Here's a hot take: I have no doubt some illiterate peasants all over the world taught themselves theory, but I doubt that most revolutionaries in any given leftist conflict were all that politically educated. Most people in general aren't politically educated, a number of leftist revolutions started off more as independence struggles (e.g., Cuba, Vietnam), and you don't need to read 500 pages of Marx to want to fight the imperialists who killed one of your family members.
The takeaway for modern times is that theory is good, but we'll undoubtedly have many comrades who are uninterested in it even if they're highly motivated to go out and make a better world.
yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I feel like here have to be some interesting lessons in the relationship between anti-colonial struggle and Marxism-Leninism that I would like to learn more about
The big link I see is an overlap of immediate goals that arise from an overlap of motivations. If you're in a colonized country that's run by an imperial capitalist stooge, whatever your ideological starting point is, you want better conditions for ordinary people and your immediate goal is to overthrow said stooge. Then, as your struggle matures, you find out that capitalist states generally oppose you and ML states are willing to help you, so naturally you make friends with your allies and listen to their ideas on political theory.
Here's a hot take: I have no doubt some illiterate peasants all over the world taught themselves theory, but I doubt that most revolutionaries in any given leftist conflict were all that politically educated. Most people in general aren't politically educated, a number of leftist revolutions started off more as independence struggles (e.g., Cuba, Vietnam), and you don't need to read 500 pages of Marx to want to fight the imperialists who killed one of your family members.
The takeaway for modern times is that theory is good, but we'll undoubtedly have many comrades who are uninterested in it even if they're highly motivated to go out and make a better world.
yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I feel like here have to be some interesting lessons in the relationship between anti-colonial struggle and Marxism-Leninism that I would like to learn more about
The big link I see is an overlap of immediate goals that arise from an overlap of motivations. If you're in a colonized country that's run by an imperial capitalist stooge, whatever your ideological starting point is, you want better conditions for ordinary people and your immediate goal is to overthrow said stooge. Then, as your struggle matures, you find out that capitalist states generally oppose you and ML states are willing to help you, so naturally you make friends with your allies and listen to their ideas on political theory.