April 12th Virtual Study Session

Join RSP for a virtual study session of “Malcolm X Didn’t Dish Out Free Bean Pies.” We will hop on Signal to read in turn and discuss the article together. See the last session’s notes to catch up.

• Introductions
  • Head count: 3
• Reading
  • Started at heading “Malcolm X didn’t dish out free bean pies”
  • Stopped at heading “Bringing forward a revolutionary people…and paying attention to their needs from that perspective”

• Notes, comments, etc.
  • Meeting someone’s needs + political education and consciousness-raising
  • Aid cannot be the end itself, it must be a means
  • Vulgar or unrefined class consciousness of people
  • Lenin’s WITBD
    • Against class reductionism and economism
    • Communism is concerned not only with class, but also other real phenomena like national oppression, women’s oppression
    • Expanding scope of critique from just immediate economic needs and fights to envolope all political struggles in society
  • Workers have to view themselves as one part of a whole struggle in society that is connected with other struggles
  • Labor aristocracy originates from economism
  • Social worker vs tribune of the people
  • Raising class-consciousness is a prerequisite to revolution and to reproducing revolutionary organization
  • “Community sounding boards and social agencies”
    • Building trust with the masses by actually solving their issues
    • Leading instead of tailing struggles
  • The Four Opportunists are tailing the advanced masses who are already engaging in higher struggles
  • As Marxists of the Party-To-Be, we need to organize with the advanced masses instead of tailing them
    • Prevent them from going off into adventurism
    • Yet don’t hold back people’s initiative and creativity
  • YL’s street trash => disrupting business as usual
  • “after spending time attending church services and talking to parishioners” => church takeover
    • Having support of people who are going to that church was important
    • Social-cultural events for education
  • Tactics can be offensive or defensive
    • Don’t want to be entirely defensive (building dual power/red basebuilding/survival programs)
    • Offensive tactics such as challenging property relations and state power
  • EB neighborhood
    • Material support but also propaganda which addresses people’s real life issues
    • Newsletter? Interviews?