Marx’s Pedagogies, the Party, and China: The Open Dialectic of Research and Presentation in Theory and Historical Praxis

Abstract

While pedagogies emanating from the Marxist tradition have been proposed and debated, this essay argues that Marx had clear pedagogical logics of his own that he laid out by articulating the differences between inquiry and presentation or, said differently, between studying and learning. This essay presents these logics as they play out in Marx’s writing and research, focusing particularly on the Grundrisse notebooks and the first volume of Capital, each of which accord different primacy to inquiry and presentation. To show the political logics of Marx’s pedagogies in practice, the essay draws from Lenin’s conception of the Communist Party as an educational form tasked precisely with navigating between Marx’s pedagogies. A case study follows, of the historical and contemporary experiences of the Chinese Communist Party as it has directed and yielded to Marx’s pedagogies.