Have you ever changed ideologies? [Archive]

Uppercut

10th February 2010, 18:04

Has anyone ever jumped around from one ideology to another? For example, leninism or maoism to syndicalism, or vice versa?

There are certain things I agree with pertaining to both ideologies. I appreciate the maoist construction of communes in China, along with the collective farms that were established. The way I look at it, the Mao era was mostly made up of a federation of self-governing communes joined together through the state aparatus.

But I also wouldn't mind something like Catlonia. I'm fascinated that anarcho-syndicalism could be carried out so effectively, especially considering the civil war that was going on. But at the same time, I'm disgusted by the fact that the communists in the war slaughtered so many peace-loving anarchists.

I really don't know what to think. I've taken the political spectrum test many times, but I'm not exactly sure what to categorize myself as (I think my last score was -8.25 economically and -4 or -5 socially. I was just curious to see if anyone else here has ever had an interal ideological struggle.

Agnapostate

10th February 2010, 18:07

In between various socialist tendencies? No. I was a Christian Reconstructionist, though; I favored the re-establishment of Old Testament law. That faded alongside my religious belief, so I transitioned into propertarianism (what's fraudulently called "libertarianism"), into social democracy, and gradually into anarchism. Funny, since I remember reading about Kropotkin on Wikipedia and thinking, "Damn, I could never be that radical."

Nolan

10th February 2010, 18:13

A loooong time ago I was flirting with anarcho-syndicalism. Then I used to be somewhat of a Left communist, and now I identify mostly with the Marxist-Leninists. I was on the verge of becoming a Trot for a while... glad I didn't.

Uppercut

10th February 2010, 18:21

I can see a lot of similarities between anarcho-communists and leninist communists. They both (as I understand) want a series of communes joined together. For the anarchists, it might be through a big union, like the IWW. For the maoist/leninist, it might be through the government.

The reason I lean more towards Maoism (I think) is that if you're going to have such a radically democratic system, the state will be needed to back it up, and a military, to some extent, will be needed for protection against foreign intervention or infiltrators. If the capitalist threat is eliminated, the state is no longer necessary (although I'd imagine it would start to wither in some ways before that time)

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

10th February 2010, 18:29

Uppercut

10th February 2010, 18:51

7. Anarcho-Capitalism with an open-minded attitude towards Marxism. I'm very skeptical of power, and I'd prefer an anarchist revolution, but I wouldn't necessarily oppose a Marxist movement. I'd evaluate the situation and make further considerations. Open-minded about Democratic Socialism as well, but very cynical about the idea that it's (1) rational and (2) possible.

I haven't met any anarcho-capitalists that sympathize with Marxism, especially the one at my school. According to him, I'm defending "mass murder", and I have no understanding of what I'm talking about.

Crux

10th February 2010, 20:32

I used to be a self-identified Ultra left. Then I actually studied Lenin, and became a trotskyist (or bolshevik-leninist, your choice). Plus I joined the local section of the CWI, which kind of helped my evolution.

Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor

10th February 2010, 21:25

I haven't met any anarcho-capitalists that sympathize with Marxism, especially the one at my school. According to him, I'm defending "mass murder", and I have no understanding of what I'm talking about.

That was a typo. I meant anarcho-communism. I must be mixed up as a classmate recently told the class he is anarcho-capitalist.

Ovi

10th February 2010, 21:46

A long time ago I had sympathies towards Yugoslavia under Tito. I realized that it was the best country of the Eastern Block and the only reason for that was simply due to the power the workers themselves had. Anarchism was so natural once I heard about it that I wondered why didn't I know about it before.

Mather

10th February 2010, 22:31

tehpevis

10th February 2010, 22:58

Certainly. When I was first introduced to Socialism, of course I was drawn to the most famous example. The summer before last I was a hardcore Leninist/Trotskyite. Gradually, I've lost all faith in organized Parties and Government, and so have been drawn to Anarchism.

10th February 2010, 23:13

Yes.

When I first got involved in left-wing politics at the age of 16 (I'm now 26) I did not have that great an understanding of all the different schools of ideological thought that made up the left. So the first political party I got involved with was the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), which is a traditional pro-Soviet party that was formed from the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

From my own personal experience with them I found the CPB very slow and inactive (I never got calls from CPB members and rarely got any post from them) so I left the CPB.

After that I spent the next five or so years as a Trotskyist and I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Socialist Party (SP) and the Communist Party of Great Britain-Weekly Worker (CPGB-WW).

After that I was for a short while into Maosim and issues relating to class struggle in the third world, during this time I was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain-Marxist Leninist (CPGB-ML).

Since then I have become an anarchist. Although I simply describe my current beliefs as anarchist and that I avoid placing adjectives to my anarchism, I would say tht my own view of anarchism draws upon the traditions of anarcho-communism and inssurectionary anarchism.

You've had the whole ride, in just 10 years! You're not alone in dropping out of organisations so quickly, although you are somewhat unique that you still stick around after so many personal disappointments. Don't take this personal, but you're somewhat of a caricature of the sad state of the left in that the left apparently isn't able to provide answers to the questions of many people, to provide them a place in which people can develop. It is sometimes amazingly to see the left still exists if you know what kind of turnover we're talking about and also how many militants, with many years of valuable experience, drop out over various issues. What a sad waste.

Old Man Diogenes

10th February 2010, 23:20

At first, I was politically Liberal, then found out about Communism since we'd been doing the Spartacist Uprising in History and I wasn't satisfied with the definition my teacher gave of Communism which was something along the lines of 'everyone gets paid the same' and I wanted to find out more. As a result of my research I also discovered Anarchism, but fooled myself into believing both ideas were impractical and silly but thoughts about them still circled in my head. Then I discovered Socialism and was sort of a Liberal-Socialist (if there is such an ideology) for a while and the gradually gave way to Anarchist Communism seeing it as embodying something I'd always believed; that people were free and equal and deserved to be treated as such and that people, not the government, were the only engine for real change. :blackA:

Ironwill

10th February 2010, 23:20

Nolan

11th February 2010, 00:04

I sure have. When I first started to get interested in the affairs of things I was somewhat facist. Then I slowly got into communism and considered myself communist but I felt there where a few things that I didn't agree with so I assumed that made me a capitalist.

Of course after much more reading and reflecting I now consider myself anarchist but willing to work with any leftists.

What kind of fascist?

Sendo

11th February 2010, 01:37

1. No self-defined ideology. So given where I grew up, everything conservative was true. You're a kid. The news doesn't lie. Insert other random nonsense.

2. Social Democrat. I want changes, but I don't want to be labeled a radical. And I work hard. Why should those lazy people get the same as me?

3. Democratic Socialist. Socialism is great, but we shouldn't use violence. Violence is bad, alright. Not cool guys. MLK!

1. is the same for me, but with odd flirtations with authoritarianism but always environmentalist while being anti-big business and anti-imperialist, but brainwashed by news about the truth of the world.

2. Ditto, but I didn't find anyone lazy. I just wanted to end war and get free health care for all.

3. Revolutionary-socialist in transition

4. Trotskyist, but I got tired of the nostalgic Russo-philia and the constant refusal to discuss anything besides Trotsky's rambling books or October and the the scant few years of socialism that existed.

5. Anarchist. Grew disillusioned with state socialism, found Trotsky to be one big hypocrite.

6. Marxist-Leninist, becoming more understanding and impressed by Maoism. I also reexamined my notions of history, what was true and false. I also relished the scientific and complex analyses many people had about the different socialist movements and socialist states. I was impressed by the capacity of ALL non-capitalist societies whether Amerindian indigenous or state socialist to implement responsible and efficient growth alongside sustainable agriculture. (the USSR had its environmental problems, but it never came out of cash-strapped farmers burning the rainforest for pittance and repeating with new land over and over, nor a capitalist company imposing agriculture, nor profit-driven exponential expansion).

I also redeveloped my strong sense of environmentalism and could make sense of the logic of my environmentalism. It was never tree-hugging nor wanting preserves of nature and islands of raw concrete jungles, but rather responsible development, and now it's about:
clean air and water for humans, development throughout the world, not just metropolises, public transit, an end to global warming, and end to exponential growth of consumerism, and sustainable agriculture. It's like I finally feel mostly ideologically sound. I think the rest will come through experience, reflection, studying, and keeping up with current events.

Great thread.

Weezer

11th February 2010, 02:07

My first political opinions were very conservative and reactionary, growing up in a conservative family, gradually became a libertarian. I had some socialist sympathies, having a big interest in Marxism, but not really understanding it.

About a year ago I made the switch from libertarian to anarcho-capitalist. I joined RevLeft, briefly making a switch to anarcho-communism/Mutualism, then I left RevLeft, becoming a Mutualist, and finding both capitalism and communism both oppressive.

I joined an Anarchist forum I think in November, within two days, someone mentioned RevLeft. I went back here, changed my username and deleted everything related to my old account, avatar, signature, username(although I didn't delete any posts), and became a Trotskyist.

From there I was briefly a Left Communist/Luxemburgist, but then came back to Leninism, although I wouldn't call myself a Trotskyist anymore, or Marxist-Leninist.

I would say I have a lot to learn about Marxism. I like some theories from Lenin, Marx, Luxemburg, Mao, and Trotsky, but I can't really say I would calling myself a Maoist, Luxemburgist, Trotskyist, etc. I don't like to be sectarian.

I like the idea of Soviet councils, and a vanguard to be a vehicle of revolution. That's about it. I support the Peace & Freedom Party, Socialist Party USA, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

The Red Next Door

11th February 2010, 03:06

I was at first a liberal then a communist then a social dem and now a libertarian socialist.

P.S now i went from that to Marxist Leninist.

which doctor

11th February 2010, 03:18

The first ever 'radical literature' I ever read as a precocious 14 year old was the Communist Manifesto. This was shortly followed by Che's Motorcycle Diaries. At this point what drew me into politics was a fascination for Cuba. At this point I was a confused wishy-washy liberal with a fetish for Che/Cuba and I thought abortion should be illegal (thanks CCD classes!).

I've switched ideologies quite a bit, something we can thank the Internet for making possible. I spent a long time sampling various classical and postmodern anarchist thought, but gradually learned that the question of the day was not authoritarianism or anti-authoritarianism, but socialist or barbarism. I now see myself in the broad tradition of the 2nd Internationale radicals, including, but not limited to Luxembourg, Trotsky, Lenin, Gramsci, Korsch, and Lukacs. I made a complete detour, sampling the radical side of the Internet, but ended up right back where I started, with Marx. Hopefully I'm here to stay

However, in all this time I never identified as a supporter of any present-day, conventional Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, Stalinist, etc. etc. etc. parties. I smell dead horses when I see them.

Ol' Dirty

11th February 2010, 03:21

My politics haven't really changed much since when I was a little kid: universal healthcare; universal education; universal shelter; free food and water for everyone; the elimination of poverty; the elimination of gender, racial and class discrimination. I've been a socialist, a communist, anarchist, an anarcho-communist, a social democrat, a democratic socialist, even a libertarian. I've never figured out what to call myself, and I hope I never have to.

Joe_Germinal

11th February 2010, 03:24

I first read Marx and Engels at 13 and became a convinced socialist pretty quickly. By high school I was an extremely dogmatic Maoist. In college I fell in with a group of anarchists my first year which--combined with the heavy dose of anti-Soviet and anti-PRC propaganda I got in the classroom--quickly turned me from red to red and black.

By sophomore year, however, I had tired of the particular anarchist group I was in (their allergic reaction to theory, the subtle authoritarianism of "consensus" decision making, their dogmatic histories of Ukraine and Spain) and became a somewhat non-committal Marxist (appreciative of Lenin but neither Trotskyist nor Marxist-Leninist). I worked during this time primarily with the CWI although I was never actually a member (I didn't want to be, but I wouldn't have been allowed to become one anyway since I was at that time making an intense study of Soviet history which convinced me that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat).

From there I have become what I am today: a Marxist-Leninist with a neutral position in the Mao/Hoxha split, organizationally sympathetic to the PSL.

