What is to be done? How do we act on what we have learned, and how do people already act?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.
For a history theme, the practical question comes in two parts. First, what did building this movement actually involve, how the early socialists organized parties, presses, unions, choirs, and schools, and what today’s organizers can still learn from how they did it? Second, how do we study this material well, which is where the free curricula come in. The organizing history keeps this from being an abstract seminar; the study guides make it something a room can actually run. Contemporary labor organizing lives in Labor, Work, and Organizing, and facilitation method in Critical Pedagogy; here the focus is the historical practice of the socialist movement and how to teach its origins.
Anchor questions
- The SPD built a whole counter-society, papers, libraries, choirs, clubs. What would that look like now, and do we want it?
- Michels watched a radical party grow conservative as it grew large. Is that “iron law” real, and how would you resist it?
- What did later movements take from the Commune’s defeat, practically?
- How should this room actually study Marx, alone, in a circle, aloud? What sequence would serve you?
Materials
All free.
The movement’s own practice
- Loren Balhorn, “When Social Democracy Was Vibrant” (Jacobin, 2017). The SPD’s counter-society of papers, choirs, and clubs. The clearest short account of the mass-party model. Free: jacobin.com
- Chris Maisano, “There’s No Substitute for Mass Working-Class Parties” (Jacobin, 2021). Michels, the SPD, and the “iron law of oligarchy,” on what mass parties require and where they harden. Free: jacobin.com
- “The Communards Were More Than Just Beautiful Martyrs” (Jacobin, 2021). The Commune’s organizational and strategic legacy, not just its martyrdom. Free: jacobin.com
- Shelton Stromquist, “The Socialist Debate over the Mass Strike” (Verso). How the mass-strike question divided the movement. Free: versobooks.com
- “The Internationals: A Brief History” (DSA). A compact organizer-facing walk through the First, Second, and later Internationals. Free: dsausa.org
Study guides and syllabi
These are ready to run a reading circle from.
- Marx and Engels Study Guides (Marxists Internet Archive). Sixteen work-by-work guides with intros, questions, and source texts. Free: marxists.org
- Beginners’ Guide to Marxism (Marxists Internet Archive). A curated first reading path with a glossary. Free: marxists.org
- Dialectics subject archive (Marxists Internet Archive). For building a session on the method itself. Free: marxists.org
- Marxist Reading Group: Introductory Syllabus (Spencer Beswick, Ithaca DSA). A free eighteen-week plan with page counts and facilitator questions. Free: emptyhandshistory.com
- Marxism 101 (Center for Political Education). A six-part course for organizers, including a session on dialectical and historical materialism. Free: politicaleducation.org
- The ABCs of Socialism (Jacobin, 2016). A free PDF primer answering beginner questions in plain language. Free: jacobinmag.com
Status
First pass, and it may be a while before there is a second. Contributions welcome, especially reading guides for the Paris Commune and the Internationals, which tend to appear only as single sessions inside broader Marx syllabi.