if you don’t have the resources and are unable to read theory thats fine and doesn’t make you any less of a communist, but discounting theory as a whole is harmful to achieveing your goals. There are many ways to engage with theory and I encourage everyone to do so if they can.

like theres a reason the Black panthers had reading syllabuses and wouldnt let cadre own guns until they were able to get through it and why Ho Chi Minh went out in the countryside teaching peasants to read. Theory gives you the tools and language neccessary for liberation.

Fragmented lived experiences are not enough. You arent able to grasp the whole of how society functions and its mechanisms (especially since different people interpet theirs differently anyways.) Its connecting those experiences and deriving knowledge from them thats important.

Theory does not radicalize you in any meaningful way your conciousness is gained from living oppression and exploitation. BUT the question it answers are important like how must we organize society? What behaviors are antithetical to our goals? How do we achieve those goals?

Those are all answered by theory theres no reason to be in the dark and trying to reinvent the wheel when there are already answers to our questions only slows revolution down.