Uncle Rob

11th February 2010, 04:12

In highschool I had a group of friends who would refer to everything bad as "communist" Whenever I asked what it was or what it meant I never got a straight answer. So like every thirsty mind, I went to the internet and looked it up on wikipedia! I liked a lot of what I read. Heard a lot of references to Karl Marx. Tried to pick up a book by him but couldn't find one anywhere. Then finally I was introduced to a fellow who just happened to have an extra copy of the manifesto. From there on in I have been a committed Marxist.

At first I despised the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I grew up read more and more and started getting into Lenin. I then refereed to myself as Marxist-Leninist not knowing it implied Stalin and Mao's contributions. I later met a highly dogmatic Trotskyist who I learned almost everything from. Naturally, I became attracted to Trotskyism but it never really stuck with me. I fluctuated back and fourth between Leninism and Trotskyism. Then a friend of mine showed me this site. I saw Marxist-Leninists actually making some kick-ass arguments and was sold. What's funny is that when I was a self-proclaimed Trotskyist I felt little need to actually participate in the real world. When I came over to Marxist-Leninism however, well lets say M-L fixed that real quick ;)

ChrisK

11th February 2010, 09:57

Democrat Lutheran: Believed the news. Thought Al Franken was the shit. Believed the bible was the word of god. All this kept up till I was in the Seventh grade.
Democrat: Read the bible, realized how silly it was. Still thought Al Franken was the shit. This kept up through 8th grade.
Democratic Socialist: Read the Communist Manifesto. Thought this was the awesome, but didn't see need for revolution.
It gets really confusing here and I have trouble remebering the order this happened in, hopefully this is chronological. Orthodox Marxist, Anarcho-syndicalist, Left communist, Social Democrat (I regressed for a while), Orthodox Marxist (again) all in two years.
Orthodox Trotskyist: For about half my senior year of high school until part way through debate season when I ran into...
International Socialism: Read State Capitalism in Russia and Volumes one and two of Karl Marx's theory of Revolution.
Wittgestienian International Socialist: My final change came when reading Rosa's website.

Tower of Bebel

11th February 2010, 10:17

social-liberal -> Marxist. I joined a Trotskyist party 4 years ago and had my own "left cummunist child diseases".

Cooler Reds Will Prevail

11th February 2010, 10:39

Started off as a pretty run of the mill progressive liberal, developed an interest in liberation theology and Oscar Romero at age 16 (ironically, the same time I started to abandon Catholicism), and was subsequently drawn to Fidel and Che. Was a Fidelista for about 4 or 5 years (though was still pretty embedded in mainstream politics until I was about 19), worked with the Socialist Workers Party for a little while, but started to get drawn toward Maoism at age 21 and then started working with the RCP. Did that for a little while but got disillusioned with them and a lot of the Stalinist baggage in Maoism and am now, at age 24, somewhat of a Left Post-Maoist, though I would say that beyond my strong conviction of being a revolutionary communist and being fiercely anti-party state, I have far more questions than answers. I still view Fidel as somewhat of a father figure for me politically, despite my differences with the Cuban experience, though most of the comrades I find myself agreeing with consistently consider themselves Maoists.

It's funny, I was going to post a thread very similar to this one just the other day.

hardlinecommunist

11th February 2010, 12:18

The Ungovernable Farce

11th February 2010, 12:31

Long-term SWP brand Trot for the best part of a decade (I pretty much began to empathise with Marxism/Leninism/Trotskyism as soon as I began to critically engage with the world around me), moved to anarchism as a result of 1) a growing theoretical belief that the Leninist party model was intrinsically flawed, 2) disillusionment with the various idiotic campaigns the SWP put its time into (above all Respect, but also UAF, StW and its liberal opposition to direct action, etc), and 3) personal engagement with anarchist groups which made me realise that non-hierarchical, decentralised organisational models can actually work really well in practice. Being a member of a Leninist organisation while increasingly thinking and behaving in anarchistic ways is, um, an interesting experience.

Ironwill

11th February 2010, 13:53

What kind of fascist?

Nothing racist. I think wiki sums what I use to think pretty well "rejecting the economic and material conception of history, the fundamental belief of fascism being that human beings are motivated by glory and heroism rather than economic motives, in contrast to the worldview of capitalism and socialism"

Uppercut

11th February 2010, 14:31

I still have a lot of sympathy for Mao. I guess I look at him as a "father figure". But I enjoy talking and debating with anarchists, so long as they don't try to shove their ideology down my throat.

All leftist ideologies have their similarities, so if we ever want to bring about a system that works for everyone, we're going to have to work with eachother. Anarcho-communists want a group of communes joined together through a common organization, and so do I. I believe in some sort of state-hierarchy for managing different heights of the economy and government, but I don't think that means that people can't be equal to eachother. So long as the masses keep an eye on their state and are allowed to criticize party members for their faults, I don't see the problem with a state or a party, until such time the state becomes unnecessary.

Great posts, by the way.:D

svenne

11th February 2010, 15:55

Began as a anarchopunk, but after a while found the Soviet revolution cool. Hence, marxist-leninist. But just for a while. Stalin's a bad guy, so trotskyite. Shortly after that i began calling myself a libertarian socialist, for a couple of years. Then i went council communist, and i'm still somewhere in that area. But the title i´m usually using is marxist-luxemburgist, just because pretty much no one (includes me) have any idea what it really means. Great thing. :D

scarletghoul

11th February 2010, 16:08

No one is born communist loll. All of us are constantly learning (if you're not then you are a crap communist tbh)..

I got interested politics at age 12 or 13 with the whole Iraq invasion, and communism seemed like the best idea plus it had cool imagery and stuff so I called myself a communist. I didn't know a lot though, and never read any Marx so it was a loose conviction.
After a few years I became a liberal democratic socialist kinda thing and eventually lost interest in politics alltogether. (apathetic)
In 2008 I got back into things (I guess because of the election) and thought Ron Paul was cool and that libertarian capitalism was a cool idea lool. Started reading more about libertarianism in general, and read some Chomsky. Became proper socialist Anarchist.
I developed an admiration for Mao after reading a biography about him. He was very inspiring, a romantic revolutionary right to the end, but I still didnt support the whole state oppression stuff and viewed Mao (and Marxism in general) as an incorrect and needlessly oppressive model. Then I found out that Anarcho-Maoism exists so I called myself that.
Then I read some Marx, more Mao, and a bunch of other proper leftist theory, and realised that its Anarchism that is strategically incorrect and that statist dictatorship of the proletariat is totally where it's at - So I became a MLMaoist.
I still kinda love Anarchism as its very inspirational and all but as Uppercut says you really do need some kind of proper state to defend the revolution.

Still, anarchy is my goal, my ideal. Classless stateless society where everyone is free to live according to their deepest desires, free from all forms of oppression exploitation alienation and so on. Communism/anarchy, same thing. My ideal has never changed, I just developed a better understanding of how to get there.

GPDP

11th February 2010, 17:39

From my childhood, I was always pretty left-wing. Growing up in Mexico and seeing poverty all around me (though I wasn't poor myself) kinda did that to me. I wasn't really political until around the time of the 2000 election, though.

During that year, I was, for some reason, a Republican. Something about Bush being governor of Texas and me living in Texas, as well as word of Joe Lieberman, Al Gore's VP candidate, hating video games. Silly, I know. I was a stupid kid.

When 9/11 happened, I was pro-Bush all the way. We gotta get them terrorists! Oh, and Iraq, too. Saddam can't be trusted! I hope we invade!

So Iraq happens, and it goes increasingly bad. I then turned into a bleeding-heart liberal Democrat, though I was kinda still wary about leaving for fear of the terrorists taking over Iraq. Nevertheless, I was all about gay rights, pro-choice, separation of church and state, and other standard liberal stuff, so I rooted for Kerry in 2004.

Once Kerry lost, I was kinda distraught. I thought the U.S. was firmly under the heel of TEH FUNDAMENTALIST CONSERVATIVES, and that perhaps being too liberal in such an atmosphere was bad and doesn't get you anywhere, so I sought to become a "moderate," meaning I often forced myself to advocate policies I didn't truly in my heart support, such as increased border enforcement. I also looked into libertarianism, because who doesn't love liberty? I just couldn't get myself to agree with unfettered free markets, though.

So then I finally got into college, and in a philosophy class, we are assigned to read Adam Smith, Marx, Milton Friedman, and Michael Albert, kinda so as to compare and contrast left and right-wing ethical approaches to political economy. I came out of the class somehow respecting both communism and capitalism, though at the time I was leaning more to the communist side.

I then stumbled onto Chomsky, and became acquainted with anarchism and libertarian socialism. After a ton of research into anarchism and its thinkers, I decided I was an anarchist, with an intense hatred for Marxism, calling it "authoritarian socialism." I was also in love with parecon theory at the time.

Finally, I came here, and after a year and a half of learning and debating about all the different ideologies, my ideas had changed to the point that I could no longer honestly call myself an anarchist. In fact, I don't think I can squarely put myself into a specific tendency or give myself a discrete label, other than perhaps "revolutionary socialist."

So to recap:

- Confused Republican
- Bleeding heart liberal
- Jaded "moderate" with libertarian sympathies
- Some kind of non-ideologue with sympathies for both capitalism and communism
- Anarchist
- Revolutionary socialist with sympathies for both anarcho-communism and the less-kooky strains of Marxism

RaÃºl Duke

11th February 2010, 17:46

1) When I was young I would be better described as a social liberal. Most people in PR are like this. There was certain particularities, mostly based on the ideas of the "middle class" in PR and the sociological make-up of PR society, like support for universal social programs but dislike of needs-based social programs.

2) Social Democrat or Democratic Socialist with Trotskyist/Luxembourg leanings: not very coherent, I was exploring and learning about politics outside of what was usually presented.

3)Anarchist without adjectives: Became interested in anarchism and began to read about it.

4) Anarcho-Communist with Marxian leanings/etc: What I currently am now.

The Ungovernable Farce

11th February 2010, 18:00

Then I found out that Anarcho-Maoism exists so I called myself that.
It does? I've never heard of it. Sounds pretty confused to me.

kalu

11th February 2010, 19:11

1) Confused supporter of "the war on terror": supported it mostly because of the ideological indoctrination present in wargames and hollywood movies, confused because I was brown in america after 9/11, and didn't fully comprehend all the connections between racism, war, and capitalism.
2) Liberal democrat increasingly frustrated with the US's foreign policy: I started reading more about colonialism and postcolonial Africa, and became disgusted with the West's support of people like Mobutu Sese Seko, and their conspiracies against Mandela, Patrice Lumumba, and other left-leaning leaders and anti-imperialists.
3) Anarchist: right before entering college, I discovered Emma Goldman and anarchism, which felt like a natural fit. I realized liberalism failed to explain the gross exploitation occuring in the "third world", so I focused more on structures of oppression.
4) Agonistic communist: after a large gulp of "theory" in college, I became entranced with Foucault, postcolonialism, and other philosophical perspectives on the intertwined nature of knowledge and power. I was essentially updating (and complicating) my perspectives on structure, especially with brilliant readings of Marx by David Harvey and Negri. Since leaving college, I realize anarchism is of little use to me because it continues to suffer from a theoretical drought (with a few exceptions, such as David Graeber). I do sympathize, however, with autonomist and anarchist organizing tactics and strategies. Currently, I am trying to think more about political theory, to better grasp the nature of rule (foucault) and more traditional marxist perspectives on social reproduction. I have discovered the anti-liberal / agonistic works of macintyre through postcolonial critic david scott, and am slowly entering the debate on a (post-)enlightenment language of social criticism. I'm also intrigued by laclau and mouffe's opinions on the matter, and particularly their critique of a priori marxism (economic essentialism and the formation of political subjects).

Omi

11th February 2010, 19:23

I called myself an anarchist since I became politically interested, but my idea of how the world works and what anarchism is, in relation to that, changed fundamentally. In the beginning I was more of a liberal-ish anarchist, not really into class conflict. Then I read some marx, and became class-concsious so to speak. I called myself a anarcho-communist. Then through praxis and further reading on radical matters, I developed my own sort of anarchism.

