Walk the Walk: How to Conduct Ourselves as Communists. By: Noah Khrachvik

7/22/2022

Walk the Walk: How to Conduct Ourselves as Communists. By: Noah Khrachvik

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“...If a Communist took it into his head to boast about his Communism because of the ready-made conclusions he had acquired, without putting in a great deal of serious and hard work, without understanding the facts which he must examine critically, he would be a very deplorable Communist. Such superficiality would be decidedly fatal.”

VI Lenin said that in a speech to Soviet students learning Marxism in 1920. It applies to today, in the USA, as much as it did to those days of the first worker state.

It is much easier to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk. It is easy to one day wake up and say, “I think I will call myself a Communist today.” From there, we could buy a t-shirt with Karl Marx’s face on it, and we could put a little hammer and sickle emoji in our Twitter profile, and we could tell everyone we believe in Communism. But would this make us a Communist?

A Communist means more than that. A Communist must hold his or herself to the highest standard possible, even if the Party they belong to has not yet rebuilt itself into an institution capable of demanding they do so. The Bolsheviks did not gain the support and respect of the working masses of the Soviet Union by bragging and talking down to them. They led by example.

An American Communist must do the same.

For every fifty people I see calling themselves Communists, usually only one actually carries themselves as such. So let’s go over a few qualities a Communist must have, because it is very easy, as noted above, to simply say we are a thing. It is quite another to embody that thing and become a person worthy of leading the working classes, worthy of the word Communist.

A Communist leads by example. It is not necessary for a Communist to brag or tell everyone how wonderful he is. This is low, trite, and beneath a Communist. Stooping to such petty bourgeois self-aggrandizement is anathema for anyone seeking to lead the proletariat.
A Communist shows this no better than on the job site, whether it be the shop floor, the office cubicle, or the assembly line (and whether that assembly line is creating car parts or hamburgers). He is the first to help his coworkers, the last to call off and put his work on others, and is not only the most knowledgeable, but is the one the rest of the shop can depend on for help or knowledge whenever they need it.
A Communist is the most diligent and dedicated of studiers and seeks knowledge in order to help liberate the working masses. She does not treat education as a way to feel superior to others, or simply memorize conclusions in order to sound smart and show off to her peers. She ponders these conclusions deeply, and instead begins to understand the process of arriving at them, and helps her brothers and sisters of the working classes learn more, bringing them up and not putting them down.
A Communist embodies the progressive aspects of their society, its cultures and traditions. In the USA, this means that a genuine Communist will accept you for who you are. As long as you aren’t hurting anybody, you are a brother or sister of the working class, and you will be treated as such. This is the American tradition. Diversity cannot divide us, no matter how hard the bosses try to use it to do so. It unites us. It gives us strength and range of thought. We are many disparate communities, brought together for one common cause.
This also means you do not snitch, backstab, go behind others’ backs, or lie. The American proletariat has a particular aversion to such petty bourgeois, suburbanite activities. “Snitches get stitches” did not become a common saying for no reason.

Above all, a Communist needs to prove to the rest of the working masses of their society that they are not just worthy of their respect, but of leading them into revolution and a new state that is genuinely of, by, and for the people. A Communist does NOT demand respect without earning it like a petulant child, all the while telling the masses how horrible they are for not being as enlightened as we think we are.

The contradictions of capitalism are growing more acute every day. We have run out of time to waste. The time for childishness and larping is over. The time for action is now. Onward to socialism.

Author

Noah Khrachvik is a proud working class member of the Communist Party USA. He is 40 years old, married to the most understanding and patient woman on planet Earth (who puts up with all his deep-theory rants when he wakes up at two in the morning and can't get back to sleep) and has a twelve-year-old son who is far too smart for his own good. When he isn't busy writing, organizing the working class, or fixing rich people's houses all day, he enjoys doing absolutely nothing on the couch, surrounded by his family and books by Gus Hall. He is an editor at Midwestern Marx.

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12 Comments

d k

7/23/2022 04:33:15 pm

Great read, but I'm a little confused about your call to your action. You highlight how communists should act, and yet, you close by calling for socialism. However, according to The Communist Manifesto, while similar to one another, they are no less different. For example, Marx writes "They [socialists] want to improve the condition of every member of society, even the most favored" (40). And, "they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means..."(40). In comparison, when highlighting communist ideals, Marx posits that communists focus on the working class only (22). In addition he writes,"They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions" (44).
Obviously, there is more to unpack than these quotes, nevertheless, explaining the actions of a communist and then calling for socialism is interesting.

Work Cited
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. International Publishers, 2017.

Noah link

7/24/2022 01:37:03 am

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here, my friend.

This quick paper is on how the most brilliant and effective Communist leaders in history have taught their students to conduct themselves.

The end, saying "Onward to socialism" is a line about historical progress. My "call to action" is for people who want to be Communists to hold themselves to higher standards. Doing this, in my opinion, is a pre-requisite of other pre-requisites to socialism, if that makes sense.

