You encountered the disease that is western Marxism. Marxists in the belly of the imperial core have historically been divorced from meaningful practice, and gravitate towards chauvanism and inaction due to benefiting from the status quo. They just want to critique society, not actually change it, and that shows in how they shut you down.

Israel is a settler-colonial genocidal state, and as such will not have a working class uprising unified with Palestinians. It needs to be cut off from support, and will dissolve when that happens. It’s propped up by the US Empire to serve as a giant millitary base, it’s like saying you need to beat the millitary by raising class consciousness like a magic spell. Utterly foolish.

Theory is good. Not only is it good, it’s necessary. All of the best revolutionary parties in history have dedicated themselves to uniting theory and practice, as each sharpens and informs the other. To not study theory and only practice is to try to take on the job of an engineer with no prior study. You might find some success, but it will be held back. To only study theory and never practice is to turn revolution into a mental exercise and hobby, only interacting with itself on the mental landscape. It’s idealism.

To unite theory and practice is to find the most effective paths and put them to use, using what you learn through practical experience to reshape your understanding of theory and write new theory. This is the Marxist-Leninist method. This is what works.

If you want somewhere to start with reading theory, in a manner that builds up over time, I recommend my intro Marxist-Leninist reading list. Good luck! Try to find a better org next time, there are decent ones in the imperial core (though few are truly great).

America Marxist Leninist here

Class Consciousness is about supporting the proletariat and recognizing how one’s class affects them. This is not a call to support every working-class person even if they are far-right, Neo-Nazi, and or white supremacist. If a leftist supports Israel, they are not a leftist. The working class of Israel can be compared to the working class of Apartheid South Africa and the working class of European colonial empires.

Eurocommunism is trash, the European Union forces its member countries into adopting free market capitalist policies. It is a corrupt system that can not be fixed from the inside.

As an America myself, I can tell you that Americans will never submit their guns. All violence is bad and while I think you can get rid of bombs, you can never get away of guns in the United States.

But no, we should keep working to raise class consciousness among a people who have gleefully documented their hatred for the Palestinians for all to see.

This exposes their enormous ignorance on the topic of Zionism and the reality in occupied Palestine. Plenty of “Israelis” have class consciousness, that’s not the issue, the issue is that their class consciousness extends exclusively to settlers like themselves and completely excludes Palestinians who they view as subhuman. A western “leftist” org that does not oppose all forms of Zionism, especially so-called “Labor Zionism” is not leftist at all, they are just larpy radlibs.

They have this idea in their head about “Israeli leftists” that just does not correspond to reality. They need to be exposed to what these so-called “Israeli leftists” sound like when they talk about Palestinians. There is a reason that these “Israelis” do not and cannot develop a class consciousness that includes Palestinians, because just like libs in the imperial core who support imperialism because they benefit from it, the “Israeli left” benefits from the genocide, apartheid and land theft.

Is this what reading theory does to people? Unable to see and experience the world as it is, but every single event must be passed through the lenses of what Marx said over a century ago?

If anything this has to do with them reading absolutely insufficient theory, and only engaging with theory in the most superficial way possible, in a way that lets them continue to ignore imperialism and colonialism because addressing those things would expose their own ingrained chauvinism. If they bothered to even read Lenin they would not hold this vulgar and infantile “all we need is to raise class consciousness” position. Lenin himself explicitly addressed people like this, he wrote entire polemics against them. These people are just modern Kautsky-ites.

An integral part of reading Marxist theory is reading about and understanding capitalism’s relation to imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, etc., because these are all part and parcel of the global economic, military but also ideological structures which maintain capitalism.

The Palestinian liberation struggle is of vital importance for the global class struggle precisely because it represents the convergence point of so many of the atrocities of capitalism and imperialism. Any leftist org that refuses to engage with the brutal reality of Palestine and chooses to whitewash (or pinkwash) the genocidal nature of Zionism is no leftist org that i would ever want to be part of as a socialist and an anti-imperialist. In fact it may even be dangerous for me to do so, if one of them should decide to denounce my anti-Zionism as “anti-semitism” to the police.

Reading all the responses from you guys have made me realise I’m not going crazy. I genuinely appreciate your comments. Currently at work, I’ll respond more when I get home later.

I’ll definitely keep reading theory, as I see now that it was never really about the books. They just can’t let go of their plastic solidarity.

No, this is the exact opposite. They haven’t read enough theory. This is categorical ultra-leftism [edit: I meant left-communism, but theyre similar concepts] at best, straight social democracy at worst.

It’s not that they “view the entire world through theory” and that’s a bad thing, it’s that they’re just throwing a general trueism [class consciousness] at a problem to handwave it away because it feels bad to their “common morality.” [That being the idea that “cultural boycotts” are bad because they are bad].

And no offense intended towards you, since I know you’re getting started, but it is extremely important to view the world through a marxist lense and avoid moralism [not saying you can’t oppose things on personal moral grounds, or that the genocide isn’t horrific]. Here it did lead you to the correct analysis, that Palestinians must engage in a violent anti-colonial struggle and liberate themselves from the Israeli genocidal apartheid state. Additionally, actions like boycotts and such can be a way to help palestine by isolating Israel and Israelis.

However, without a Marxist analysis, you might come to incorrect conclusions. I.e, positions on the special military operation in Ukraine, the recent “gen z” protests, etc.

