First, my story. As a teenager I used to believe that just letting everyone “do whatever the hell they wanted” (whatever that means) was the best way to build a state, even if that meant letting people’s freedom be taken away by others. I didn’t think that stuff because I was right, but because people who believed it were really good at making me feel like they were making a reasonable point.

Now, as a Marxist-Leninist, I feel exactly the opposite. I feel I’m more critical and better informed than ever, but a lot of you (sorry) are terrible at conveying that. Ideologies don’t just exist in a vacuum, they need to be consistent and understandable from the highest level of logic to the lowest primal instincts they seek to evoke. Nobody should have to read a truckload of theory just to think “oh, ok, they aren’t lunatics”.

I feel this is something we should really dive into and discuss as a leftist community. I insist that people ultimately only want to feel like they’re doing good stuff, and what that exactly means is affected by their material conditions. At a bare minimum, we should try to be kind to others (and especially to other comrades!), even if we don’t wish to go the extra mile to hear their opinions or explain ours to them.

I really wish we can one day see more people posting here… We’re fortunate enough to have come across what leftism is all about, so we should not keep that truth as a secret to ourselves, as a reason to look down upon others and divide the working class, but as a common good that can be spread, a hard, undeniable fact to unite us against oppression.

Please tell me what you think about this. And note that this rant is not related in any way to the Wolfballs events, I just wanted to let this out for a long time.

Yours sincerely, your comrade @pancake <3

  • TeezyZeezy@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 years ago

    I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my situation, the intimidation came entirely from propaganda. I always thought it would be a cesspool of mean, hyper-intelligent psychopaths that have no feelings and would crucify me if I didn’t read every one of Lenin’s works. This is, of course, not true. It is just because of what I was told my whole life. Don’t ya know, COMMUNISM=EVIL!