Remembering Comrade Tom Weston

Comrade Tom, Presente! here ♦ We Are Inspired here ♦
Dialectics and Survival here ♦

Comrade Tom Weston, Presente!

Our beloved comrade Tom Weston passed away on December 3, 2025, after a courageous battle with lung cancer. His lifelong dedication to communism expressed itself in consistent, interconnected practice and theory. While Tom’s professional life as a philosopher centered theory, he always understood that practice is primary.
Tom was born in Abilene, Texas and raised in a nurturing working-class family. He worked with his dad, a cabinet maker, learning skills that later made him handy about the house. His parents encouraged community service.
Tom’s intellectual curiosity and academic excellence took him in 1966 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his undergraduate degree and doctorate in philosophy there.
He attended college amid the monumental worldwide social movements of the 1960s. He studied philosophy, particularly Marxism, in part to understand them. He joined the struggle against the US war on Vietnam. Later, he became active in the fight against academic racist pseudo-science and racism more broadly. His study and his activism merged into his commitment to life as a communist.
In 1974, Tom joined the philosophy faculty of San Diego State University in California (USA). He would remain there for forty-five years, mainly teaching introductory philosophy and logic, as well as some graduate classes.
His earlier academic work focused on mathematical logic and the philosophy of science. Soon, however, he began to concentrate on the philosophy of dialectical materialism and its relation to twentieth-century communist movements. Through his talks and publications, he spread communist philosophy to academic and popular audiences.
Tom brought both wisdom and his wry (sometimes goofy) sense of humor into the classroom. He challenged students to think critically while treating them kindly and valuing them as individuals. His political commitments were no secret as he engaged in activism on and off campus. That included bringing students with him to distribute Red Flag to shipyard workers and to attend protests and Party meetings.
Tom understood the importance of soldiers and sailors in revolutionary communist movements. Fiercely anti-imperialist, he supported at least one student’s decision to join the Navy. Over many years, Tom engaged in cross-border organizing. He helped newly arriving comrades, acting on his firm belief in a communist world without borders. More recently, he delivered a paper on communist philosophy at a conference in Tijuana, Mexico.
Tom was stalwart in his commitment to the Party collective. He was modest about his own contributions and trusted the collective even when he didn’t fully agree. He took contradictions head-on in a comradely and principled way. He built and conscientiously maintained our web site and drove for hours to attend meetings. He would stay afterwards as late as possible to continue conversing with comrades and friends.

Dialectical Materialism: Philosophy for the Masses

Tom was passionate about introducing all workers and youth interested in revolution to the communist philosophy of dialectical materialism. Letters from two comrade workers in South Africa (below) testify to the importance of Tom’s philosophical teaching to their lives. His dialectical materialism videos were key to the development of the ICWP in South Africa.
Tom learned Russian and Chinese to read and understand the internal philosophical and political struggles in the Russian and Chinese communist parties. He shared the invaluable insights he gained, enriching the ICWP’s political line and practice.
To the last days of his life, Tom continued to guide comrades into deeper study and reflection on questions about dialectical materialism that he considered unresolved. Plans are underway to implement this project. His work will live on.
Tom was in many ways a private person. He and his wife Renee spent 48 years together, raising three daughters and two sons and later reveling in eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He deeply appreciated music, especially jazz.
We pledge to honor Comrade Tom’s lifelong commitment to communism by sharpening the struggle for communist theory and practice among workers, students, soldiers, and sailors worldwide.

Letter: We are Inspired by the Work of our Fallen Comrade

I would like to appreciate the contributions of comrade Tom to our growth in the party and his role in inspiring us to read and write on dialectical materialism. His understanding of dialectical materialism, and his simplicity in explaining the dialectical materialism concepts, were key in consolidating the collective here in South Africa.
I first came across his work through a video he did on dialectical materialism. At the time it was on a CD. When we wanted to learn more about communism and the party, we watched that video. And after we watched, we would have a very lively discussion about communism and dialectics.
Of course, dialectical materialism in the party’s literature is a collective effort, not that of an individual. But this letter seeks to pay respect to comrade Tom and his contributions.
We never had the pleasure of meeting comrade Tom in person in South Africa. But somehow, we always felt his presence through reading and writing on dialectical materialism. And using examples he used in order to convince many other comrades that communism can win, and to highlight the contradictions of capitalism. Central among those contradictions being the worker-boss dialectical contra diction.
We had hoped to continue to use his expertise in philosophy and dialectical materialism, but he unfortunately passed away. We will, however, take up where he left off. We will expose capitalism’s contradictions and make dialectical materialism a weapon in the hands of the masses as we fight to defeat the bosses’ system.
Aluta comrade Tom!
—Comrade S in South Africa

Letter: Dialectics and the Fight for Survival

I’m sorry that I never got to meet Comrade Tom face-to-face. He’s gone. May he rest in peace.
But he did something for others. He opened up doors for other peoples’ lives. He’s done a great, great job. Dialectics is a very effective tool! Out of all the things I’ve learned in life, dialectics is the best thing. All the experience I’ve had in life, plus dialectics, helped me survive. Dialectics helped me understand life better.
If I hadn’t studied dialectics, I would have been left in the dark as a victim of the capitalists. But now I can fight for my survival. Thanks to Tom and his work.
—Comrade worker in South Africa

Read more about the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism here

More letters remembering Comrade Tom Weston here

Front page of this issue