Theory or practice cannot be complete/correct without the other. Its not really a moral imperative as Marxism isn't a moral philosophy, its the materialist science of social change. Theory and practice is a dialectical relationship, with action in one contradicting the other, which then shapes the other, and vice versa.
Relating it to the natural sciences, theories in physics result from analysis of practice (running experiments in the real world). These theories then make predictions to then be tested again in the real world. Contradictions seen from this result in change in the theory, which then requires a new test practice.
Its not really a moral imperative as Marxism isn’t a moral philosophy, its the materialist science of social change.
Not in terms of marxism, of course. The question was if an individual has a moral imperative to read and understand theory, when trying to do something to change his & his classes material conditions. To be fair, it's just something I was thinking while high.
The moral reasoning for reading theory would be the same as all other learning, right? (If we ignore contributing to the dialectic, at least.)
Moral decisions are always made with incomplete knowledge, but the better understanding of those decisions and their consequences we have, the better will our choise be morally. Knowing, for example, about other people's cultural and religious practises will make it less likely that we accidentally offend them. Similarly, knowing theory makes any socialist movements you partake in less likely to fail, at least in the same way as past movements. And wrapping back to the dialectic of theory and praxis, if it fails in a new way, that is great too because it makes future theory better.
There's still certainly moral philosophy and political theory wrapped up in Marxism though, it's what drives the justification for doing the material analysis, it's not just improving material conditions for all people (though that's also a moral position), it's also living in a world free from social forces of domination.