Or, rather, in order to win the support of the people, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We say we are fighting for socialism, which IS fighting for the people, and so we must show the people we are capable of doing this.

7/24/2022 04:45:31 pm

Thanks for responding!

The point I'm trying to make is Marx, in The Communist Manifesto, highlights definitive differences between communism and socialism, and characteristics of each ideology. While socialists/socialism aims for a peaceful transition/revolution, communists aim for a forcible overthrow/revolution.

Using the Manifesto as a lens of analysis, your call for socialism is incongruous with your article about communist behavior. You're calling for two different things. Marx emphasizes that communists know a forcible overthrow of societal conditions is necessary, whereas, socialism/socialists "wish to attain their ends by peaceful means" (40). So, while the list of communist principles are relevant, they don't necessarily align with what is laid out in the Manifesto. Take for example the following list of communist governmental traits from the Manifesto on pages 30-31:

1. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
2. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
3. Abolition of property.

These actions are not ones of a gentle socialist, but of a communist who knows that a forcible overthrow of societal norms is necessary.

I hope I've helped to lessen the muddy waters about my point. Also, I'd love to read read your sources for your communist principles. I'm thirsty for knowledge.

7/24/2022 08:46:26 pm

'..anyone seeking to lead the proletariat' would likely be familiar with Lenin's What Is To Be Done? (1902) . He said: 'the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness.' Lenin argued that socialist consciousness had to be brought to the working class by professional revolutionaries rather than a parliamentary party, drawn mainly from the petty-bourgeoisie, and organised as a vanguard party. But in 1879 Marx and Engels declared the opposite:

'When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.'

A declaration since echoed by other socialists including Eugene Debs and Rosa Luxemburg: ‘The mass of the proletariat must do more than stake out clearly the aims and direction of the revolution. It must also personally, by its own activity, bring socialism step by step into life’ (What Does the Spartacus League Want?, 1918).

7/25/2022 12:22:49 am

No problem, DK! I'm always happy to help!

So, let's address your first points. This "Socialism or Communism" issue. In the Manifesto, Marx describes different forms of socialism, right? There are even 'bourgeois socialists' in there, if I recall correctly. (It's been a LONG time since I've read the Manifesto.) And juxtapozing this against Communists as a type of socialist who want violence isn't really how Marx was thinking.

The issue, I think, is two-fold: first, I don't think we can treat the Communist Manifesto, which was a Party Program based on the particular situation of the era, as a universal call to action, rather than a particular call to action in this way. The Manifesto is great, but Marx, Lenin, Engels, etc., never ever wrote out a recipe to follow for everyone in every situation. In fact, they explicitly said they were not doing this, and that every situation is different and calls for different tactics.

Second, we have to understand the different ways these words get used over time. I generally use "socialism" and "Communism" interchangeably when speaking to Communists (as this paper is doing), because our socialism is a part of Communism. Marx used the word 'socialism' for a while in the same way, but ended up dropping it almost altogether because it wasn't specific enough and Communism noted the motion of society and his method better.

The original utopian socialists began using the word 'socialism' (and I may be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure Robert Owen first started using it in English) to mean any society that was based around society's well-being, rather than a 'liberal' (or capitalist society) that was based around the well-being of the individuals of the ruling class. This is how Marx began using it, and how 'scientific socialism' developed.

These days, we often make a mistake of thinking there are some preconceived policies or features that add up and that is 'socialism', and other preconceived features or policies that are 'Communism', but Marx wasn't writing in such a way. Lenin's shorthand of going THROUGH socialism to Communism wasn't doing so either, and was more in line with what I'm saying. "Communism", for Marxism, is, to be brief, "the return to the community, but on a higher level of development". The historical materialist method states that the organic development of private property alienated humanity - puts society in contradiction. The development of property IS the development of society, and it continues on in higher and higher stages, until it is re-united, and alienation is sublated, and we return to the community on a higher level of development.

So the goals you end with were goals of their time and place, in order to advance their immediate needs. And we need to understand that Marx was not viewing anything as sort of "We get in power and somehow manifest X policy", but instead these things are pulled from different sections that need different progress in different areas. "Abolishing property" is not creating laws outlawing property - it is the sublation of the form property takes in the era where 90% of the population are prevented from owning it, to a form where all people have access to it, changing what it is on a substantive basis.

Anyway, does this help? There's a lot to this kinda stuff. As Marx teaches us, the appearance of a thing is misleading. We must look deeper to its inner-workings to understand it.

7/25/2022 12:48:21 am

Thanks for the comment, RR!

These are types of things I see semi-frequently - things that apparently contradict each other. Like your first two things from Lenin and Marx and Engels. But when we dig a little deeper, we find they don't contradict. So let's go into that real quick.