Now I don't adhere to a specific sort of anarchism, and think that tactics and ideologies should change and be fluid according to the conditions at hand. And even then, I think the most class-strugglist anarchists could still work together perfectly with the most insurrectional anti-everything anarchists, if both would let their dogmas behind.

An interesting thing maybe to add for people to their story, is what tendency you would have had if you would have not ended up how you are. I think if I had not had some personal revelations and practical experiences, I would have turned out a Maoist. Mainly because of the great understanding of the class conflict of the non-western world, that some Maoist groups have. I occasionally read some maoist's texts and project my own anarchist worldview on the matter at hand. I also somewhat support (not unconditional, but from what I have heard) some maoist social movements in the world today.

But I despise the state to much to consider myself an anarcho-maoist of some sort.

So Anarchist it is.

Red Commissar

11th February 2010, 20:01

Up until I was 15 I was fairly "conservative" in the American sense, but more on social issues than with an ideal of market liberalism. Between 15 and 18 I began to move more to the center and gradually left-of-center, but still believed in capitalism as a fair system.

After I turned 18 I began to read a lot more, and I got a better knowledge of socialism. I read the Communist Manifesto, and some bits about the life of Eugene V. Debs, and fictional socialism from authors like Jack London and Emile Zola. Heck, even Victor Hugo's "socialist" views (arguably more social democratic in today's standards) made me see some injustices, as well as my trips overseas to my ancestral home.

Bright Banana Beard

11th February 2010, 20:07

Political Confused >> Platformist (I found out they are really dogmatist despite being anti-dogmatist.) >> Stalinist >> Hoxhaist

I opposed Maoism in theory, but not in practice.

which doctor

11th February 2010, 20:17

I opposed Maoism in theory, but not in practice.
How do you separate the two? Practice and theory are flipsides of the same coin.

Wanted Man

11th February 2010, 21:30

Not really, unless you want to count the teenage process of "doubting the Iraq war" to "scratching circle-As all over the place" through to actual political activity and thought. Not because I never change my mind on things (I do quite often, actually), but because I do not see every kind of flexibility as a rupture with my underlying political line. We are not dogmatists. We don't "toe the line" out of some perceived obligation to an organisation, but because of what we've concluded from the concrete situation. Too often, I see people on Revleft just repeating formulas that sound nice.

Sometimes, on Revleft and other forums, these people proclaim that they have "switched ideologies" again (like TV channels or pairs of jeans, I guess) because of some misconception about the line that they previously claimed to hold. That's a bit of a shame, in my opinion. I'd rather people study things seriously, rather than just trying to fit in with what's cool. I don't feel particularly happy when some troll on here suddenly decides that he's a "marxist-leninist", but I don't particularly mind when a well-informed ML ends up identifying with anarchism more.

RaÃºl Duke

11th February 2010, 21:47

How do you separate the two? Practice and theory are flipsides of the same coin.

Perhaps he means he supports their actions in 3rd world nations since Maoists tend to be very good in anti-imperialist struggles but would not support the theory as a measure to reach communism in general or in 1st world nations where peasants are irrelevant and/or the New Democracy/Bloc of 4 Classes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy) concept would be reactionary due to inclusion of elements of the bourgeoisie.

Mather

16th February 2010, 23:52

Q:

You've had the whole ride, in just 10 years! You're not alone in dropping out of organisations so quickly, although you are somewhat unique that you still stick around after so many personal disappointments.

Thats because the reasons and issues I had when I resigned from a party, where reasons and issues always specific to that party, mainly over me having some difference over policy, party programme or theory.

However, I learnt a lot from my time in all those different parties and had I not had these experiences I most likely would not have ended up with my anarchist beliefs, so no personal dissappointments or regrets from me.

Don't take this personal, but you're somewhat of a caricature of the sad state of the left in that the left apparently isn't able to provide answers to the questions of many people, to provide them a place in which people can develop. It is sometimes amazingly to see the left still exists if you know what kind of turnover we're talking about and also how many militants, with many years of valuable experience, drop out over various issues. What a sad waste.

Indeed, the left in almost every country, especially so in the first world industrialised countries, is weak and extremely divided.

Time will tell if it stays that way.

Sprocket Hole

17th February 2010, 00:06

When I was younger I dabbled in right-wing libertarian stuff, although I didn't consider myself subscribing to anything political, just "looking for truth" or whatever. Then I became interested in communism and the USSR. I wasn't really struck by any particular train of thought, but in retrospect I could have been considered some what of a Leninist. Then I saw Trotskyism as the anti-thesis of oh so evil Stalinism and proclaimed myself a Trot for a while.

Then.. I read more and became critical of the state form and then became an self-proclaimed anarchist, got sucked into the whole specialized activist crap. Then I read more, got out, had some real experience and had some time to ponder. Now I don't really consider myself anything, other than pro-revolutionary.

Die Rote Fahne

17th February 2010, 00:51

Tablo

17th February 2010, 01:30

I went from being a liberal, to flirting a bit with individualist anarchism, before realizing how stupid I was and becoming a Communist. I have never been so secure about where I stood in the world until I became a Communist.

17th February 2010, 01:51

Thats because the reasons and issues I had when I resigned from a party, where reasons and issues always specific to that party, mainly over me having some difference over policy, party programme or theory.

However, I learnt a lot from my time in all those different parties and had I not had these experiences I most likely would not have ended up with my anarchist beliefs, so no personal dissappointments or regrets from me.
If you don't mind me asking: what made you join and why did you leave the CPGB? I'm pretty impressed by their publication in that it is one of the few to offer a genuine platform for discussion and debate. I'm interested in an "insider" view of them.

sarmchain

17th February 2010, 03:05

i went from liberal->to moderate socialist,-> then i took a wrong turn and got into the ayn rand bullshit it lasted for about 2 months, -> moderate socialist->semi-trotskyist-> left communist-> anarcho-communist

The Ben G

17th February 2010, 03:32

I went from Liberal to Social Dem. to Hardcore anarchist to Libertarian Socialist.

FreeFocus

17th February 2010, 04:02

I used to be a right-winger when I was religious, but after dropping that garbage, I wouldn't say that I've changed ideologies, it's been more of a logical progression. I'm an anarchist now, sympathetic to a lot of different tendencies, but I try to be nonsectarian.

Os Cangaceiros

17th February 2010, 04:09

My ideology hasn't changed greatly over the years. Perhaps less emphasis on Egoism than I had in the past, but that's about it.

black magick hustla

17th February 2010, 04:48

tbh i always had very similar ideas

Robespierre2.0

17th February 2010, 04:57

Intuitive Liberalism -> Libertarianism -> Libertarian Socialism/Anarchy -> Stalinist (and ever moreso by the day)

Typical transition, I'd say.
First of all, libertarianism, stemming from that stupid interpretation of politics as two axes of 'economic' and 'social' freedom. I viewed libertarianism as a combination of 'the best' of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Around freshman year of college, it became impossible to deny the problems of capitalism, so anarchy seemed the logical choice (after all, anarchists are completely democratic and never repress enemies EVER)- essentially still interpreting politics along two axes, but realizing that there is no meaningful 'economic freedom' for me and the vast majority of humanity under capitalism.

Then, a combination of alienated labor, drugs (specifically, the humbling effects of ego death), finally registering on RL in 2007, and access to a school library that carried the works of all prominent Marxist thinkers began to systematically deconstruct my idealist metaphysical view of the world. The rest is history. I read Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha--
There were a multitude of things that steered me away from Trotskyism, but mostly the fact that the American public education system (and American history books, and TV programs... etc.) had done it's damnedest to hammer this 'Trotsky = Saint, Stalin = Evil Bastard' dichotomy in my head.

These days, I just try to absorb as much information as possible and take what I see as useful. Even if someone is completely full of shit, or a thoroughly despicable reactionary, I'll read them just out of morbid curiosity- to get a clearer picture of the scope of world views out there.

Sendo

17th February 2010, 05:07

i notice a lot of conservatives and libertarians pulling a 180. It seems that people who are social dem can be further radicalized and conservative commoners are usually very principled people with fucked-up ignorant idea of reality (that was me too, living in Amerikkka). The hardest to change are the middle class and upper-middle class liberals. They tend towards know-it-all elitism, "pragmatism", and a horribly skewed sense of time and urgency and the nature of the enemy--the right is merely stupid and/or evil, not ignorant, not of a different class, not of a different strategic outlook, just stupid and/or evil--oh, and they think that leftists are misguided idealists, ignoring completely the materialist and scientific bases of Marxism.

Thank you all, for further confirming my theory that liberals are the hardest to convert

AmericanRed

17th February 2010, 05:35

There were a multitude of things that steered me away from Trotskyism, but mostly the fact that the American public education system (and American history books, and TV programs... etc.) had done it's damnedest to hammer this 'Trotsky = Saint, Stalin = Evil Bastard' dichotomy in my head.

You must be living in some other America than the one I live in. Nothing in mainstream education or media or what have you that I ever saw ever presented Trotsky as a saint. They presented him as little better than Stalin and -- with the rest of the Old Bolsheviks -- responsible for Stalin.

which doctor

17th February 2010, 06:00

You must be living in some other America than the one I live in. Nothing in mainstream education or media or what have you that I ever saw ever presented Trotsky as a saint. They presented him as little better than Stalin and -- with the rest of the Old Bolsheviks -- responsible for Stalin.
Same here. Trotsky would be lucky to even get a mention in a US history book!

Tablo

17th February 2010, 07:34

Only time Trotsky has ever come up in my schooling was when we read 1984.

Mather

18th February 2010, 05:10

If you don't mind me asking: what made you join and why did you leave the CPGB?

I first came across the CPGB during the large StWC anti-Iraq war demo back in Feb. 2003. I got talking and got involved with them from there. I did not know anything about them before then, but I stayed with them for a good year before I had enough and left.

As to why I left: unlike other parties I had been with before, such as the CPB, SP or SWP, the CPGB had no links, no real contacts with the working class, community groups and trade unions. The CPGB also lack any real desire to develop those contacts and links. Whatever their faults, parties like the SP, SWP and CPB do have links and a relationship to the working class, community groups and trade unions, however limited. They also seemed to all have a desire to further develop those links, even if they mess it up, which they all have done a number of times. I am all for theory and I do believe that any revolutionary organisation, federation or party should have a developed programme and theoretical approach, but the CPGB spent all it's time and effort on theory and the state of other parties on the revolutionary left. Any party, federation or organisation should have an equal emphasis on both theory, programme, involvement in the struggles of the working class and the trade unions and community causes: working on the bread and butter issues that address peoples needs.

I can see the positive in analysing the ideological makeup of other parties, their programme and their factional disputes, if the intention is to critically learn from such analysis. I also would say that the CPGB started out with that intention but I do feel that they have fallen into a trap of becoming a small study group, discussing struggles and theorists from the past and not looking at the hear and now and getting involved in the bread and butter issues of the working class.

I'm pretty impressed by their publication in that it is one of the few to offer a genuine platform for discussion and debate. I'm interested in an "insider" view of them.

Yes, if you want to find out about the state of the revolutionary left, the Weekly Worker does a good job at that and they do have a degree of openess, theoretical analysis and ideological discussion that you don't get in other party papers, party magazines and journals probably being the exception.

However, as I stated above, a party or organisation does itself no favours if it cuts itself off from the working class and becomes a small group that just focuses on theory and fails to focus on all the other important aspects of class struggle.

If the Weekly Worker covered bread and butter issues, trade union issues and involved itself as a working class paper with as much emphasis as it devotes to theory and the state of the revolutionary left, it could become a great paper. It should still do party to party polemics, theoretical debate etc, just that it should balance it with everything else.

Invincible Summer

19th February 2010, 00:25

In early - mid high school, I am ashamed to admit that I was a fascist bigot. I think I was just an angry teen that blamed problems on people who didn't speak English and homosexuals.

Then, because I was trying to be all counter-cultural, I read up on Marx and Lenin because my history class was talking about how commmunism was "so terrible. I actually found the stuff pretty inspiring, and decided I was a basic socialist... although a democratic socialist. I thought Cuba and Scandinavia were basically socialist heaven.

