alt text: @yugopnik • Jul 12 There are 2 dudes in a One of them calls himself a Social Democrat. The other calls himself a Communist. Neither of them actually do anything to push their ideas forward. Then, are they any different?
Instructions unclear, I got myself assassinated CONTELPRO style by the FBI
rip ComradeSalad F o7
My counterpoint to this is I genuinely do not have time or energy to organize or get too involved with party activities like study groups and protests right now. I’ve been in contact with my local group but like they do everything on saturdays and I almost always have to work 14 hour days then. As soon as my schedule improves I intend to get more involved.
Point being I don’t disagree but also life does get in the way, everyone’s circumstances are different.
If you can’t join a party the least you can do is use leftist talking points in daily conversation and try to organize your workplace if it isn’t.
Absolutely agree, I am constantly browbeating. Fortunately my workplace is unionized and I try to be as involved as I can on that front. I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t do anything. Even engaging with your local party online, reading their literature, voting for them in local elections, sharing posts if that’s your thing is better than nothing. Ultimately I agree with point being made by the tweet, especially in regards to arguing online about politics.
But what if they get into a bitter disagreement over Weimar-era German politics, despite both being well to the left of most people around them and both agreeing on a wide swath of immediate issues?
Then those two people will have to create a minimum of 3 (three) new parties with progressively longer and more obtuse names and spend the next 20 years hurling bitter recriminations at the other parties (and their own party once that one inevitably splits at its inaugural meeting).
Mao wrote about this in “combat liberalism”
“To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.”
That’s me. I still don’t do anything. I even forgot some theory.
It’s tough to remember theory at times because some of the works are pretty long. Like I really loved the critique of the Gotha Programme but I find it tough to remember some of the points Marx makes
counterpoint: i intend to leave the country in a few years for somewhere else, thus i feel like it’d be redundant for me to join a leftist [students] party rn
Even for a few years, you can still do things in a group
like what?
I mean essentially nothing a student group does would require members to be in it for a long time. It’s a different story if you are trying to start one but for a few years, essentially everything
even so, i’m the only leftist among my uni classmates, they’re all either apoliticals at best, reactionaries/fash at worst. and i don’t know if there are any other leftists in my uni. so i’d have to pretty much have to try to find out which leftist students group would be better (there are many) for me to join and probably pretty much just walk up to their office to join them (is this how people join leftist groups irl? just walking up to their office? i thought usually others recommended them)
and then there’s the fact that if word gets around that i joined a leftist group, i’ll pretty much be harassed with “questions as to why i joined a commie party” and “requests to stop being a commie”, especially by my capitalist-minded parents who already got alarmed when they saw me only searching about commie parties. i already get those just for keeping long hair (im still closeted), its tiresome.
Stay safe :)
Thanks comrade
Genuine question, is it considered moving your political agenda forward to conduct agitprop on very small scales? For example, I gave irrefutable evidence that the “genocide” in Xinjiang is false to a few coworkers of mine and in the moment I was kinda proud that they took it to heart but at the same time, it feels like all I did was have a conversation which may have dispelled one single myth (albeit a particular heinous one) among the many other lies in the arsenal of the US state department. I talked to them about the slavery in Tibet too and the Dalai Lama, but is that actually praxis?
If that’s where you’re at now, that’s where you’re at. It sounds like you want to do more, but haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I think the important thing is to keep looking for and open to new ways to improve and do more (joining an org would be a great next step), but don’t be too hard on yourself for not being where you want right now.
Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep that recognition that there’s always room for improvement, and that not being perfect isn’t a failure in and of itself.
Thank you comrade, It’s always tough to join an org in the US because obviously principled Marxism Leninism is a tough ideological stance to take in the USA and therefore kinda tough to find people who think likewise. I hear that most Communist orgs are infiltrated or x or y or z but I suppose the only way to know for sure is to check a meeting or 2.
I think it’s more important to participate in activism of an organization that doesn’t perfectly match your ideology as long as the actions themselves are good, than it is to do nothing and remain ideologically pure
That’s good. It shouldn’t be the total extent of your praxis, but it’s a good start.
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