You need both theory and practice together. Practice sharpens theory, theory guides practice. You don’t have to be a grandmaster Marxist-Leninist with decades of theory under your belt to do good work. A large part of organizing involves training and educating comrades, for example, you even hint at it. Many orgs require a protracted training period before even being a full member, such as PSL or FRSO.
What’s classist would be shutting out the working class from theory, keeping it purely for the vanguard. Many existing communist orgs have run into this problem, and resolved it in various ways. Theory is for the working class, not for a privledged few, so the good vanguards have managed to make theory approachable and digestible.
I’d say it’s definitely a “normal” thing to do. A lot of people don’t understand the importance of organizing until they’ve read a bit of theory, and saying they were wrong to do so, or framing them as privledged, isn’t the right path. There are two “wrong” camps, those who only read theory, and those who only do practice, though the practice camp is less incorrect. The correct group is the group that tries to balance both.
You need both theory and practice together. Practice sharpens theory, theory guides practice. You don’t have to be a grandmaster Marxist-Leninist with decades of theory under your belt to do good work. A large part of organizing involves training and educating comrades, for example, you even hint at it. Many orgs require a protracted training period before even being a full member, such as PSL or FRSO.
What’s classist would be shutting out the working class from theory, keeping it purely for the vanguard. Many existing communist orgs have run into this problem, and resolved it in various ways. Theory is for the working class, not for a privledged few, so the good vanguards have managed to make theory approachable and digestible.
No problem with that. My problem is with people who expect to start from theory as if that it’s a relatable and normal thing to do.
I’d say it’s definitely a “normal” thing to do. A lot of people don’t understand the importance of organizing until they’ve read a bit of theory, and saying they were wrong to do so, or framing them as privledged, isn’t the right path. There are two “wrong” camps, those who only read theory, and those who only do practice, though the practice camp is less incorrect. The correct group is the group that tries to balance both.