On this page you will find ways we can help set up a study group, a way to contact us to join our distribution network, and our regional affiliated organizations.
Set Up a Study Group!
Study groups are one of the fundamental elements of Marxist organizing.
Marxists are renowned for forming Study Groups, usually focusing on difficult-to-read classics like Capital. Is this some weird hold-over from the olden days when bespectacled petit-bourgeoisie met in dark and sooty rooms to plot revolution? No! There is a good reason why we have Study Groups and why we continue to form them.
Struggle is communal. We can all read whatever we want on our own and think deep thoughts about our lives and our readings, but unless we put those thoughts to the test and exchange them, temper them, and interact with other people who have had different struggles, then we will never come to a truly correct understanding. The reading group is the place to study our current social order and find ways to change it.
Class-consciousness can develop spontaneously, political development can’t. Class-consciousness is the Marxist awareness that present (capitalist) society is divided into discrete “classes” with differing interests. This develops organically and spontaneously as you look around and see things like the 2008 bailouts, etc. However, what we should do about the existence of social classes, that is, political development, is not spontaneous.
Study Groups develop sympathizers into Communists. The journey from just being on the left to understanding what needs to be done about the brutal inequality of capitalism is a hard one, and you need friends and allies to help you through it. Essentially, we all have to discard old “liberal” ideas about government and look the truth — the bare facts — in the face. When U.S. ideologues talk about “human rights,” what do they mean? When they talk about a “free press” what does that mean? It’s through collective study and group accountability that we learn to purge ourselves of these old prejudices.
It’s hard to develop politically when the hegemonic, ruling, culture tells you that Communism is evil. You need allies to help buoy you up and help you sort the truth about social justice from the fiction.
Study Groups help teach more than political education — they help us practice real democracy, accountability, and organization. Organizing, no matter what anyone tells you, isn’t about putting on marches, protests, sit-ins, or phone banks (although some of those things can be used to organize). Organizing is about developing groups with internal relations that allow them to make decisions, act collectively, and remain in-tact between meetings. Study Groups are a form of organizing, so long as they don’t descend into meaningless debate clubs.
Study Groups, when done right, draw others into the struggle. One of the big challenges of the struggle right now is activating or drawing in other people who are prepared to disbelieve the self-evident lies of the ruling class, but have no real avenue to express their anger, dissent, or disagreement. Particularly by organizing Study Groups in public places and advertising them in public places, this brings in class-conscious people who have a desire to learn more and helps transform them into fighters for justice.
In short, the study group is a site of reproduction of Communist thought, theory, practice, and revolutionaries.
Join the Unity–Struggle–Unity Distribution Network
If your organization serves the people, we want to help! The USU Distribution Network is a connection of affiliated orgs and formations that distribute USU publications, maintain contact with the press, and report on distribution. If you or your org would like to participate in this all-empire program to help unite revolutionary consciousness with the revolutionary masses, please fill out the form below.