I’m looking for specific suggestions of what I can do to find a group that I can join for the purpose of building a real revolution inside the USA. I’m trying and finding it very difficult. The closest was PSL but honestly my local branch seems kind of limp. That and I’m not academically inclined enough to get through Capital.
Okay, so now you can’t say I’m making an assumption that you didn’t even try because you just told me directly you would seek out guidance and information if you wanted to do something.
Apologies for the leading question but from the way the conversation was going it sounded like you were gonna try and claim I shouldn’t expect you to do any web searches or anything when you seem perfectly capable so I felt the need to get it all in writing. Because I’m not engaging with you in bad faith, as you claimed, I’m engaging with you on and in your terms.
It’s, again - in clear opposition to your accusation that I’m “anti-organizing”, fine if you don’t want to do the homework. As I have stated many times before, you can find an anarchist or electoralist group that will put you to work. That is fine.
Just because I seek out real world guidance or do web searches doesn’t mean I successfully find the information that will actually help me. Especially given our current material conditions with regards to everyone’s struggle to maintain a decent standard of living and the continual enshittification of the internet including the search engines. So I tried seeking out guidance here and the main thing you had to say about that was “Stop.” And then told me to go organize with someone else.
What are you doing to help your movement grow?
If you wanted to do the homework you wouldn’t be arguing with me about it, you would be actively seeking out ways to understand instead.
You dont, and that’s okay. Anarchist and electoralist groups will take your willingness to act gladly.
Wrong, and you’re still not hearing what I’m saying. I never actually expressed an unwillingness to read Capital. I’ve tried and failed multiple times. I may try again with some of the ideas that you brought up here actually, even though you brought them up as an attack on me rather than trying to be helpful (at least that’s how it appeared). What I’m saying, and what I meant when I said “anti-organizing”, is that the way you’ve handled this conversation will only make your movement more insular and out of touch.
The third time you’re making me ask a version of this question. What are you doing to make your movement into something the masses will actually agree to follow?
I do not want to talk with you about anything I do in my life or about theory or about history.
I want you to go away from communist movements and instead focus your energy into anarchist or electoralist groups who will have a lower barrier to entry and give you something to do.
You are behaving like an adventurist, wrecker or infiltrator. This is not an accusation, simply a statement intended to express my perception of your behavior.
I don’t think you’re an infiltrator or wrecker, I think you don’t realize how you sound when you start a thread on a public Marxist Leninist platform and ask “what do I do to build a real revolution in America”.
This is less of an ML community than you make it out to be (despite the .ml). There are a great many members of this instance that are not even leftists let alone Leninists. The actual comm I posted this question on is the largest ask community on the platform and the 7th largest comm overall. I was never explicitly looking for Communist organizing. I mentioned one org and my first complaint was about their actions (or lack thereof), not anything to do with ideology. I think you should be able to answer my question without doxxing yourself if that’s the concern, because I don’t need the details. I might even be satisfied with something like “there are some outreach programs that involve education on theory that we invite our local community into” because at least that’d be something. Instead I literally get “go away”.
I came here asking for advice without preaching any kind of message. You’ve had so many opportunities to give me small pieces of information that could put me on a path to becoming a better ally to your cause, instead you choose to push me away. I ask the question about how you’re building community because all I’ve seen here is you trying to lock it down so only the privileged few can remain. That is anti-coalitional and the opposite of organizing (anti-organizing).
Honestly, I hope you’re a fed, because otherwise the modern ML movement is going absolutely nowhere.
I want you to understand that I don’t think you’re malicious, I just think you come across as way too eager and didn’t want to explicitly say that most communist organizations try to avoid that because they don’t want the heat it tends to bring.
I didn’t want to say that to you because people don’t generally take it well.
“Go be anarchist” isn’t an insult.
That sits better with me than your responses thus far, and I think I can see what you’re talking about. I am still curious of how a revolution works though? I understand the idea of waiting and being ready for the right moment to come, but the preparation for that and how it might look in the usa. Like how pre-ussr there were already soviets that met with and represented the peoples across the country. Also how the party works to make itself irrelevant on its path towards true communism (stateless classless moneyless society). How does the party work towards the end of the party?
I want to strengthen my worldview and those 2 questions are what I haven’t been able to get clear guidance on in my exploration in Communist thought. If you can’t or don’t want to answer those questions directly, I’d greatly appreciate some book recommendations that cover those topics.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of Capital is that it’s about capitalism. Describing all the roles within it and relationships between them, as well as the mechanisms. Basically nothing directly about Communism. So probably not the book recommendation I’m looking for in this case.
To try and be clear with my thought process. I don’t think those questions come from a place of eagerness (though I can admit to having eagerness that mostly stems from wanting to escape the capitalist system), but from a place of trying to understand the full life cycle of Communism. If I can’t get those answers then I’m simply not able to accept the ideology as possible. And I don’t say that as a defiance, it’s just how my brain works. If i don’t have an understanding of why something is true, then I don’t have the ability believe it.
Minor and not relevant aside
“Go be Anarchist” does feel like an insult when it comes from Communists. Some of the Communist reading I have done disparages Anarchism as useless or obstructive. And I’ve heard a number of Communists in person dismiss it like a parent telling a child to go play with their toys while the adults work. Not saying that’s you or that there’s something you need to do about it. Just saying.
You should just go do something else and not accept the ideology as possible, whatever that means.
Part of why I keep beating you over the head with “go do the reading” is that you are asking questions answered by it, but the greater part is that you’re thinking in a very idealist way. That is not an insult, just like me telling you to go be an anarchist was not an insult. Idealism is a way of understanding and thinking that’s different than materialism which is the kind of thinking communist theories are based on.
There is a greater and more valuable understanding that comes from reading a big ol book that “is about capitalism” beyond realizing how a revolution works and the myriad plans for transition to communism.
Join a reading and discussion group. You’ll have better luck than trying to birth the revolution fully formed from your forehead.