Then I got involved w/ Trots. That turned me off from Trotskyism, but it did make me a bit more radical in that I was exposed to more reading material and understandings of the world.

Then I became an Anarchist. Got into the whole anti-hierarchy, federation of communes or whatever thing, but it didn't last long. I sort of fell out of love with the whole idea... seemed too idealistic.

I would now consider myself more of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, but I try not to be sectarian about things. The fact that ML and Maoist ideas have been put to practice gives me confidence in the tendency. Yeah, there's been screw-ups, but at least they've tried!

x359594

19th February 2010, 17:06

There is an interesting thread. My impression that most people posting in it are young males (or at least under 30.)

The formation of a particular ideology depends on time and place, class and familial background. In my case, my parents were Jewish working class who entered middle class life during the post-WWII boom when working people enjoyed the benefits of strong unions during and responsive government. Both were staunchly FDR liberals with strong sympathy for individual communists and socialists (Vito Marcantonio, Victor Reuther, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.)

Thus, I grew up in this background and came of age during the Vietnam War. I remember my father saying, "This is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," so this made my family one of the few who opposed that war in 1966 (the general public in the US didn't turn against the war until 1968.)

In my last year in high school I volunteered to hand out leaflets for the Peace and Freedom Party during the 1968 election cycle which put me to the left of most of my high school friends.

In college I encountered Marxist-Leninists who were altogether too dogmatic and too strident in my view. I found Marx persuasive, Lenin less so. I became acquainted with the spectrum of Marxist-Leninists and got the impression from all of them that Marxism-Leninism was their religion. So I rejected Leninism on the principle "by their fruits ye shall know them, not by their theoreticians."

I lined up with the IWW in 1974 and describe myself as anarcho-marxist; anarchist in terms of the unity of ends and means, direct action and libertarian socialism, marxist in terms of dialectical method, historical materialism and accumulation of capital through surplus-value.

Kuppo Shakur

19th February 2010, 17:56

I once believed in...*sigh*...anarcho-capitalism...:blushing:
I feel so ashamed.

Die Neue Zeit

20th February 2010, 05:05

Perhaps he means he supports their actions in 3rd world nations since Maoists tend to be very good in anti-imperialist struggles but would not support the theory as a measure to reach communism in general or in 1st world nations where peasants are irrelevant and/or the New Democracy/Bloc of 4 Classes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democracy) concept would be reactionary due to inclusion of elements of the bourgeoisie.

A new "Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie" in the Third World, but based on separate class organizations, would be: proletariat, hired hands performing unproductive labour (butlers, housemaids, and even military assembly line folks), proper lumpenproletariat (prostitutes where illegal, rank-and-file gangsters), coordinators (mid-level managers, academics with subordinate research staff, doctors without general practice businesses, and spetsy / "specialists"), and nationalistic petit-bourgeoisie of urban and rural areas.

Of course, scrap the last demographic and perhaps also the second-to-last one in developed countries.

nickdlc

9th March 2010, 01:52

I remember just wanting to learn about the political parties and the names of the party leaders in Canada. I voted for the NDP but didn't think they were radical enough.

I'd read some things about communism but didn't agree with most of lenninism right from the start. I then stumbled upon the Socialist Party of Canada and agreed with their views for the most part.

Now that I'm starting my own business though It's not as easy as I thought it would be. I've taken on more beliefs that leadership is needed and you really need to be devoted to anything you take up in life or it'll be half assed and fail. Haven't had much time for reading while working and working on my business.

Who knows maybe I'll turn into a conservative if I start making money.

Comrade B

9th March 2010, 04:01

I was a die hard Castroist when I was in middle and high school, mostly because I didn't know about any other forms of communism. Though I am now a Trotskyist, I still have a soft spot for Cuba. I also considered myself a left communist for a short bit, but ended up supporting Chavez and Morales (and of course Castro), which made it difficult to really consider myself one.

danny bohy

9th March 2010, 04:49

I think were all a bit guilty of that. when you first get in to left politics its easier to conform to Marxism or anarchsim or someone elses idealology. then after a while you get into your own personal ideaology. i know thats what i did anyway.

Chimurenga.

15th March 2010, 00:04

for the first 16-17 years of my life, I was sort of apathetic and didn't care about anything political. I tended to lean more conservative because of my parents. Then around 17-18, I got interested in Anarchism (more specifically Syndicalism) through some punk rock bands and I read some Chomsky, Bakunin, and Orwell. I thought the state was the cause of all the problems in the world and I thought if the government somehow dissolved overnight that things would be much better. Then, I read The Communist Manifesto and The Jungle and got interested in Socialism. From there I learned about Che, Fidel Castro, Lenin, Stalin, etc. I've been excited and comfortable (ideologically speaking) ever since.

Shitfaced

15th March 2010, 04:17

From simple liberal, to Communist, to Anarchist to Anarcho Communist

RotStern

15th March 2010, 05:15

Social Democrat When I was -11 And Marxist Leninist 12-. :D

un_person

15th March 2010, 10:31

I used to consider myself purely a communist, recently however I have decided that for communism to actually succeed we need to go through a period of socialism. I also believe that it is unrealistic to believe that an armed people's revolution can defeat america's military. So to summarize I now consider myself a Democratic Socialist.

#FF0000

15th March 2010, 12:12

I think I was a libertarian or something a long time ago but was never able to make "liberty" and "crushing, unholy poverty that most of the capitalist world is subjected to" jive quite right when I was thinking about it.

Barry Lyndon

25th March 2010, 03:58

My ideological progression was:

1. Liberal(Green/liberal Democrat).

2. Social Democrat, who really idolized Western Europe welfare state.

3. Non-Marxist socialist.

4. Trotskyist, of the Tony Cliff variety.

5. Anarcho-Communist.

6. Generic Marxist, attempting to find some sort of impossible fushion between Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism, Bolivarianism. Still strongly anti-Stalinist.

Ramon Mercador

25th March 2010, 06:23

Communist

25th March 2010, 06:30

Why talk about ideologies you used to have. That doesnt define u. You are what you are now. And as i see it there are only two kinds of people in this world, those principled revolutionary Fighters who fallow the true patch of Marxism-Leninism, and bourgeoisie and fucking stupid bourgoisie anarchists like Leftcoms and Trotskyites.
Long live Stalin

Hello Ramon.

You have been trolling the board embarrassing Marxist-Leninists and flaming Trotskyists for quite a while tonight.

Verbal warning. Knock it off now.

.

Ramon Mercador

25th March 2010, 06:34

Im sorry i have been having a tough day. I will try to keep it down now, I apologize to you but I still hate Trotskites.

DancingLarry

25th March 2010, 07:01

I think it's perfectly natural, particularly among younger radicals, to shift around among ideologies. Most of us are raised and educated in capitalist societies where the kind of political and ideological questions that emerge as we grow to consciousness are at best ignored, more often actively suppressed. Even in the best of circumstances, none of us spring fully formed intellectually as from the head of Zeus. Granted there's the problem of the unserious dilettantes, but the serious young radical does themselves no favor by adopting and sticking with the first ideological opening that comes along. It takes time to sort through what reflects ouor needs, interests, experiences and values.

For instance, as a young man my introduction to socialism was through the ISO. It was through the political education and self-education that I got while in ISO, and particularly in being repeatedly scolded for my anarchist and syndicalist "deviations" that I was able to become aware of my own political direction. In the long run I not only found my natural political home, but benefit greatly from the intense study of Marx, because both the historical materialist critique, and many of his writings as a social critic, enrich and deepen my own outlook and analysis.

anticap

25th March 2010, 11:04

1. Apolitical childhood.

2. Generic "Patriotic American" phase. Accepted all the propaganda: The American form of government is ideal; capitalism == freedom; communism == gulags.

3. Getting serious now: bought a pocket Constitution and can extol its virtues; time to choose sides: the Democrats == socialism, which == gulags, so I'm a Republican, the "party of Lincoln," who, you know, freed the slaves(!), so -- you guessed it -- Republicans == freedom.

4. Turns out the Republicans are corrupt (who would have guessed?), too bad there's not a party that actually does what the Republicans say... hmm, what's this "Libertarian Party" about... didn't join the LP, but devoured their propaganda and was converted.

5. "Libertarianism" [sic] can't help but lead to "anarcho-capitalism" [sic], so now I've learned the A-word (look out!). Also, the foreign policy stuff (lots of "Founding Fathers" quotes about "entangling alliances") reminds me that there's a world outside the U$ (don't blame me: they don't show it on the news).

6. Deep-study mode. Contradictions becoming apparent. Hey, isn't it weird how capitalism resembles feudalism? A meaningless observation of course, since nobody's forcing me to work... still, let's see what these anti-capitalist idiots have to say, just to confirm how wrong they are...

7. ...turns out they were right. Fuck. So be it, I've been dabbling in philosophy and logic, supplemental to politics, so I know when the jig is up. No point denying the obvious. Now I'm an anti-capitalist, but which kind? The "anarcho-capitalists" [sic] are convincing on the anti-state stuff, if nothing else, so let's see what these anti-capitalist (read: actual) anarchists have to say...

8. Floundering, flip-flopping phase. Anarchism is great, but these damned Marxists keep making great arguments against them. And then for every argument they make, the anarchists have a great rebuttal. This sucks, I want a home!

9. Still tendentiously homeless. Probably always will be. Communism is anarchy, but how to get there? Beats me. Love Marx, but also Bakunin. And Kropotkin. Lenin, not so much. But no time for hate. Save that for capitalists. Stalin? Mao? Hey, whatever works. Just don't ask me to subscribe to your newsletter. It's too sectarian, all of it. I'll rub elbows with anyone fighting on behalf of the working class. The rest of it is just armchair intellectualizing. Don't people realize that they're going to be dead in a few short decades?

10. ? (Still open to a convincing recruitment pitch, despite the above. Haven't heard one yet.)

Devrim

25th March 2010, 11:38

I used to be an anarchist. I was a member of the UK IWA section in the 1980s though I never had particularly syndicalist ideas. Like many in anarchism, I joined DAM not through specific comitment to anarchosyndicalism, but because they were active locally. As the 80s wore on DAM was becoming more syndicalist, and I, due to my experience in a series of wildcat strikes at my work more anti-union.
We sort of drifted apart, and I ended up getting involved with left communists, mostly because of their position on the union question.

Devrim

25th March 2010, 11:57

We sort of drifted apart, and I ended up getting involved with left communists, mostly because of their position on the union question.
IMO, the union question shouldn't be a question at all because, for the mean time, trade unions are the sole major and most influential organisations that aim to protect workers' rights and fight for better pay and conditions. They are genuine organisations of the working class and anyone who opposes them can go play in traffic. Air traffic.

Devrim

25th March 2010, 15:55

Jacobinist

25th March 2010, 15:59

1) Liberal Democrat

2) Social Democrat (I too idealized EU, still kinda do :blushing:)

3) 2 words: Communist Manifesto. Changed my whole perception overnight, and I must have reread it rapidly like 4-5 times over.

4) I always had a problem of the way the communist model had been shaped in the 20th century, not by Marx however. You know what I mean? I would defend the whole shenanigans, but in the back of my head I always did wonder if I WOULD'VE REALLY HAD WANTED TO LIVE UNDER COMRADE STALIN. That's why Anarchism appealed to me.

5) And presently, an Libertarian-Communist (anarchist).

Funny things is tho, Im still all of the above. And the funny thing is that anarcho-communism resembles what Marx would've wanted; maybe Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky would disagree, but that's good right? Marx definitely wanted a community that was anti-kapitalist, anti-state, and godless.

vyborg

25th March 2010, 17:32

At 13-14 I was more or less a Stalinist..that's was my familiar tradition faults..
then my first sister started to read a trot paper (a very bad one unfortunately...) and my mother attacked her violently as in the Italian traditional communist families to be a trot was equivalent to be a CIA agent....
luckily....we all grew up then...

