Theory Video: Pablo Iglesias On Popular Movements (Patreon)

***Note: This video is in Spanish but you can select the Closed Captioning option for English-subtitles. ****

This week's video is from a talk by Pablo Iglesiasthe leader of the Spanish left party Podemos. In his talk, he addresses the tension between theory and practice. While it can be tempting to drape ourselves in revolutionary symbols and to revive tired phrases, these do not bring us any closer to the future those images promise. Instead, as Pablo Iglesias argues here politics, the work of winning people to your side, is "terrible" work but necessary. It does not matter if you are correct if you are unable to make changes in the world. We must have the  to know the correct way to agitate the masses, the commitment to be radical, and the discipline to not become ensnared in our own romantic imagery. 

Iglesias has shown a new way for the Left to engage in politics and to build power, outside of more traditional orthodox Marxist strategy. He is a student of Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, two crucial theorists of post-Marxism. But in this video, it is Lenin's understanding of politics as something dynamic and always changing that Iglesias looks toward. 

This opening passage from Lenin's "On Slogans" sums up the myopia of many cosplay Marxists:

"Too often has it happened that, when history has taken a sharp turn, even progressive parties have for some time been unable to adapt themselves to the new situation and have repeated slogans which had formerly been correct but had now lost all meaning—lost it as “suddenly” as the sharp turn in history was “sudden”." https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jul/15.htm  

-David Griscom