Important knowledge you’ll never find in books!

Good job!

Careful… It’s darker than your think out there. You need to be ready for real war.

You can legally change your name.

well you wouldn’t be the first cringe person to join an org, not by a long shot

I literally did this and the answers for people are depression, the sheer suppression that the US specifically does to orgs, burnout caused by school and work, Covid, and overworking. Telling people to go organize seems… well it’s good, but until we start posting resources that can help with one or all of those issues, very few people will actually do it

we have this conversation every week tbh but you’re right

Sucks living here 'cause all the bourgeois freaks from Ottawa are spilling out here to get the cheaper real estate while bringing their equally awful shitlib politics. So it’s them and freakish Canadian QAnoner types.

Those trying to build up the socialist movement early on were all heavy readers though. They need to be. Most of us live in a country where the movement is in the infantile stages

If a revolution does ever come to America, 99% of participants will have never read a single communist book, yea

Just because people were illiterate or had low literacy levels doesn’t mean they didn’t engage in theory though. This is also why vanguardism was so important to historical revolutions.

But you only need one comrade who can read for a classroom sized group of people (or larger) to be able to learn and discuss theory.

Part of what Mao did so successfully was to convey complex ideas in theory in very simple to understand language. In fact, he was so effective in doing this that most of his writings manage to cross a vast linguistic gap in a very nimble way.

Theory isn’t the be-all and end-all, of course. But a party or the masses without theory is like a ship without a rudder.

An org is just a group of people that do work together and have a name. It might be a political party, it might be a group focused on a specific thing that approaches it from a socialist perspective, it might just be four people trying to figure out what they want to do but they know it should be socialist.

You join one by talking to people and asking them if you can join.

You know, finding an organization and becoming a member of it. Attending meetings. Paying dues. That sort of thing.

Figure out the communist and communist-aligned groups in your area, get on their mailing lists, turn out to do the things they ask of you sometimes. Try to make a compromise between good politics, successfully doing things in the real world, and being a larger org. Find out which orgs meet those criteria by going to their things. Once you’re sure which org(s) are good, ask them how you can get more involved.

Joining a political organization that fights for better rights. In this context, a socialist org/party working towards building a socialist nation

An example would be joining the IWW. You pay dues, show up to meeting, talk about politics with people, and try to organize your workplace or help other people organize theirs.

A bunch of other orgs are basically like that, except instead of workplace organizing it might be electioneering or selling newspapers.

dating within an org is only a problem when more influential members date less influential members, the representative of a local chapter probably shouldn’t start dating one of their members, it creates an imbalance of power, this isn’t limited to socialist orgs though, it applies to any organisational structure.

it’s the sex pest problem, unfortunately. a lot of the women I know in local organizing circles - including myself - have been SAed by other organizers (usually dudes). I don’t personally have a problem with dating in organizing circles but I know others do.

the sex cult pattern isn’t just a rare occurance unfortunately. it’s practically inevitable in any organization which 1) asks that its members become deeply emotionally invested, 2) places emphasis on stability, unity, and not rocking the boat, and 3) concentrates real power in the hands of those few with the most time, energy, and charisma. Mainstream political parties notably give salaries to the people who keep the party actually running. This allows individual members to subsist on more than the good feelings they get from seeing their friends at meetings, as well staves off the fear that the entire organization might collapse if an abuser is challenged.

How many comrades of the past met each other through the Soviet Party or the Communist Party of China or in Cuba or Vietnam? Probably millions.

I would not be so sure. From what I have read party members in the Indochinese/Vietnamese Communist Party explicitly described themselves as having a sibling-like relationship with each other and sleeping around in the party would cause scandal. At least one man was his executed by other party members when a woman comrade reported him, though there might have been some SA behavior going on in that case. I’m pretty sure that the CPC was similar in that regard too. I also believe Trotsky had somewhat of a “reputation” within the Bolsheviks for that sort of thing, which seems to indicate it wasn’t that common there either (or that could have just been made up one of his many haters).

Not saying it never happened in history but ultimately people should be there to work and it’s the same problems with dating at work, and those problems multiply when you’re trying to run the party as an honest to marx people’s liberation army. It did seem more acceptable later when those parties transformed into government bureaucracy though.

Yeah, it’s a huge problem just dealing with the widespread alienation we experience and the mental health problems it creates or makes worse. Trying to bridge that gap could do a massive amount of good.

Each orgs chapter has an average of like 20 active people, that’s why it always devolves into a sex cult in the US

The Chilean socialist movement that brought Allende to power worked because they had Party offices in the community where members of the community could go and socialize as well as learn! There are lots of stories of people who met their first dates at the party community centers, and so the social pressure forced people to become more based to fit in.

I have a long comment history of ripping into Evangelical Christianity. Sometimes I feel like I rail against it more than anyone on this site. I have a million issues with American Christianity that still get me angry when I think about them even though I left the religion almost a decade ago.

BUT… when I think about the time I spent with various young adult church groups or Bible studies, I still have a lot of fond memories. Or even going further back to when I was a kid, my small little church had a pretty healthy social life that I do think made a positive impact in my life. Churches understand that and they’re pretty good at it. All that social stuff you mentioned really does matter. We are so alienated and disconnected from each other. To be able to offer a salve for that I think will help draw people to the org as well as help meet those social needs we all have.

This seems absurdly dishonest wth

And yet, you read Marxist books… which can give you a paper-cut.

Curious.

There’s a lady who shows up at Palestine protests here who has the palestine flag attached to her wheelchair. You do what you can. From each according to their ability and all.

We should honestly have dedicated disabled socialist orgs. I’ve gone back and forth on this idea a few times but the thing that’s hung me up on pursuing it is the fact that participation in any org no matter to what degree is very likely something the tories here would use to say you’re capable of working and therefore should lose benefits.

Spiritually, disabled people can usually go outside/build communism. “Go outside” is really about logging off from your internet patterns and trying to have human interactions, which you can do from home in case a disability makes literally going outside uncomfortable or impossible.

Of course, with generalizations we should also understand that there will be exceptions but that naming them right away would prevent the call to action from being pithy. So if a person’s disability precludes building socialism, I’m sure OP and others would understand.

Though I would say that there are many ways to build socialism, so even someone that thinks they can’t might just be unaware of ways they could help out.

Yes, but it’ll be revisionist.