been feeling like this a lot of times.
How long have you called yourself a communist?
I think there’s an initial phase where you accept the label and you get all excited for the revolution.
Then the reality sinks in and you realise that being ready for the revolution doesn’t mean landing on an island or marching thousands of angry workers to parliament.
It’s a bit draining when you learn that most of the task will be extremely boring day job-type tasks. Arranging meetings. Confirming minutes. Standing in the cold at the time and place you told everyone you’d have a protest. Calling/messaging everyone on your list. Booking coaches. 😴 Sounds like a job but one you don’t get paid for and might never see much fruit from.
Maybe you’re somewhere at the start of that second phase? Not ‘less communist’ but more realistic about what it will take to make the whole world communist (or just your country/city/union to start with). It’s kinda demoralising but things get easier and more hopeful again.
You’ve seen the light now. Keep pushing through.
i think that probably your issue is that you’re being “convinced” by liberals or media that the things you thought as communism “were capitalism all along, huh?” but that’s the thing with propaganda: make you doubt about what you’ve learned and move you to think “you know, maybe you’re being too extreme and need a cup of chill…capitalism is good and you have all these freedoms and sheeit. did you considered that maybe we’re right about gommunism being evil? why do you think we’re badmouthing about it all this time? we’re doing it for your good”
I can relate to that one tbh.
I don’t really feel that myself personally. Like some have said, probably the initial revolutionary vibe is wearing off? everyday when i go to work, read the news, or just exist in society, i become more communist and resolved everyday. perhaps you need to do more study and self-reflection.
I’m not sure if I’d say I’m less communist but I do sometimes feel uninspired to do something. Which I guess is normal. I have a busy but steady and decent paying job. I am able bodied. I have a good group of friends, good family relations, a good relationship. I have fun hobbies I can do. I am moderately well liked by most people I meet. In general, my life can be pretty good with only a few challenges at times.
Basically, at my current situation, I live in a system that is designed for me to profit off. I’m not getting the largest piece of the cake but I’m not on the bottom of the societal ladder either.
What this causes is that for me, the path of the least resistance in life, is to accept the status quo and to live life according to said status quo. It might give me a slight discomfort from time to time but I will probably have a decent life. I think it is natural, from an instinctal point of view, to follow a path that gives you little to no stress in which you don’t have to fight that hard. After all, would I rather stand on a cold market talking to half interested people about communism or would I be doing something I actually enjoy? I think many comrades with me, if they had to be honest, would choose the latter.
However, I have also become aware of the unequality of our system. I am aware how I am in a privileged position purely because I was spawned in a certain part of the world, with a certain gender and a certain skin color. And because I think that is bullshit, I want to do something about that.
Communist organising is difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort and you very rarely get great results in our current societies. This causes you to have an ideology which you cannot always bring into practice as our current society is the direct opposite of said ideology. I think this can cause some dissonance to occur in your brain, which at times can be hard to overcome.
It’s okay to take some time once in a while to reflect on where you stand. It’s a privilege a lot of people, especially in the western left, have. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it. Despite my personal challenges to stay organised or to find motivation to go out for the umpteenth time without a guaranteed result, I still believe communism is the way forward for humanity and I try my best not to lose hope, however difficult that can be.
every day I become more Maoist
For real for real, I feel like I’m gonna do an adventurism anytime now
I feel more communist by the day, even though i am objectively less ultra than i was years ago. I guess ultras would consider me revisionist.
who would you consider to be ultra?
For me it’s someone that calls themself a communist but has not internalized dialectical materialism. Someone that cannot see things as a process and historical context, thus cannot see AES states as socialists.
I think doubting how communist you are is a good sign if you are living in a western nation. The more anti-imperialist theory I read the more I see that I am part of the problem. I’m a beneficiary of imperialism and I’m not willing to risk my freedom to oppose the status quo which means I am kind of a hypocrite.
I do a little agitation but I can’t really throw my life into anything to further communism and that makes me feel like a bit of a fraud. I can try to justify things by saying the chances of a revolution where I am are nil at the moment or that most orgs are riddled with revisionaries and feds so they are a waste of effort but that’s just excuses.
Imposter syndrome is a difficult feeling but but I’d rather continue to feel like a shitty communist than to try to pretend liberalism is anything but crypto-fascism.
Personally, I frequently doubt if I truly am understanding Marxism correctly, so I go into research spirals to see if I have a genuine understanding. Sometimes someone who obviously hasn’t read Marx, Engels, Lenin etc will come and accuse me of not understanding Marxism which can easily be countered, but frequently on the flip side I still harbor self-doubt.
I wouldn’t say I become less radical, but less confident, which pushes me into further reading and study.
It’s a humbling ideology for sure. I was so confident before reading theory. Then super confident as I thought I had all the answers from the theory. Now? I understand and accept that I know very little and much of what I thought I knew needs to be reexamined. It’s like being a child again, in some ways. I think it stems partly from understanding that everything is in constant motion—pause for a minute and the reality has moved on, to varying degrees.
100%, the more I read the more I know I lack, haha.
Are there any better explanations than materialist dialectical views on history and politics?
Communism is a science based on certain views of history, economics and other fields. It’s not a religious faith or personal opinions. Those are based on nothing and can be changed by anything.
If your material conditions aren’t basically forcing you to always try and find a way out (when you’ve already gained the beginnings of communist consciousness), you might just be struggling with the fact that your own life isn’t really that bad, and slipping into old habits.
Keep reading Marxist theory and developing your class consciousness and killing the little bourgeois-self in your head trying to commandeer your brain.
I am the opposite. I’m becoming more and more dedicated. i’m fighting FUD online, reading a ton of theory, consuming lots of Leftist content, joined an org, went to a meeting finally. I’m all in. No doubts in my mind at all.
It can be frustrating since it seems like an impossible battle, but I know I’m right. Empirically socialism is a better system. Capitalism has failed in all non-imperial-core countries, and barely functions in the imperial core ones.
I think it’s normal to have doubts. I feel the need not to think about it too much. I also need to remind myself it’s not a perfect system.
Have you read combat liberalism
Bro I barely feel like a person.
How so? Can you give more details about what you mean here?
In my case, I can feel that way by realizing that there’s not much praxis in real life I can do where I am as I am.
