brecht, Bertolt – Me Ti and 5 Difficulties to Writing the Truth, selections (links forthcoming)
- Class 9: Choose one—selections from: The CIO’s Left-Led Unions (link); Rank and File (link); Ten Days That Shook The World (link)
Course 3: Barriers to power: racism
- Class 10: Allen, Ted; Ignatin, Noel – “White Blindspot” (link); Haider, Asad “White Purity” (link); Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta – From #Blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation selections (link forthcoming)
- Class 11: Wood, Ellen Meiskins; Reed, Adolph – Debate on race and class (link)
- Class 12: Fanon, Franz – Wretched of the Earth, selections (link)
- Class 13: Choose one—selections from: Black Reconstruction (link); Hammer and Hoe (link); Black Worker in the Deep South (link)
Course 4: Our moment
- Class 14: Harvey, David – A Brief History of Neoliberalism, selections (link)
- Class 15: Rodríguez, Dylan – “The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex” (link)
- Class 16: Putnam, Robert – Bowling Alone selections (link); Communist Caucus – “Strategic Approaches” (link)
- Class 17: Choose one—selections from: Golden Gulag (link); Singlejack Solidarity (link); Detroit I Do Mind Dying (link)
Course 5: Final projects
Final project: Research a strike, tenant action, or another type of social rupture that happened in your local area. Use some of the ideas that we learned to talk about the movement. Who was organizing and fighting? What was being demanded? How did the situation turn out?
Self-Study Readings
Self-study readings are subject to change by internal caucus wings and committees. This list will get updated shortly. Last update happened on 12/12/2021.
Self-Study 1: Ideology, State, Reforms
- Beginner: Althusser, Louis – “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (link)
- Intermediate: Luxemburg, Rosa – Reform and Revolution, “The opportunist method”; “Realization of socialism through reforms”; and “Conquest of political power” (link)
- Advanced: Althusser, Louis – On the Reproduction of Capitalism, selections (link)
- Advanced: Poulantzas, Nicos – State, Power, Socialism, selections (link forthcoming)
- Advanced: Tronti, Mario – “Lenin in England” from Workers and Capital (link)
Self-Study 2: The Tenant Movement
- Beginner: Sarah M., Nick W., and Justin G. – Tenant Power is Proletarian Power (link)
- Beginner: Davis, Mike – “Tenant Organizing, Rent Strikes and the Workers Movement” (link)
- Beginner: Rosenthal, Tracy – 101 Notes on the LA Tenants Union (link)
- Intermediate: Gilmore, Justin – “Organization and Rupture on the Terrain of Housing” (link)
- Intermediate: Stein, Sam – The Real Estate State selections (link forthcoming)
- Intermediate: Zhirabor – “Connecting American Tenancy With Palestinian Struggle” (link)
- Advanced: Eisenberg, Nathan; & Tutt, Daniel – “Buying Time” (link)
Self-Study 3: The Labor Movement
- Beginner: Garneau, Marianne – “You Say You Want a General Strike” (link)
- Beginner: Shapiro, Paul – “The Necessity of Organization: The League of Revolutionary Struggle and the Watsonville Canning Strike” (link)
- Intermediate: De Chungara, Domitila; Ortiz, Victoria; Viezzer, Moema – Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian Mines (link forthcoming)
- Intermediate: Davis, Mike – Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class, Part One (link forthcoming)
- Intermediate: Moody, Kim – An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism, selections (link forthcoming)
- Intermediate: Lynd, Staughton – Solidarity Unionism (link)
- Intermediate: Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions, chapters 1, 2 (link)
- Advanced: Braverman, Harry – Labor and Monopoly Capital, selections (link forthcoming)
- Advanced: Burawoy, Michael – Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly Capitalism, selections (link forthcoming)