“[With the Marxist-Leninist attitude,] a person applies the theory and method of marxism-leninism to the systematic and thorough investigation and study of the environment. He does not work by enthusiasm alone but, as Stalin says, combines revolutionary sweep with practicalness” - Mao Zedong

Getting in contact with soc-dem/eurocommunists, for the first time, I see 😅 I’m from Latin America, living in Portugal and we hear some very similar speeches around here. To get theory about that, I’d suggest you get into Lenin’s critique of Kautsky and/or Hoxha’s critique of Eurocommunism.

Now, about the problem at hand. Since you’re in Britain, I think there’s little to be done regarding raising class consciousness of people in Gaza/Israel and little to be done regarding directly stopping the bombs. For me, this sounds like a very idealistic view.

You guys need to do what’s at hand: the banning the of the Israeli soccer fans is pretty good. Also is attending all pro-Palestinians demonstrations that happen near you, distributing leaflets, speaking for the masses in Britain and raising class consciousness around English people so that they pressure their own State on cutting ties with this genocidal state. The general strike in Italy is a good goal to promote, in my opinion.

And in this process, you will gather more people to fight the same fight, towards the final goal which is ending capitalism, the regime that allow genocides like that to happen.

You can’t see class in a vacuum like that, the global context matters and the so called working class of Israel is actively participating in a genocide to get their share of land, very similar as the working class of England during the british empire years.

Sounds like they have their head in their asses regarding the Maccabi fans as these are the same fans with links to the IDF, with confirmed human rights violators in their presence, who caused riots in Amsterdam. Banning them is the only sensible solution. Nothing ‘oh they are innocent bystanders’ about them. Ffs they chanted to kill all arabs in Amsterdam.

Theory deepens your solidarity with the oppressed, not whatever happened here.

You have to remember whatever the uniform people decide to wear for themselves, more often than not, their opinions reflect their relative class interests and marxist-leninists (MLs) have moved beyond a simplisitic bourgoisie vs proleteriat framework, understanding for example here that western proletriat and labour aristocrats engage in class collaboration with their bourgoisie against the proleteriat of the global south.

Furthermore, from a marxist-leninist perspective, national liberation struggle will mean collaboration between the oppressed proleteriat and their petite-bourgoisie/bourgoisie against the oppressor including the oppressor’s proleteriat who engaged in this normalised violence.

This whole thing where one postulates proleteriat of the oppressed and the prolteriat of the oppressor unite together like some Benetton advert against the bourgoisie is some idealistic nonsense you will only hear from the Western Marxist (whatever the colour of said western marxist) partly because it ignores the material gains that the oppressor’s proleteriat get from subjugating the proleteriat of the oppressed.

Brainwashing ain’t a thing; people instead seek narratives as license for their bigotry for which they get material gains for:

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

Marxism is a science.

https://redsails.org/why-marxism/

What you described is a disease of the Westerner. The cure for which MLs are still working on (click on my username, order by most controversial to find the most relevant topics to get a flavour of different opinions on this).

The leadership of the org could be infiltrated by the cops and government employees.

the leader of that meeting to revert to type talking about how this conflict is a crisis of capitalism and how the “working class of Israel” need to attain consciousness as the reason they want Gaza is because the rent in the major cities in Israel are all so expensive which is what is encouraging expansion into newer lands,

That guy is not just a zionist he is probably a police informer put in place to destroy any possible potential of the group. Get out and try to lay low for a bit to get off their radar. Maybe warn some of the other members if you think they can be trusted.

Please forgive me being a little simplistic because I’m about to go to bed, but the answer to

Is this what reading theory does to people?

…is no, that’s what being British does to people. Jokes aside, British socialist/communist parties, at least the ones I’ve heard of, are notoriously awful when it comes to solidarity with the people their governments are oppressing. I’m sure others will come in with more comprehensive answers, but this is all I’ve got right now.

the “working class of “israel”” obtaining class consciousness will entail israelis actively fighting against the settler-colonial and genocidal oppression of palestinians so that they no longer benefit from those things.

Britain is a black hole from which no good thing can emerge. Although this type of dogmatism from leading figures is not unique to them; I instantly smiled at the chapter leader coming in clutch with the worst take possible and suddenly changing everyone’s mind. We wouldn’t want to get too radical now would we lol.

They have simplistic takes because their understanding is simplistic. Unfortunately it’s not just a problem in Britain but across Europe and North America whole. When I was starting to get into marxism I asked the chapter leader, a philosophy teacher, that I didn’t understand dialectics and he said “I’ll let you know” (we never ended up talking about it). He probably didn’t understand dialectics either, he wasn’t even a communist lol.

They get left to their own devices and never progress and then run around in circles. The solution to ‘Israel’ is pretty simple, give the resistance tanks and missiles for one thing. The entity is a settler-colony and this is perfectly in line with marxist theory it’s just that they don’t understand anything beyond proletariat and bourgeoisie so they start to hallucinate things like an ‘israeli proletariat’ lol.

theory is important because it gives us tools in our arsenal to get to the bottom of things and pull on the actual thread that will unravel the entire machine, but it’s not magic either (and dialectics teaches us that with contradictions) and there’s a possibility to ‘overcorrect’ in either direction, either focusing too much on praxis without theory or theory without praxis.

Raising class consciousness is not necessarily wrong (it’s also a pretty basic thing to say), it’s just, how do you want to do that? Life’s not a video game where you click buttons to increment variables. So if he meant anything other than go agitate people in the streets of London to demand lower rent in “Tel Aviv” he needs to specify lol otherwise it’s just empty posturing. Theory helps find how to effectively agitate but theory is best consumed with comrades, unfortunately it’s often an individual responsibility in western orgs.

A lot of these orgs only exist to justify their existence and good comrades end up either folding and losing all the revolutionary light in their eyes or leave and become disillusioned with organizing.