Last week, my colleagues and I met at the company office in downtown Montreal. We work for a company where everyone works from home, but we still have an office. On average, we meet in person once a month to break out of our chronic isolation. At every meeting, some of my colleagues buy me a copy of Communist Revolution.
This time, we saw each other sooner than usual, so I didn’t have a new issue to offer them. So I decided to bring along a few copies of the Revolutionary Communist International’s quarterly theoretical magazine, In Defense of Marxism. I figured I had nothing to lose by trying, even if I didn’t necessarily think my colleagues would be interested in reading more theoretical articles.
To my surprise, as soon as I showed them the issues of the magazine, they were impressed by the professional presentation, but even more so by the theoretical subjects covered. From science to art to world revolutions, they flipped through each issue with enthusiasm, and eventually decided to buy a copy each.
This experience has shown me beyond any doubt that workers are far more intelligent and cultured than the bourgeois media would have us believe. They thirst for clear ideas and want to deepen their understanding of a wide range of theoretical subjects.
We’re sometimes dismissed as oddballs when we take up the theoretical struggle. We’re told that workers don’t care about abstract ideas, and that we should focus on immediate gains. But this experience proves that some are looking for answers to their most complex questions – and we can provide them.
-Félix B., Longueuil