We must remember that these men are applying a different mode of thought than we are taught at first in our western, bourgeois societies. In fact, we're even taught there is no such thing as other modes of thought, and this is where a lot of us get tripped up. I know it's where I did. But Lenin, Marx, and Engels, were applying dialectical materialism and historical materialism. This is what we call "Marxism" these days, or "Marxism Leninism". And Stalin sums up one of the most important aspects of this in the section of his short course called "Dialectical and Historical Materialism", when he says "EVERYTHING depends on the conditions, time, and place." So Lenin was absolutely correct in that time and place. But we must take the real world as our premise. Is it still correct for us in 2022? We have the internet now. People are learning Marxism through projects like Midwestern Marx. I'm not saying it no longer applies; only that we must re-ask that question.

But that's getting carried away on a tangent. My bad! You say it seems as if it's contradicting Marx and Engels, speaking of how it is the proletariat, and working masses that free themselves. It is, instead, an understanding of different particular conditions. Both are correct, in fact, the way I see it. In Lenin's period, in Russia, we must remember that the masses were mostly illiterate, transportation was scarce, and organization was different because of that. Information didn't flow the way it does today for us right now. They were learning more, adapting, and continuing on the fight. Lenin would appear to contradict himself in your quote hundreds of times, by stating very plainly that the proletariat and its organization IS the revolution. How is that possible? The issue is one of the creation of class consciousness. It doesn't matter what form this takes - only that it happens.

Carlos and I recently did a livestream where we discussed in detail how Marxism treats terms like "proletariat" and "working class". You can find it here if you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3J89m25cQ&t=823s

P.S. These are a lot of very deep questions for a quick essay on how Communists should conduct themselves on a completely personal and individual level. They're not really on the topic at all. But I really like the inquisitiveness, the dedication to answering hard questions, etc. Happy to help in any way I can!

-Noah

Catherine

7/25/2022 09:24:33 am

Good stuff friend. Absolutely I agree. We should stand tall and be well learned, failing that, honest about our ignorance. so that when the working masses lose faith in the bourgeois systems they will see and remember how we were at the worst times and what we say.

7/25/2022 08:29:01 pm

Noah - I see your point of intermixing the terms communism and socialism and using them as synonyms. It's not technique I'm terrible fond of - personal preference, but I absolutely respect your use of it. In addition, I do like what you're encouraging, much like Antonio Gramsci tried to encourage to his fellow communists. Good stuff. Thanks for the discussion.

7/26/2022 01:12:56 am

Oh! I should have been more clear, my friend. When I say I use them interchangeably, I don't mean that I use them as synonyms.

I try to use these words in the deeper sense Marx and Engels, Lenin, etc., meant them than we often find in our society today.

When I say socialism, I mean "that next stage of society that puts society's interests first, rather than the contradiction of the handful of elites vs us".

When I say Communism, I mean the whole process of society's alienation being sublated or resolved; the "return to the community on a higher level of development through the development of production and contradictions of the original alienation being sublated or resolved and the new form arising."

Happy to have a conversation any time, my friend! Thank you for the thoughtful questions!

7/26/2022 11:02:32 pm

Reading the comments section first was a good idea—kudos to you, Noah, for providing an example of the exact behavior you describe in the article itself! I agree, many self-titled Communists can talk the talk very well, and write in the same way you do, even calling to action fellow Communists to lead by example and stop getting caught up in heated Twitter debates and arguments of no consequence. Many of these Communists fail to heed their own call and it becomes evident in their interactions with others.

I genuinely hope every Communist will be humbled by the way you and people like you conduct yourselves. I certainly am, and it drives me to connect with others more deeply. To find out what other things I have been failing to learn from others. To seek learning more actively, just as much from the great Marxist-Leninist figures of history as from my brothers and sisters of today.

We are all in this together, and we act not on our own time, but on everyone's time. We have to stop eating it, because the ruling class will not, can not. We must overcome the deep social fracturing we constantly experience, and actively work to be closer, and work more closely with, each other.

7/27/2022 12:48:33 am

DC,

Thank you so much! I'm honestly incredibly inspired every time I see this kind of thing. You are ABSOLUTELY correct! We are all in this together. All we have is our numbers. That's it. We need to use that; develop that; strengthen it - even as the bosses try everything they can to fracture us and divide us.

Solidarity isn't just something we say, you know? It's something we build.

-Noah

Adam

2/10/2024 03:37:05 pm

Reading this article makes me want to be a better Communist/Marxist (human too, for that matter), which was the point it would seem. I share the sentiment expressed in this article, not wanting to draw "ready-made conclusions" in avoidance of "superficiality", but instead wanting to "ponder these conclusions deeply" and "understand the process of arriving at them" so that I may help the "working classes learn more" and eventually emancipate themselves. I should learn and understand the material before engaging in claims of knowledge. I can have the confidence in communism (and humanity in general) to be amicable and humble to people when I talk/practice it, instead of the typical liberal "leftist" response which disgustingly writes off working class America as a "stupid" or "forever-backwards" whole, incontrovertibly. All of the points are great and interconnected, but the 3rd and 4th points stand out to me in there particular interaction and relationship to each other. For what it is worth, great article Noah! Midwestern Marx is great.