Celebrate Thomas Paine Day

by reading Thomas Paine!

Editor’s Note: RNT Collective brings to you a reminder by Chris Mahin, an important voice and writer on our Working-Class history.

June 8 is Thomas Paine Day. (It marks the day that the great revolutionary pamphleteer died in 1809.) ¹

To mark the day, I strongly suggest that people read (or re-read) Tom Paine’s great pamphlet “Common Sense,” published in 1776. ²  It was only 47 pages long, yet it was a devastating critique of the whole idea of monarchism and the British monarchy in particular. “Of more worth is one honest man to society … than all the crowned ruffians who ever lived,” Paine declared.

In addition to the pamphlet “Common Sense” itself, there is also an excellent novel about Paine – “Citizen Tom Paine” by Howard Fast.³

Here’s how Nelson Peery described the impact that the novel had on him: ⁴

“I had always dreamed of belonging to an organization of talented, articulate people who would flood this country with pamphlets about socialism, about the working class, and explain to the workers the significance of all the problems they face. I would like to see everybody … read that wonderful book … ‘Citizen Tom Paine.’ It’s a book that played a tremendous role in making me a communist. I always wondered what it would be like if we had two, three, four hundred Tom Paines, people who write what they think, people who have enough confidence in the next man, in his intelligence, to set down on paper their thoughts and hand them out to the people. I think that until we flood this country with propaganda about socialism and about the revolution, to talk about revolution is nonsense. Because you’re talking about a revolution without a class.”

Celebrate Thomas Paine Day by reading Thomas Paine! See links below