Sasha

25th March 2010, 18:14

been shifting between left-communism, council-communism and social-anarchism my whole political life, setled now on (dutch/german style) autonomism, not because of the theoretical basis but more the opposite; because it never realy got theoratical defined wich suits me just fine.

tophat

25th March 2010, 22:31

1. Yay for social democracy! No More War! Tax The Rich! Regulate Those Big Nasty Corporations!

2. Pah. How silly I was. It's either socialism or capitalism - social democracy is just more subtle exploitation. A Trotskyite I guess.

3. Oh wow, how cool is this anarchism stuff! I can escape from this awful world and find sensitive friends and together we'll play songs round campfires and free the world at the same time. CrimethInc. are cool.

4. Oh wait, that's not anarchism. Oh wait, that's bullshit. I mean, campfires are GREAT(!) but not revolutionary. Hmm...

5. Anarchist communism, with sympathies for left-communism, council communism and the like. [Where I am now]

6. ...? [Obviously I think anarchist communism is right and I'll stick with it, but who knows...]

black magick hustla

25th March 2010, 23:24

ive called myself a communist since i was 14 or 15. idk if that means to be a communist but i atleast personally agreed with it.

Taikand

27th March 2010, 22:20

1)Fascist. Because of my small stature I was always bullied around, so I thought that an authority is needed, and it needs more power, humans are sick, evil, destructive bastards.
2)Anti-american fascist.I actually celebrated 9/11, I was just eight in 2001. I became anti-american after finding about the imperialist foreign policy of USA.
3)Being an east-european the nearest image of power I could get was Stalin and Ceausescu, I actually agreed --fully-- to them. :blink:
The whole "Soviet Union vs USA" antaghonism presented in culture and the fact that I loved the soviet symbolism and anthems( I still listen to them from time to time), became fiercely patriotic, got some military fetishism (which still haunts me a bit even today).
4)Calling myself a "communist" (see point 2) I got to read the Communist Manifest, before it was burn by my school "mates" as witches in the Middle Ages.
Only then I truly understood the basic ideas of Marxism, it was beyond all my dreams.
Became a vague marxist.
5)Came here on revleft, got some revolution spirit, looking for more time to read leftist books (and for more books as they are very rare around here, and I find it hard to read 'em in electronic format).
Being a very open-minded 16 years old leftist at the moment. I haven't found an ideology yet to stick to, only an objective "classless and stateless society".

zimmerwald1915

28th March 2010, 00:56

aim to protect workers' rights and fight for better pay and conditions.
On the contrary, unions have in just about every case in the last twenty or so years been the eager partners of management in deepening divisions within the working class, stifling struggles where they develop, and enforcing cuts in pay and other attacks on workers' livelihoods.

Wait, this thread has a topic?

Okay, my mother's family was either dead or estranged from her, so my politics were first shaped by my father's ex-Stalinist parents. I began considering myself an "orthodox marxist" by the time I was about fifteen, got into Luxemburg the year after that, and then gravitated towards Left Communism.

Communist

28th March 2010, 02:51

.
Please stay on topic. There's a thread in WS regarding unions here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/trade-unions-today-t131865/index.html).
And refrain from one, two -word posts.
.

28th March 2010, 22:48

I would defend the whole shenanigans, but in the back of my head I always did wonder if I WOULD'VE REALLY HAD WANTED TO LIVE UNDER COMRADE STALIN. That's why Anarchism appealed to me.
You could have become a Trotskyist :lol:

Funny things is tho, Im still all of the above. And the funny thing is that anarcho-communism resembles what Marx would've wanted; maybe Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky would disagree, but that's good right? Marx definitely wanted a community that was anti-kapitalist, anti-state, and godless.
Pretty much, cept I'm not sure how the state can wither away when there's no state...

Anywho, my story.

I had an apathetic childhood, but it would lay the grounds for my future beliefes. For starters, my mum was brought up in the Soviet Union and my dad was brought up in the SFR Yugoslavia. My mum hated it but my dad for some reason loved it. Later on mum would go on to say that communism doesn't work and all that shit. Anyway, they moved to Australia from Hungary for a "better life". So my story begins, my dad kept on telling me how this world is so profit-motivated, how every little thing such as a price increase on staple products to building new tollways and office towers is just all in the hope of making a profit out of it. I opposed the Iraq war and whatnot. It's at about the beginning of 2009 that I become political. But I wouldn't exactly glorify this stage - it was mostly about burning anything American and getting all the theory wrong. I became a Trotskyist about two months after that. And then maybe one or two months ago I began to call myself a Council Communist.

Devrim

29th March 2010, 06:39

IMO, the union question shouldn't be a question at all because, for the mean time, trade unions are the sole major and most influential organisations that aim to protect workers' rights and fight for better pay and conditions. They are genuine organisations of the working class and anyone who opposes them can go play in traffic. Air traffic.

Also I notice that you call yourself a 'council communist'. The council communists were certainly against the unions.

The German party, which was where the council communists sprang from, was initially against the unions. Rosa Luxemborg wrote:

[the unions] are no longer workers' organisations; they are the most solid defenders of the state and bourgeois society. Consequently it follows that the struggle for socialisation must entail the struggle to destroy the unions. We are all agreed on this point.

Devrim

iskrabronstein

29th March 2010, 07:03

An appeal to doctrine is really beside the point. Political and social conditions globally have shifted immeasurably since Luxemburg spoke those words - capitalism itself has gone through major transitions in focus and means.

The fact remains that unions are the sole representative of the working class throughout much of the capitalist world, and to disregard them and refuse collaboration with them on the grounds that they are necessarily capitalist collaborators is to disregard both social reality and political history.

The struggle to unite the working class is bound inextricably with the task of empowering and radicalizing existing workers' associations, and creating new ones. Rather than criticizing from the sidelines, we socialists ought to be the first into the breach.

Meridian

29th March 2010, 07:08

I have no idea how to classify my ideology at present time.

When I was growing up I had some idealistic notions of anarcho-communism rooted in the advancement and benefits of technological achievements (ie. technocracy). My sympathies still lie somewhere in this direction, though perhaps I am now less idealistic about technology.

I have sketched a few concrete ideas about free, creative networks being the foundation of a future human economy and society. If functioning, it would effectively be a classless society without a state, where production is planned democratically on a decentralized level. However, there would also need to be inter-relations between these networks to allow for larger-scale production (not just "material production") and activities in general. An idea built into this is that the dichotomy of "work" versus "creativity/activity" needs to be challenged, as it is a product of a capitalist mode of production.

Though, the problem with the above is that it remains a utopian vision so long as it is not based in political action. That said, I think you could always argue for the worth of visions and goals.

29th March 2010, 07:27

Also I notice that you call yourself a 'council communist'. The council communists were certainly against the unions.

The German party, which was where the council communists sprang from, was initially against the unions. Rosa Luxemborg wrote:

Devrim
I agree with the concept of unions, not necessarily how they are run, organised and managed today, but as what they were intended to be: groups of like-minded workers with smiliar interests united for a common cause to fight for their rights. Why should I have to do everything by the book? Just because I'm a council communist it doesn't mean I have to uphold everything some German workers 90 years ago believed in. Like, Maoists and Stalinists today themselves don't agree with everything Mao or Stalin said. Many Marxists disagree with portions of the manifesto, too.

spaÃŸmaschine

29th March 2010, 09:46

I agree with the concept of unions, not necessarily how they are run, organised and managed today, but as what they were intended to be: groups of like-minded workers with smiliar interests united for a common cause to fight for their rights. Why should I have to do everything by the book? Just because I'm a council communist it doesn't mean I have to uphold everything some German workers 90 years ago believed in. Like, Maoists and Stalinists today themselves don't agree with everything Mao or Stalin said. Many Marxists disagree with portions of the manifesto, too.
Opposition to the trade unions and a belief in the class' ability to organise itself without representation, was absolutely central to the politics of the council communists, so if you take that away then you aren't left with much. Of course you don't have to "do everything by the book", but when you adopt a term with a specific meaning, while meaning something quite different, then such terms become pretty meaningless. Why do you call yourself a 'council communist', if you don't actually agree with the positions of the Dutch-German communist left?

29th March 2010, 10:37

Opposition to the trade unions and a belief in the class' ability to organise itself without representation, was absolutely central to the politics of the council communists, so if you take that away then you aren't left with much. Of course you don't have to "do everything by the book", but when you adopt a term with a specific meaning, while meaning something quite different, then such terms become pretty meaningless. Why do you call yourself a 'council communist', if you don't actually agree with the positions of the Dutch-German communist left?
That's why I originally called myself a Council Vanguardist. I agree with direct democracy in the form of workers councils and that the vanguard should never be put into power - if it exists at all, for there is always the possibility that the workers could organise themselves for a revolution. But with my idea of a vanguard it should be decentralised, fully democratic and only really play an educating role - that is, to spread propaganda and to support and prepare for revolution. I feel that as capitalism has developed so much these days, an entity is required for the long-haul as revolution won't really be spontaneous. So, the vanguard won't be a political party as such (seeing as though it would never acheive political power in any new establishment), more of an organisation completely democratically run for workers by all it's members - which there isn't much of a need for anyway as it should never have authority. Members would just choose what sort of messages it would give to the working class - posters, flyers, pamphlets, etc.

As for my position on unions, they are something generally typical of capitalism. Companies and corporations themselves simply do not care about lone workers, they fear a threat from powerful unions and, as such, unions are the only legal entity that supposedly represents workers' rights that will actually be listened to.

Zanthorus

29th March 2010, 16:35

Anarcho-communist was the first really solid political position I had that I could actually argue out and was based at least partly on my own experience.

I used to be the stereotypical anti-Marxist, pro-individualist anarchist. Eventually after debating for a while with pro-Marx anarchists I went and actually read some Marx and dispelled most of my misconceptions.

At the moment I'd still consider myself ancom, but I'm not sure anymore. I've been reading some Left-Communist stuff lately and Pannekoek really struck a chord with me.

Ravachol

29th March 2010, 16:58

Started out as an individualist Anarchist of the Stirnerist variety and gradually moved towards Insurrectionary Anarchism before embracing mass-anarchism, with a heterodox wink to Autonomist Marxism.

29th March 2010, 23:22

So basically, what I advocate isn't a party as such. It's more of organisation that presses for and prepares for revolution. Speaking of parties... one of the major Council Communist organisations was... a party?

28350

29th March 2010, 23:24

My family instilled in me a strong sense of social justice while I was growing
up. At first, my political opinions were nothing more than silly dogmatic opposition to republicans and whoever my parents complained about. As I grew older, I learned more and more about politics, economics, and history. My father said he was a Communist, but he didn't talk about it very much. When I finally got around to reading the manifesto, I pretty much knew what to expect. In middle school, I was subjected to heavy anti-communist influences by both teacher and student alike. My defense to this was that since the people in power committed these monstrosities, the people who never gained power must have been the good guys. At the time, I didn't recognize any theoretical differences between Trotsky and Stalin, only ones of character. Once in High School, I began devouring all sorts of leftist writings. I began reading newspapers of various communist parties, and started to get more and more of a feel of what everyone thought of everyone else. For a time, I briefly flirted with anarcho-communism because I thought it was the perfect idea. Then I read a lot of and about Lenin, and moved back to Leninism. At the moment, I'm not really sure where I am. I'd classify myself as a Leninist, but am very sympathetic to movements both within and outside that category.

[...]And the funny thing is that anarcho-communism resembles what Marx would've wanted; maybe Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky would disagree, but that's good right? Marx definitely wanted a community that was anti-kapitalist, anti-state, and godless.
While I agree with almost everything Marx said, I wouldn't say that the measure of how revolutionary something is is defined by someone's writings. It doesn't come down to who said what, but which ideas you agree with and which are best for the working class and humanity as a whole.

chimx

30th March 2010, 00:06

I used to like anarchism until I met anarchists. I no longer identify with a political ideology and prefer to call myself a historical materialist.

30th March 2010, 00:24

I used to like anarchism until I met anarchists.
Haha nice :thumbup1:

HEAD ICE

30th March 2010, 02:54

Went from right wing libertarian, to liberal, to democratic socialist, to trotskyist, to anarchism. I generally try to avoid labelling myself to people because there is little conflict between Marx and class struggle anarchism and I don't want to delve into a manufactured pissing match. When I am asked I either say anarchist or Marxist.

