1.30.2025 Academic disciplines, specifically in the humanities, are a laboratory for social action, radical causes and activist movements. Marxism is no exception. As a student at Trinity College, I have had classes with a variety of professors, including more than a few Marxists. Understanding Marxism and academia as separate is a failure to understand the broader strokes and intersections of the leftist movements of history, but to associate Marxism solely with academia is a failure to recognize the distinctions of Marxist principles vs. Marxist theory. I am, through and through, an advocate of Marxist theory, so I do not want my words to be misunderstood when I say: theory is not everything. More specifically, theory does not complete the objectives of Marxism on its own. Too many organizations, both collegiate and not, focus far too much on theoretical discussions of Marxism, which leaves the movement towards socialism and communism in the background, when in actuality, radical action against the state should be in the foreground of our understandings of Marxism, with theory only as a backdrop. Plenty of Marxist parties and organizations, throughout history, have fallen to this, especially after the dawn of “Eurocommunism” and Western criticisms of the Soviet Union of the 1970s-90s. Moreover, what does excessive theoretical debate bring? Perhaps a very well-educated, understanding vanguard of the proletariat, but it also brings serious time and resource commitments that would be better spent organizing, especially in the current state of affairs, which brings me to my next point. Movements succeed when they provide aid on the ground, to the proletariat. “Cafe communists” or “salon socialists” (I like alliteration) could spend weeks debating the inner workings of a single chapter in Marx’s Capital, and that should be encouraged! But that debate should be accompanied by efforts to engage in community care, mutual aid and disruption of the bourgeois state. In the days since Donald J. Trump’s election to a second term, I have heard fellow communists argue that “now is the time to retreat to the shadows, build a base, and stay out of trouble”. I hear this criticism, and for people who are uncomfortable or have security fears for whatever reason should know that your fears are understood, but when does the situation necessitate action? When do we, the proletariat, rise up and fight for our ownership for our labor? When do we, the proletariat, announce ourselves to the world, not as an enemy, oddity or fringe social movement flawed in nature, but as a unified bloc of workers fed up with the state of capitalist oppression? We are stronger together, and so long as we remain united, we shall never be defeated. It is then the purpose of Trinity Marxist Students Collective, in tandem with our comrades and fellow movements worldwide, to push back against actionless theoretical discussion, and push our movement to organize, collectivize and fight back! - A.L.G