Dispatch #5
a little plug & play reading group for you & your crew
Hello friends! I hope you’re having a rebellious December, an advent absolutely frothing at the mouth in yearning for that day when heaven & earth rejoice. I’m writing to you in hopes to be helpful.
It’s been a rowdy and rough couple of years. Perhaps you find yourself to be a very different person than you were in December 2019. (If not, what is your drug regimen? Don’t gatekeep!) Maybe your politics have evolved in important ways, and you’re looking to grow in your learning. Or, maybe, you have a crew of friends/colleagues/neighbors who are curious about left politics, and you’re looking to find ways to engage them further. Another maybe: do ya call yourself a communist but find you’ve yet to read the Manifesto (no shame! Communism doesn’t belong to nor was it invented by Marx)? I’ve got a little syllabus for your reading group!
I’m blessed to have a group of neighbors & friends who trekked through this reading list alongside me. Since we just finished, I have a few notes on this reading group map that might help you decide if this is something you’d like to organize with your own community —
I read alongside folks are in varying places of political education / commitment to marxism / interest in reading books by old dead guys. I think the list worked fairly well for all involved, although some items might need trimming or more context. If you decide to give this reading list a spin, let me know and I’ll chat with you about places that might need more context!
This list relies on two works: a specific annotated edition of The Communist Manifesto and a work of fiction Everything for Everyone. In between there are other readings to introduce concepts like abolition, disability justice, landback, anarchism. If your crew wants to bite off something smaller/less time intensive, you could definitely reconfigure this syllabus to meet your needs!
There were times in this reading group that I found myself wanting to pinpoint specific pieces of theory that the readings were alluding to, but not defining (lookie here! Do you think we will need a vanguard party, as this writer imagines? Oh, do you think the anarchists are a bit foolish about what it will mean for the State to disappear? Don’t you think someone will have to seize State power and transition us into a communist future? Say more!). If you have someone in your reading group familiar with enough theory & organizing & history who can point out these moments, I think it would be helpful. But if not, I don’t think you’re losing out — there’s still a lot to be gained.
Anyways, if you’re looking for an easy entry point for organizing some political education for yourself and your people, perhaps this will be of help to you! If you buy any of these books, buy them from local books stores or the publishers themselves. If you don’t wanna buy anything, send me a message I might be able to hook you up. Here you go:
Reading Group Syllabus
The goal of this reading list is to inspire each reader to revolutionary optimism and revolutionary action. A secondary goal is to gain a solid understanding of basic marxist theory, as a way of preparing for future theory reading groups. This reading group starts with a shared anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist sentiment, but no prior theory, partisan allegiance, or sectarian view is necessary to engage in this study. It is expected that readers’ will have their views challenged and changed over the course of this study.
The structure of these readings is meant to be both accessible and inviting. Each week stands alone – if a reader needs to skip a gathering, they are not “behind” in their study. Additionally, because each week stands alone, newcomers can join at any time. It would be a gift to see the group grow!
Logistics to be determined:
Meeting spaces can shift to accommodate the needs and desires of the group. There is a long revolutionary history of meeting in homes and pubs to discuss incendiary ideas.
The group should also determine the cadence for these meetings – weekly? twice a month? This can also ebb & flow to meet needs, accommodate holidays, and honor capacity.
Our revolutionary optimism will be nurtured by our ongoing grounding in the speculative fiction text Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052-2072.
Our revolutionary action will be inspired by texts and reflections on radical ideas from the past and present, including a reading of Phil Gasper’s 2024 annotated edition of The Communist Manifesto.
This iteration of our reading group will conclude with a gathering that will be celebratory in nature, for we have a world to win! At that final gathering, we might reflect on what we’ve learned and built together. We will also have the option to continue our studies with a new reading goal, as well as consider how we might deepen our organizing practices (both together and in our various organizational affiliations).
Week One:
The Communist Manifesto (Gasper),
“Introduction: History’s Most Important Political Document” & “Marxism in a Nutshell” (pgs 1-25)Everything for Everyone, “Introduction: On Insurrection and Historical Memory” (pgs 1-16)
Upstream, “How to Fall in Love with the Future” (1hr, 18min listen)
Week Two:
The Communist Manifesto (Gasper), Preamble & Section I Bourgeois & Proletarians (pgs 29-49)
Everything for Everyone, “Miss Kelley on the Insurrection of Hunts Point” (pgs 19-34)
Week Three:
Discourse on Colonialism, Cesaire Alme (pgs 29-78)
Everything for Everyone, “Kawkab Hassan on Liberating the Levant” (pgs 37-54)
Week Four:
EFE, “Tanya John on the Free Assembly of Crotona Park” (pgs 57-77)
The Manifesto, Section II Proletarians & Communists (pgs 50-63)
Week Five:
EFE, “Belquees Chowdhury on Student and Worker Occupations” (pgs 79-93)
“What is Anarchism?” Alexander Berkman
“What is the State? What is Revolution?” Abolition & Reconstruction
Week Six:
EFE, “Quinn Liu on Making Refuge, from Hangzhou to Flushing” (pgs 95-112)
The Manifesto (Gasper), Section III Socialist & Communist Literature (pgs 64-78)
Week Seven:
EFE, “S. Addams on the Church Fathers of Staten Island” (pgs 115-133)
Socialist Reconstruction, “The Socialist Government: The Form and Function of a New Democracy” (pgs 25-42)
Two poems:
Power, Audre Lorde
Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Killed for Attempting to Kill a Soldier (with a Nail File), or Context, Mohammed El-Kurd (optional: selection from El-Kurd’s Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal referencing this poem)
Week Eight:
EFE, “Aniyah Reed on Pacha and the Communization of Space” (pgs 135-153)
The Manifesto (Gasper), Section IV Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties (pgs 79-81)
“On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant,” David Graeber
Week Nine:
EFE, “Connor Stephens on the Fall of Colorado Springs” (pgs 155-175)
The Manifesto (appendix), “Colonialism, Racism, Slavery, and the Origins of Capitalism”
Paul Bowers’ “John & Harriet” (Hey Paul Bowers! Thanks for writing this one — the group loved it!)
Deirdre Cooper Owens’ “Harriet Tubman’s Disability and Why it Matters”
Week Ten:
EFE, “Latif Timbers on Gestation Work” (pgs 177-189)
Upstream, “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” (1hr, 15min)
The Manifesto (appendix) “Women’s Oppression & Women’s Liberation”
Week Eleven:
EFE, “An Zhou on Ecological Restoration” (pgs 191-205)
The Manifesto (Gasper), “Afterword: Is the Manifesto Still Relevant?” (pgs 85-111)
Week Twelve:
EFE, “Kayla Puan on Growing Up in the North Ironbound Commune” (pgs 207-220)
two selected readings from Mariame Kaba’s We Do This Til We Free Us:
Police ‘Reforms’ You Should Always Oppose (pgs 70-71)
Moving Past Punishment (pgs 148-156)
Week Thirteen:
EFE, “Alkasi Sanchez on the Mid-Atlantic Free Assembly” (pgs 223-239)
“Despair is a Luxury,” Rebecca Solnit, from No Straight Road Takes You There
Week Fourteen:
“What’s next?” a gathering to decide next steps
Okay that’s all for now. Keep building. We’re gonna need all of us. <3