Stranger Than Paradise

6th April 2010, 11:20

Since I was 12 I have been a Communist-sympathisher. By 14/15 I was Anarcho-Pacifist, who never really realised about class struggle. Then I realised the illegitimacy of capitalism and embraced class struggle. Since then I have become Anarcho-Syndicalist because I believe in working within unions rather than ignoring them and of course I see them as a vehicle for revolution.

bricolage

6th April 2010, 11:33

Got fucked off, fucked about, got fucked up, got fucked, got fucked off... again.
Then I met some anarchists.

Bilan

8th April 2010, 08:47

Proletarian Ultra

8th April 2010, 21:45

I considered myself a libertarian conservative (or was it conservative libertarian? I don't even fucking remember) well into my 20's. About the only progressive things about my ideas were vague bullshit good feelings toward Palestinians and labor unions.

Then Bush came. And I could no longer avoid just how bullshit those vague good feelings were.

There was the complete fucking serial evisceration of Palestine. And right in my gaping face, the NLRB ruled my job ineligible for union representation. And on top of that I spent the night in jail for an unpaid traffic ticket.

That was enough to send me full out anarchist.

I started reading Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog. Really opened my eyes that socialism means "the workers control the means of production" and not "the government owns everything." I wasn't just an anarchist: I was an anarcho-syndicalist. Marx was never a problem for me, other than the state stuff. I appreciated him 'n Engels on an intellectual level even in my rightist days.

But then for various reasons I had to do some hard thinking about what the state is and why it is so persistent. Sure, it's "only" an ideological construct, but Ideology is a material thing. A skyscraper is "only" a steel and concrete construct!

So I had to come to terms with seizing the state. I'm down with Lenin and his epigones. I'm still a syndicalist at heart, though.

NoOneIsIllegal

13th April 2010, 02:06

When I knew nothing about politics or economics and was completely ignorant, I was conservative. My liberal friend introduced me to some books, and I for the most part was a democratic socialist. Lately, I've been considering leaning a bit more radical. I believe unions can be the change to our economic exploitation, so I suppose I'm on the fence about the role of the government. I've grown a bit pessimistic in voting, so i think I may be flirting with anarcho-syndicalism. I'm fine with not having a category right now, I still have much learning to do, and I atleast know I'm part of the revolutionary left.

Chaves

14th April 2010, 18:47

when I knew nothing about marxism and was completely ignorant on economics and politcs, i was anarchist... But a friend on uni introduced me to trotskysm and i join my actual ortodox trotskist party "Movimento Negação da Negação" wich the name come from a quote from the XXIV chapter of "Das Kapital" -- "capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation."--.

This party have a interpretetion of the revolutionary theory from a brazillian philosopher called Hector Benoit, he has a dialectal view of "Das Kapital" in wich he created a new theory of crisis in capitalism, he says that everyone who tried to argue about the matter(even Rosa Luxemburg, an important contributer to marxism and the revolutionary perspective) tried to get an excerpt in marx theory about the crisis, but to fully understand it u have to see Das Kapital with a more dialect view, so the concept of crisis begins in the first chapter of the Volume 1 and ends on the last chapter of the Volume 3... It is a very interesting book, but unfortunatly it has no translation in english yet...

dubaba

14th April 2010, 18:53

I used to your typical conservative American. Then i joined a Irish Republican forum and after a year of getting my ass handed to me in debates I slowly became more and more socialist. Now Id say I am Marxist-leninist-Connollyist.

Ztrain

15th April 2010, 13:58

I almost became a trot because I liked Tritskys later work while he was living in Mexico... but then I discovered that he was truly no more evil than Stalin.

Foldered

15th April 2010, 22:19

My major shift was from socialist to anarchist, but I'm always changing what I believe in/how I believe in things.

which doctor

15th April 2010, 22:24

I generally try to avoid labelling myself to people because there is little conflict between Marx and class struggle anarchism and I don't want to delve into a manufactured pissing match. When I am asked I either say anarchist or Marxist.
There are profound differences between class struggle anarchism and Marxism.

Palingenisis

15th April 2010, 22:57

There are profound differences between class struggle anarchism and Marxism.

I would say the differences between actual Marxism and the better types of Anarchism are those of quanity as opposed to quality.

Tifosi

15th April 2010, 23:12

I used to support Scottish Nationalism(bad times), now moving into Anarchism.

Palingenisis

16th April 2010, 00:29

I used to support Scottish Nationalism(bad times), now moving into Anarchism.

The national liberation of Scotland is vital for an English workers' republic to come into existance.

Victory to the SNLA!

RadioRaheem84

16th April 2010, 01:14

I went from pro-war liberal social democrat hawk of the Hitchens variant to Libertarian/Republican Socialist to sort of growing into some MLM tendencies. I really like Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism a lot but the people involved in these movements tend to be extremely dogmatic and actually sound liberal bourgeois in some cases.

InuyashaKnight

16th April 2010, 02:58

Nope i always stayed Communist!

More Fire for the People

16th April 2010, 03:04

Yes. My whole history of being politically aware has been a drift towards the left. Once I started identifying as a Marxist, I've hopped from ideology to ideology. Right now, I describe myself as a 'Marxist'. And despite being a fan, I'm not a Maoist--I flat out reject 'democratic centralism'.

I started reading Kevin Carson's Mutualist Blog
I'm hoping to run into this guy sometime, I think it'd be nice to have a face-to-face conversation, coffee, and cigs with him.

Jazzratt

16th April 2010, 13:43

The national liberation of Scotland is vital for an English workers' republic to come into existance.

Victory to the SNLA!

Or not. class struggle is the only way for a worker's anything to come about. Trying to build an English or Scottish workers rebulic is a nonstarter. National "liberation" is just a distraction from class struggle, unecessary at best and actively harmful to worker solidarity at worst.

Mendax

16th April 2010, 14:19

I started as a liberal Socialist, Started to talking to lots of leftists/getting towards anarchism but not anarchist types (You know what I mean..I hope), Became a marxist then as I started to learn more about politics,sociology,law etc and started to have a clearer view of what I beleived I came to Anarchism.

Die Neue Zeit

16th April 2010, 14:24

I would say the differences between actual Marxism and the better types of Anarchism are those of quanity as opposed to quality.

There is the strategic difference known as the party question. Class-strugglist platformists are caught in the middle between Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists (who interpret class struggle as being economic and not political).

Devrim

16th April 2010, 14:30

There is the strategic difference known as the party question. Class-strugglist platformists are caught in the middle between Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists (who interpret class struggle as being economic and not political).

I would suggest that you learn something about anarchism if you want to comment on it. It might stop you making such bizarre statements.

Devrim

Die Neue Zeit

16th April 2010, 14:44

Robocommie

16th April 2010, 16:30

As a kid I started off as apolitical, but a patriot, even though there were things that disgusted me about this country, like the Indian Wars. By late high school I had become a centrist, who thought moderation in politics was it's own reward. Then I gradually became a left-liberal, then more and more a social democrat. Then a democratic socialist. Right now, I'm just a Socialist interested in syndicalism.

I think though that I have always had leftist values, even if I was ignorant on politics, economics and history in the past. A part of me has always been open to Marxism, I think because as a child my dad, an Eisenhower Republican, once told me, "Technically, communism is the most democratic system."

More Fire for the People

16th April 2010, 19:46

Robocommie, is your avatar Edward Said or Dustin Hoffman?

Devrim

16th April 2010, 19:47

Class-strugglist anarchism is anti-party. However, there are individual class-strugglist anarchists who aren't too deep in the theories of class-strugglist anarchism, and are members of political parties.

People in the states do talk about class struggle anarchism. Personally, I think it is a misnomer, but they do.

I have never heard anybody in the whole world speak of 'Class-strugglist' (my spell corrector has underlined it in read because it isn't even a word) anarchism.

I was talking about this though:

There is the strategic difference known as the party question. Class-strugglist platformists are caught in the middle between Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists (who interpret class struggle as being economic and not political).

What on Earth are you talking about?

Devrim

Palingenisis

16th April 2010, 20:06

People in the states do talk about class struggle anarchism. Personally, I think it is a misnomer, but they do.

Why so?

Surely there is a difference in essence between anarchists like the Class War Federation and hippie liberal types such as Freedom Press not to mention the Primitivists, etc that comes from their different attitudes to class struggle.

Tifosi

16th April 2010, 20:20

The national liberation of Scotland is vital for an English workers' republic to come into existance.

Victory to the SNLA!

SNLA, sorry man, I really did LOL there:lol:

Devrim

16th April 2010, 20:53

Surely there is a difference in essence between anarchists like the Class War Federation and hippie liberal types such as Freedom Press not to mention the Primitivists, etc that comes from their different attitudes to class struggle.

Certainly there is. I just don't see the 'hippy liberals' as anarchists, so I don't feel a need to add an adjective to seperate people who are anarchists from anti-humanists like the extreme primitivists.

By the way, not that I have seen a copy in years, but I was under the impression that 'Freedom' had changed for some reason.

Devrim

Red Saxon

16th April 2010, 20:58

I was raised to be a conservative, although I shot 180 degrees when I started actually thinking about how I viewed the world.

I also jumped from Communism to Socialism, and now I identify more with Libertarian/Anarcho Socialism.

Snowball

16th April 2010, 21:02

I've been a liberal as long as I have been interested in politics, however I am just know looking into socialism. At the moment I would call myself a Democratic Socialist, but I plan to do more research this summer when I have the time.

Communist

16th April 2010, 21:07

.
For a brief while I was a De Leonist more or less as, after Marx, his work was what I was first exposed to. Then I discovered Lenin and I've been Leninist ever since, although I appreciate other currents and tendencies.
Not the most interesting entry in this thread, I know. :rolleyes:
.

The Ben G

16th April 2010, 23:33

I have changed from Nationalist Liberal to Anarchist to Libertarian Socialist to Trotskyist to Left Communist then to Left Council Trotskyist.

Bonobo1917

17th April 2010, 00:00

When I joined this forum, I was a Trotskyist of sorts (I belonged to the IS Tendency group in the Netherlands). I left that group, the Internationale Socialisten, in February2008. My politics remained Leninist-Trotskyist, though I thought anarchist and related contribuions to the left were worthwhile. Last autumn, after reading a lot and while thinking things over, I shifted towards a mixture of anarchism/ left communism/ Situationism/ Council Communism. No more Leninist vanguard party for me; long live the communist revolution. :)

Robocommie

17th April 2010, 00:47

Robocommie, is your avatar Edward Said or Dustin Hoffman?

In fact it's Dustin Hoffman playing Edward Said.

No, but seriously, it is Edward Said.

which doctor

17th April 2010, 01:12

In fact it's Dustin Hoffman playing Edward Said.

No, but seriously, it is Edward Said.
Why? Edward Said is incredibly anti-Marxist.

syndicat

17th April 2010, 01:33

Jacob Richter:

There is the strategic difference known as the party question. Class-strugglist platformists are caught in the middle between Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists (who interpret class struggle as being economic and not political).

It's false that anarcho-syndicalists are "not political." They want to see the development of revolutionary consciousness in the class so that workers aspire to take over the running of the economy, dismantle the state and create a system of social self-management. Because they envision the working class mass organizations carrying out the revolution, their view attributes a highly political role to the mass organizations.

Some anarcho-syndicalists think that the mass organizations are sufficient for revolution, others (like my organization, Workers Solidarity Alliance), think a political organization also has a role to play. But the libertarian left in general does not advocate a political organization taking power in its own right or running a state. And this is true of platformists also.

syndicat

17th April 2010, 01:45

when I was about 18 I read and liked (can't say why now) "Atlas Shrugged" and joined the local Young Republican club at the comunity college I was going to. This Right-libertarian ideology didn't make much sense, given my working class background and circumstances...and being a worker for a large corporation began to push me towards criticism of the class system. This was in the '60s and i was also influenced by some older black men I was working with (one was a member of the Black Panthers), and became a supporter of the black freedom movement of that era. So i joined a social democratic group, but found their liberal and statist politics unappetizing. I was influenced at that time by the leftwing of the old US Socialist Party, especially Gene Debs and Mary Marcy, and also British guild socialism.

by the early '70s I had friends in the International Socialists (predecessor of ISO and Solidarity) who were trying to recruit me. But I couldn't stomach Leninism. I'd read Brinton on workers control in the Russian revolution.

so then I joined a "socialist-feminist" group. Then a friend who was an anarcho-syndicalist brought my attention to the Spanish revolution and I also began to develop more of a critique of electoralist strategies. also in that period I helped to organize a sizeable grassroots independent union. so that's how I ended up as a libertarian socialist/syndicalist.

