As someone who lives in the third world, reading about imperialism and how communism is the only movement that has a framework for opposing it.

When I learned about communism in history class I always thought it sounded nice, but due to everyone telling me it only works in theory, I started parroting this. I became an enlightened centrist for a while but the centrist party always turned out to be more right than what they promised, essentially fucking me over multiple times. So I became more left wing, but more sucdem tbh.

Then I didn’t really care for politics for a while as I did not saw the point.

Then covid happened and I saw how workers were treated in the midst of a catastrophic event and it bothered me. So I started looking into workers’ rights more and thus I stumbled upon the works of my boy K Marx. And things started to click. So I started watching more videos and reading more theory on communism and I started seeing the lies that were told about it. Then I started working as a social worker and seeing how the poorest in our society are treated just straight up radicalized me.

For me, it was pretty simple. I’ve known for a while about surveillance capitalism: large companies like Google, Amazon and reddit abusing tech users for profit. The 2016 US elections made people discuss politics more, and it wasn’t too hard to start noticing massive problems like insulin prices and lobbying and billionaires abusing money while people starve.

At some point, you try and look into why things are like that, and hopefully realize it’s systemic rather than merely conspiratorial. You notice that abusive people rise to the top and you look at even social liberal governments in Europe (like Nordic and Portugal) and how they approach and sometimes solve social issues, sure, but at some point it’s plain to see, even from left-liberal chatting with some applied logic, that running businesses first and foremost for profit inherently makes them abusive and that our economic system of capitalism explicitly promotes that. It’s a systemic issue, not just a ‘we should tax the rich and distribute it to social causes instead of military’ pipe dream that social democratic liberalism can achieve hand in hand with regulated capitalism. The people in capitalism aren’t the cause, it’s the system.

I was born in Morocco. When I was a teenager I had an atheist phase where I believed that all the problems in this country were because of religion and that secular western countries had a duty and an obligation to bring progress to the rest of the world. It turns out that western countries benefit from the moroccan state and that made me look elsewhere. The neighboring country of Algeria which we are told is a failed state is in fact more developed than us and has a socialist past, this is how I discovered communism. Before that I had no opinion on communism, I had only briefly heard of the Soviet Union during history class when it was time for WW2 but there was nothing to remember.

First I always found it curious you could never find out what communism was in school. Second I had a strong if basic understanding that there was something very wrong with the world and that whatever it was was an intentional conspiracy among the rich. I saw the wars growing up as an air force brat. I knew what the CIA did. I saw things in terms of empire and colonialism from a young age.

When I was in highschool I watched a documentary on Che Guevara featured on Netflix at the time. It immediately clicked with me. I admired his life and the Cuban revolution. I admired his pursuit of international liberation.

I became an adult during occupy and the recession. That shaped me. I was forced into the Navy through poverty. When I got out I couldn’t afford rent or find a decent job. I became nomadic for a number of years. I struggled a lot especially in the first few years as a civilian. I struggled with my identity and materially.

With Bernie I started calling myself a progressive. I saw demoracy fail. I saw the voices I trusted start advocating for the people I hated. I saw Bernie whistle stop for the party that betrayed the democracy. I rejected them all. And turned heavily to Marx.

At some point I got heavily into Lenin and Stalin. But I think I was already exposed to Socialism V Liberals, the debate between Stalin and HG Wells.

Whenever I found Michael Parenti it sealed the deal. It was overall a decades long process made mostly from my own practical experiences

Fucking MARVEL radicalized me lol

fr tho, I actually had to write an essay analyzing a movie but I don’t know anything about smart and cult movies so I decided to write about Captain America: The Winter Soldier, because I was really into capeshit. Since I don’t know anything about the technical parts of a movie, I wrote about it’s themes and well, turns out it’s about Capitan America going against the US government for being “anti-freedom”. Although the movie is 100% lib BS, it came out right after the Snowden leaks and it was directly inspired by it.

So I started reading about Snowden. Then I found out about Assange. Then I found out they helped coup my country back in 64. I found out US and France trained death squads all over Latin America. I found out about Chile, Argentina, and many others.

I never cared about politics but I thought this was too important to be ignored, specially for us in the third world. But no one was talking about it, no one cared. No one but the communists.

