>>740993>Do you have to read the communist manifesto in order to be a communist this is the wrong question because communism is a class movement and the question of individual bookishness doesn't matter much. To take the Soviet example, In the vanguard party you had to be well read on the Marxist classics, especially early on. party vetting quizzed members on works like Das Kapital. But nobody cares whether a red army conscript or non-party worker has read Das Kapital. What matters is whether the red army conscript is willing to fight and die for the revolution. What matter is whether the non-party worker supports the party indirectly. Bookishness is a matter for the vanguard party and its theoretical clarity. But communist sympathizers and conscripts don't need to care about that stuff . Orthopraxy matters more than Orthodoxy for pretty much everyone, including the vanguard. What use is your bookishness if you don't live up to the theory? Similarly a person who has never read an ounce of Communist theory might still come to Communist conclusions on their own. I was accused of Communism before I even knew who Marx was. Why? because reactionaries see "Communism" in everything that opposes them, and accuse everything which opposes them of being "Communist" whether it actually is or not.