More Fire for the People

17th April 2010, 03:10

Why? Edward Said is incredibly anti-Marxist.
So was Hegel. And Ricardo. And Darwin.

Robocommie

17th April 2010, 03:41

Why? Edward Said is incredibly anti-Marxist.

I think saying he was "incredibly" anti-Marxist is stronger than is warranted, you make him sound like he was a John Bircher, when really he merely critiqued Marx and Marxism for what he felt was a Eurocentric bias. And what the hell does it matter? I can admire Edward Said for what he has contributed to post-colonial theory, theories which are not in any way contrary to the underlying framework of Marxian thought, or of socialist thought in general.

I should like to point out that technically, Edward Said's was influenced by the Marxist tradition even if he himself was more concerned with post-colonial narratives and imperialism than with class struggle.

the last donut of the night

17th April 2010, 05:04

Why? Edward Said is incredibly anti-Marxist.

so is the tasmanian devil

Communist

17th April 2010, 05:17

:lol:
Let's stay on topic comrades...
.

Die Neue Zeit

17th April 2010, 05:40

What on Earth are you talking about?

Platformism to me is the attempt to mistakenly emulate the SDKPiL sect (a modern variant being the ICC, and hello Rosa Luxemburg) but without calling the organization a party.

Anarcho-syndicalists don't like political parties at all.

Except for some ultra-lefts, Marxists of varying degrees consider them necessary for the workers to become the ruling class politically.

For the original Marxist center and modern revivalists, mass activity inside party-movements (and implicitly the acknowledgement that real parties are real movements and vice versa) are beyond crucial.

syndicat

17th April 2010, 06:06

Platformism to me is the attempt to mistakenly emulate the SDKPiL sect

what are you talking about? Makhno and Arshinov had been members of the Nabat federation during the Russian revolution.

The idea of separate political and mass organizations was not new at that time. You had the practice of for example the Italian Anarchist Union during and after World War 1. When the Left-Socialist leadership of the Italian Syndicalist Union followed Mussolini in a pro-war, nationalist position in 1915, the UA organized among the rank and file of USI and expelled the pro-Mussolini leadership at the next congress. You'll notice in this case that you had anarcho-syndicalist activists belonging to both a political organization (UA) and the mass organization, USI.

Same during Spanish revolution with the FAI and the CNT.

This is called "dual organizationalism" in social anarchist circles. This existed before the Platform.

Die Neue Zeit

17th April 2010, 06:10

Well, do forgive me from looking at things from the perspective of the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD as the models for left politics today. ;)

I'm sure the SDKPiL had similar "dual organizationalism." They kept to their political sect, refusing to fold into the "let's emulate the SPD" RSDLP, while organizing their own "mass" fronts.

The SDKPiL was not a real party, and its fronts were not real movements.

17th April 2010, 11:00

I almost became a trot because I liked Tritskys later work while he was living in Mexico... but then I discovered that he was truly no more evil than Stalin.
Interesting... no-one usually claims these sorts of things. Go on.

I have changed from Nationalist Liberal to Anarchist to Libertarian Socialist to Trotskyist to Left Communist then to Left Council Trotskyist.
Story of my life, bro. You know, without the Anarchism or Leftcom. Council Trotskyism = my dodgy old badass ideology :lol:

MQDuck

17th April 2010, 21:07

I never really felt like I changed ideologies, but my outlook has certainly evolved over time. I once called myself a Leninist, flirted with Trotskyism... But I came to believe that it's absurd to hang on to 20th Century dogmas and ideological divisions. "21st Century Socialism", that's my ideology.

You could call me a Chavista if you like, but Bolivarianism is hardly any more relevant in the USA today than Bolshevism. In other words, I'm a socialist, a Marxist. I learn from Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Mao, Fidel, Che, Ho Chi Minh, Chavez, as well as Malcolm X, Emma Goldman, Tom Paine, Frederick Douglas and so on. But I'm not a Leninist, Maoist, Fidelista or any of those. I'm a Marxist for USAmerican socialism, in solidarity with socialism around the world, in the 21st Century.

syndicat

17th April 2010, 21:20

I'm sure the SDKPiL had similar "dual organizationalism." They kept to their political sect, refusing to fold into the "let's emulate the SPD" RSDLP, while organizing their own "mass" fronts.

jacob, instead of getting wrapped up in your own little world of acronymns, you might explain what the heck organization this is. I don't think i've ever heard of it. what country did it exist in? What is the full name of SDKPiL? I can't see what this had to do with the Platform.

Die Neue Zeit

18th April 2010, 06:10

SDKPiL = Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the old common party of Rosa Luxemburg and Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Of course, that kingdom was part of the Russian empire, so its refusal to fold into the RSDLP was sectarian.

syndicat

18th April 2010, 06:17

that organization had nothing whatever to do with the Platform. that was a Marxist social democratic party. The Platform is a libertarian socialist document. It does not advocate a political party or a political organization running a state.

Die Neue Zeit

18th April 2010, 06:48

But the modus operandi of the Platform was similar: keeping to their political sect while organizing their own "mass" fronts.

Leo

18th April 2010, 16:16

I used to be a Kurdish nationalist, a left-wing one with a distinct disliking of the moderate ones. Although I was never involved with any Kurdish nationalist organization, I sort of grew within the general feeling.

After high school, I started thinking that nationalism wasn't going to be a solution to the problem of the oppression of Kurdish working people, started reading stuff and ended up an internationalist communist.

Madvillainy

18th April 2010, 16:20

Pretty much the same as Leo, if you just replace 'Kurdish nationalist' with 'Irish Nationalist'.

Leo

18th April 2010, 16:22

Platformism to me is the attempt to mistakenly emulate the SDKPiL sect (a modern variant being the ICC, and hello Rosa Luxemburg) but without calling the organization a party.
But the modus operandi of the Platform was similar: keeping to their political sect while organizing their own "mass" fronts. Ahhhh, for crying out loud Jacob, you are a bigger buzz kill than Buzz Killington (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6vgax_buzz-killington-a-tribute_shortfilms).

Die Neue Zeit

18th April 2010, 17:18

I apologize for veering the thread off-topic. :(

Android

19th April 2010, 17:35

Similar political development to Leo and Zvezda.

Got politicised around the age of 13 through the politics of left nationalism. For two and a half years was pretty much a supporter (without joining, although did come close at one point to) briefly of Sinn Fein and then the IRSP. During this time my politics don't really exist in any sort of framework, just a sentiment and rejection of the existing status quo. So then when I became disillusioned with left nationalism, my 'politics' was in flux. Don't have anywhere to go politically, initially for a while I thought the WSM offered a way forward. After a period then I concluded that I needed to work out my politics through reading and discussing with others, where possible. Instead of just unthinkingly reading and adopting a group's perspective and then becoming disullusioned with it and doing the same again, although it was more an emotion thing (the left nationalism) at first then anything really political.

During the process of consciously developing my politics, libcom.org was really beneficial in this regard, especially the vibrant and sharp discussions that were taking place there at the time. Apart from libcom, I generally just developed through reading publications and the online libraries on libcom and at the Marxists Internet Archive. And gradually from that point (I was 17, I think) my politics began to form, where now i would identify as a Internationalist Communist and I'm a member of AF.

Confession over. There you've my life story and I'm only 20.

Endomorphian

21st April 2010, 05:16

Confused alcoholic with mutualist tendencies is where I'm at.

At a 'young' age I became curious in politics as a standard American populist before spending a few years under the liberal banner. (Gore - 2000!) Flirted with the meme of mainstream libertarianism, Marxism, and anarchism - in that order. I think I've taken something positive away from each of them. I learned the art of humility somewhere down the road after recognizing I'll never have a monopoly on knowledge. Accepting that is a bit rough.

TRS

21st April 2010, 05:26

I took a pretty standard path through the left.

Left Liberal -> Socialist -> Godless Commie -> Anarchist Communist.

Basically, I'm a liberal who kept getting more libertarian :blushing:

Warboy99

22nd April 2010, 08:31

Stalinist->Anarchist->Anarcho-Communist->Marxist->Democratic Socialist->Marxist

I'm still learning about Communism/Socialism so I don't know what ideology I would follow in in 20 years.

__________________
My Political Compass
Economic Right/Left: -8.92
Social Libarterian/Authoritarian: -7.36

22nd April 2010, 11:00

Stalinist->Anarchist
:blink: That's quite a jump...

__________________
My Political Compass
Economic Right/Left: -8.92
Social Libarterian/Authoritarian: -7.36
You have a proper signature feature, btw.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/profile.php?do=editsignature

Warboy99

22nd April 2010, 13:12

:blink: That's quite a jump...

It was when I thought Stalinism was good.

22nd April 2010, 14:01

It was when I thought Stalinism was good.
That's a classic :laugh:

Rob Mackine

23rd April 2010, 02:38

used to be very gullible; went from liberalism to conservatism very easily. Over the past year, I've been reading quite a bit about politics, world affairs, etc. Quickly became a socialist, although pretty unsure about specifics, and began reading allot about different theories (anarchism (collectivism and communism), marxism (leninism, maoism, etc)). I've come to sympathize most fully with anarchism but I don't think that I would unequivocally describe myself as anarchist. I've also been oscillating back and forth between communism and more conservative forms of anarchism (similar to Parecon if you like). I'm very open to marxism and other ideologies but not convinced by them.

Jerolin

23rd April 2010, 22:44

Well, my ideology is most certainly different than it was even a year ago. I was a pretty run of the mill Democratic-Socialist who (pretty naively, I might add) thought it was possible to simply vote ourselves into a better society.

The more I've read since then (I've been influenced a lot by the Chomsky I've read, among others), the more I've become a pretty staunch believer in Libertarian-Socialism. I'm sure I would probably be a pretty typical Communist (since, in my opinion at least, real communism calls for the eventual dissolution of the 'state'), but I'm not fond of the views on family written in the Communist Manifesto...at all. I'm sure I'm probably in the minority here on that.

23rd April 2010, 23:20

I was once a Leninist (not the Stalinist kind) who strongly believed the vanguard should be involved in all aspects of daily life :laugh:
And that state ownership and representative democracy were the way to go :crying:

Devrim

24th April 2010, 15:10

I used to be a Kurdish nationalist, a left-wing one with a distinct disliking of the moderate ones. Although I was never involved with any Kurdish nationalist organization, I sort of grew within the general feeling.

I think that there is an important point here. Lots of people are saying that they used to be this or that, but were they really. Leo says he was never involved with a Kurdish nationalist organisation. When people say they used to be this or that, do they mean that they were political militants or just had sympathy with their ideas?

Devrim

Rainbow Stalin

25th April 2010, 00:18

Yeah, I used to be a social-liberal before I became a commie. bUT I've always had an interest in the far left wing politics though.

zubovskyblvd

26th April 2010, 18:50

To my eternal embarrassment I was a member of the Labour Party for 3 years, although always firmly on the left-wing and involved with stuff like the LRC. Funny thing was I wrote a dissertation on social democratic theory and the French Parti Socialiste which led me to realise that the centre-left would never cause the fundamental change in society that I was after. So, I re-discovered Marxism and hey presto

Palingenisis

26th April 2010, 18:59

Denver

4th May 2010, 04:21

I switched from Anarchist to Marxist-Leninist, then to Bolivarian Marxist-Leninist-Castroist

graymouser

6th May 2010, 12:54

Personally I was pretty conservative in high school, pretty much apolitical/moderate in college and after college became a socialist because the working world pretty much sucked. I spent a while in the Socialist Party USA and went from semi-anarchist to Marxist then became more and more Trotskyist. I spent some time in Socialist Action but that didn't work out long term. I've tried being more in line with the ISO, which also didn't work out, and later Solidarity, which was a struggle to actually be Trotskyist in a group that had gone quite centrist. I've checked out much of the Trot and post-Trot left but found much of it to be wanting.