I found out many comrades like Jones Manoel, Sabrina Fernandes and João and eventually Hakim, Luna OI etc. Now I’m reading theory

This is how I stopped being a “left wing lib” and started reading Lenin

I am from a fake refugee community of Hong Kong Canadians who escape from Hong Kong after the 1989 false flag massacre in China. My grandparents are corrupt elites in warlord China and they move to Hong Kong to escape law enforcement from Communist takeover. I face abuse from my ableist abusive parents and was brainwashed to hate Communism because of the lies in schools that Communists have the same abusive practices as my parents, but I later learn that the 20th century Communist governments had not engaged in the alleged authoritarian practice of my family who practice victim blaming against repressed people and blind obedience to corrupt authorities.

A culmination of things. I never had a real set moment when I became a communist. I grew up in the south, so the anti-government sentiment was always there. I was a very empathetic kid and I always wanted to help people, but due to severe continuous trauma I lost that for awhile and became one of those edgy Instagram meme page kids. Since I was young and easily influenced I was influenced by the other edgy kids and my conservative father. I always felt terrible about it though and I felt trapped as I had little to no outside influence. Everything around me was just the same and I had no good role models in my life. My mother is completely apolitical. There was a time where the soviets were popular amongst that edgy meme culture and i latched onto it as well, often defending the gulags and shit without even knowing what they were. I ironically knew the correct definition of what communism and socialism were (the dictatorship of the proletariat) and I was in support of it without knowing much of it. But before long that faded out and I was pretty much a standard lib before becoming more radical gradually. It was purely individualist though, and I only really started to understand the true complexities of communism in 2019. But if I were to say that there was a time when I was a set communist, it was right after I read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Disowning that book doesn’t make you a communist, no matter how much you think you are one. Socialism is scientific, the study of dialectics, and materialism. Everything else is just you having “communist vibes.”

i read a lot of george orwell

like i even read his personal letters

then i was 100% onboard with communism

i have grown a lot lmfao

My first job made me realize how bizarre it is that people still have work 40-hour weeks for unimportant jobs (not to mention those who have to work for much longer and/or need multiple jobs). Looked up the definition of “socialism”, found Richard Wolff and became a “co-op socialist” for about a month. Found some ML YouTube channels and slowly became more and more 1894 authoritarian redfash tankie

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Brevity is not my strong suit:

5th grade, I identified as a Republican because I liked elephants more than donkeys.

One parent is Palestinian, which made me anti-Israel (in a bad way, they’re antisemitic), and opened my eyes to America in the Middle East, which I feel like was a huge boost for my radicalization process compared to most Americans.

I loved playing a game called Red Alert 2 where the bad guys are Soviets. I thought the hammer and sickle looked so sick. I made it my Facebook profile picture in 6th grade (dating myself here a little bit lol).

I discovered the band System of a Down in middle school, they became my favorite. Very anti-imperialist messages in a lot of their songs.

Communism sounded cool. I identified with it. I got shit on, I was convinced I was wrong and being immature and brainwashed. I was convinced by my fellow peers that libertarianism was the way to go.

Essentially was a liberal for years, but I hated liberals, and couldn’t put my finger on it. The deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan always hummed in my ears. The DNC corruption too. Military industrial complex, etc. Got heavy into conspiracy, from aliens and spirituality to CIA crimes and WikiLeaks.

Boom, it’s 2016. Bernie Sanders. WOAH! An American politician saying billionaires are bad??? That WAR is bad???

I went down the Breadtube pipeline. All the big names, even some of the littler ones. Watched 'em with lunch. Cross pollinated with best friend going along the same path from stanning Bernie. Essentially a socdem.

Found Non-Compete, identified as an anarcho-communist. Seemed like an “evolved” version of communism compared to this “lesser” version of the past that everyone convinced me had “failed.”

Started getting exposed to some more information, some nuance. Read CounterPunch magazine a lot. Identified as a “non denominational leftist” who saw everyone as being as valuable as the next amongst all the sects, strong advocate of Left Unity above all else.

Kept getting exposed. Discovered the truth about AES. Hakim, Parenti, Lenin, Breakthrough News, and just generally learning more history and geopolitics is what really did me in, as well as the sheer insanity of the anti “tankie” crowd. I had used to listen to Vaush on my long commute (please don’t boil me alive), his whole anti-tankie arc went from a forgivable difference to “holy shit you’re treating liberals and fascists better in debates, wtf??” It really sealed the deal as I could finally fully articulate what I hated so much about the Western Left once I learned it was all a damn sham.

I want to put a bunch of AES country flag stickers on my beater car but I also can’t afford a gun yet and well…even my girlfriend was getting ridden off the road by F-150s back BEFORE the George Floyd protests in 2016 for her BLM stickers. I’ve been in a “wish a mfer would” mood lately but I would like any confrontations to be on even footing.

Loved reading all the stories everybody ❤💛❤💛