There's been a lot of variation, I've had swings that were toward some more kind of "libertarian Marxism" but the ultraleftism turns me off. My political base line is in orthodox Trotskyism of the kind that doesn't have you screaming about Pabloite reformist traitors and all that jazz. I can move away from it but I generally find myself coming back.

Steve

6th May 2010, 14:55

National socialist to socialist.

Hey, I come from the North of England, can you blame me for being ignorant

Anti-Zionist

6th May 2010, 15:10

Nationalist to Marxist.

Comrade Akai

6th May 2010, 15:22

Lolz, here's my ideological timeline. Beware, it's a roller coaster.

1. Reactionary. Let's bring back the good old days!

2. Conservative. People need to be controlled, yo. But anarchism looks kinda cool...

2. Anarchist. Nevermind, authority cannot be trusted. I will not respect your authoritah.

3. Anarcho-communist. Woah, so that's what communism is....

4. Communist. I finally know what I'm talking about!

5. (present) Communist, Maoist with strong anarchist leanings. Let's all work together for this movement, though I'm going to be highly suspicious of any authoritarianism.

cska

14th May 2010, 16:40

I used to think that if the government provided for education, and healthcare, and used massive regulation to ensure competition and protect the environment, capitalism would work well.

Then I became a communist.

Android

14th May 2010, 18:26

I think that there is an important point here. Lots of people are saying that they used to be this or that, but were they really. Leo says he was never involved with a Kurdish nationalist organisation. When people say they used to be this or that, do they mean that they were political militants or just had sympathy with their ideas?

Just noticed this now, so my post is a bit late. My comments are really specific to my experience.

I don't think this division of either being a political militant or being a sympathiser with a particular political current works in my case anyway. In my previous post, I described going from left-nationalism to leftist anarchism to my current politics. When I first came into politics through left-nationalism, while I didn't join a political organisation, I did defend and argue for its political perspective, so slightly more than a sympathiser, I'd say. And when I then turned to leftist anarchism, I distributed the WSM's press, went on demonstration etc and was very close to joining them early on. So while not a political militant in the sense Devrim has defined it of membership of a group, I was engaged in regular political activity in support of a group without the formal technicality of being a member.

redwasp

14th May 2010, 20:32

peace,

i used to be very anti theist, i am a practicing devote muslim now. (still a bolshevik however, always in defence of marxism leninism)

peace,

redwasp

RedPaladin

18th May 2010, 11:40

I once believed the official idealology of CPC, but now I think I am a Trotskyist.

Ocean Seal

20th May 2010, 23:25

1. Liberal- Anti-Bush Democrats
2. Dvorak Socialist- socialized medicine and the such
3. Stalinist- dictatorship is the only way
4. Democratic Socialist
5. Non-Doctrinaire Communist I suppose I recognize the good of both democracy and dictatorship

HEAD ICE

25th June 2010, 04:03

I'd like to update my political leanings to that I have shifted from anarcho-syndicalist to that of a left communist. I came to this by realizing the proletarian character of the Bolshevik revolution and of the Bolshevik party, learning the nuances of what is meant by a state rather than my outright rejection (though this is a little muddled because I always figured that people meant seizing the existing state apparatus to wield it for the working class which I still wholly oppose, but I learnt that a "proletarian state" is an entirely different entity with different aims and a different structure), and my already existing predisposition to positions on national "liberation" and the like. I mentioned earlier how I characterized myself as a Marxist anarchist, and to clarify what I mean is that I held a general Marxist framework on things, meaning my class analysis, historical materialism, Marx's critique of capital, and so forth. So I wouldn't say I rejected anarchism but rather I filled in the blanks and erased some misconceptions.

JazzRemington

25th June 2010, 06:18

I've got you all beat:

1. "Generic" anarchist
2. Communist anarchist
3. Collectivist anarchist
4. Anarcho-syndicalist
5. Individualist anarchist/Egoist
6. Autonomist Marxist/Council communist

When I fully described myself as an anarchist, I was a post-leftist/Crimethinc'er. Basically, it was back and forth between social anarchism and individualist anarchism for a long while, then council communism/autonomist Marxist. In the least I was anti-State, anti-capitalist, pro-decentralized economic control, pro-working class.

Weezer

26th June 2010, 01:14

Lil' Conservative>Libertarian>Anarcho-Capitalist>Anarcho-Communist>Anarcho-Utopian Socialist>Trotskyist

blackwave

26th June 2010, 14:05

I am regularly shifting about on the left spectrum, because I am constantly critical.

CleverTitle

26th June 2010, 21:46

I gradually transitioned away from my family's idiotic racism, and I've been bouncing around the left since then. Still, it's rarely been a sudden or drastic enough change for me to suddenly change what I label my ideals. Very gradual shifts around the ideological spectrum.

28350

26th June 2010, 22:02

I was the Walrus,
but now I'm John.

leftace53

26th June 2010, 22:11

Social Democrat -> Anarco Commie

Fietsketting

27th June 2010, 19:26

Non political hooligan to Anarchist to Anarcho-Syndicalist :lol:

4 Leaf Clover

28th June 2010, 19:23

i was following anarchism as a youngster , but after , i started actually reading and thinking :)

People's War

1st July 2010, 21:42

1. Neoconservatism. I know, I know. Gross gross gross.

2. Started to advocate some socialism economically, so a sort of populist.

3. Swung into libertarianism, starting out as minarchism and then anarcho-capitalism.

4. Switched to a sort of anarchism without adjectives.

5. Dropped anarchism and became first a social liberal then a democratic socialist

6. Marxism-Leninism :)

Comrade Gwydion

1st July 2010, 21:47

I was the Walrus,
but now I'm John.

This one deserves a requote on top of the thanks I allready gave it.

Adil3tr

3rd July 2010, 01:57

I changed from Democrat to Liberal to Progressive to Socialist to Marxist to Bolshevik.

Sendo

3rd July 2010, 04:42

I changed from Democrat to Liberal to Progressive to Socialist to Marxist to Bolshevik.

Elaborate, please. What is a "Bolshevik" to you? A "Marxism-Leninist" or a "Trotskyist"? Just an FYI, if you are Trotskyist, know that Trotskyists have given up claiming "Bolshevik-Leninism" to compete with the pro-Stalin or Pro-Mao or pro-Hoxha Marxism-Leninism. And if you support the Soviet Union after Trotsky left, you are likely an Marxist-Leninist, since most Trotskyists have abandoned Trotsky's view of degenerated workers' state and replaced it with Cliffite definitions of "state capitalism."

Or you mean that you are a Russian from the late 1910s who found a time warp.

Adil3tr

3rd July 2010, 05:30

Elaborate, please. What is a "Bolshevik" to you? A "Marxism-Leninist" or a "Trotskyist"? Just an FYI, if you are Trotskyist, know that Trotskyists have given up claiming "Bolshevik-Leninism" to compete with the pro-Stalin or Pro-Mao or pro-Hoxha Marxism-Leninism. And if you support the Soviet Union after Trotsky left, you are likely an Marxist-Leninist, since most Trotskyists have abandoned Trotsky's view of degenerated workers' state and replaced it with Cliffite definitions of "state capitalism."

Or you mean that you are a Russian from the late 1910s who found a time warp.

It is, for me, some-one who understands and believes in the ideals of the Russian revolution. I also happen to believe in the theory of state capitalism.

Adil3tr

3rd July 2010, 05:30

[QUOTE=Sendo;1791518
Or you mean that you are a Russian from the late 1910s who found a time warp.[/QUOTE]

I do wish that were true.

red-son

3rd July 2010, 20:45

I used to be a more conservative Anarchist, then a moderate Marxist, and now I'm a very radical Socialist.

DaComm

6th July 2010, 08:48

Conservative(:laugh:)--->Democrat--->Left Communist--->Leninist

6th July 2010, 09:16

Just an FYI, if you are Trotskyist, know that Trotskyists have given up claiming "Bolshevik-Leninism" to compete with the pro-Stalin or Pro-Mao or pro-Hoxha Marxism-Leninism.
Really? I know plenty of "Bolsheviki-Leninists" that regard themselves as such, there is no difference in content with the word "Trotskyist" though.

And if you support the Soviet Union after Trotsky left, you are likely an Marxist-Leninist, since most Trotskyists have abandoned Trotsky's view of degenerated workers' state and replaced it with Cliffite definitions of "state capitalism."
Since when to the Cliffites constitute the majority of the Trotskyists? Besides, the SWP (UK) for example doesn't regard itself as Trotskyist, merely "influenced by Trotsky", among others.

Or you mean that you are a Russian from the late 1910s who found a time warp.
That would probably be the only case in which the word "Bolshevik" (= "Erfurtian" in Russian conditions) would be justified.

Jazzhands

6th July 2010, 14:54

I've been at this for a while from before Revleft. I've gone from American-liberal to liberal for the rest of the world, to Trotskyism, to left-communism (briefly) to Luxemburgism, to DeLeonism, to anarchism. there's definitely a trend here. :thumbup1:

Button

7th July 2010, 08:32

My ideology has done a 180 from when I was a young teenager.

I was an unabashed fascist; held great reverence for Hitler and especially Mussolini. I joined and organized for a host of racist organizations in Canada, including Heritage Front, and yes, I knew Wolfgang Droege. I especially took out my rage on homosexuals, doing my very best to torment and hurt them at school. The first time I made out with a girl, she was a girl that I met at a HF event and bore an eerie resemblance to Faruiza Balk's character in American History X. Much of my homophobia stemmed from my inability to deal with my mother's physical abuse and my father's sexual abuse.

For whatever reason, I had a pretty cool English teacher in grade 11 who gave me a lot of Allen Ginsberg to read. It was also right about that time that my godfather (he was an unreconstructed Italian fascist, as were my parents) gave me a copy of The International Jew to read. I really wanted to get behind the former rather than the latter, and found myself using the flimisiest of arguments to justify genocide and reactionary bulls#it. A short time later I found myself watching (ironically enough) American History X. I went alone on a random afternoon before my work shift since the movie theatre was down the street and I didn't want to be at home anyway. I can remember Avery Brooks' character asking Ed Norton if anything he'd done had made his life any better? And I just started crying. Uncontrollably. I started university shortly thereafter and switched majors after my first term. Somehow, I didn't think I could stomach an Economics degree anymore and switched to English and Drama, delving myself into Marxist readings of every text I came came across, using Foucault and Brecht as the nexus of my argumentation. Years later, I completed my graduate degree in Public Administration to pursue my interest in urban planning, specifically transit planning, while along the way becoming a student of Soviet Administration and media theory.

My economics may or may not as far to the left as my PC score in my sig suggests since I tend to consider myself more a Technocrat that a Communist, though I do subscribe to the general principles. My current favourite activity these days is to mess with Tea Partiers online who scream "creeping socialism" by pointing out to them how many of Marx's conditions for progressing towards a communist society have already been realized and co-opted by market capitalism.

So yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

blackwave

9th July 2010, 11:57

Thirsty Crow

9th July 2010, 14:21

That is quite some journey! Where next?
Indeed.
No offense to anyone, but some these "shift stories" are quite amazing in that it seems that ideological and political convictions have been and are used as towels - when one gets dirty, shove it into the washing machine and use another.

When it comes to me, I've never had such a stunning shift.
I used to label my convictions as a crossover between liberalism and social democracy. However, I was always pretty much hostile towards the business sphere, and that was the starting point for my radicalization.

Now, I consider myself Marxist as much as anarchist. In other words, both "camps" offer precious insights and esentially correct stances.
Maybe the term "libbertarian socialist/Marxist" would suffice. However, I would be and I am quite ready to cooperate and advocate some sort of compromise with Leninists and Trotskyists. All in all, I do believe that some degree of unity and balance between various tendencies is desperately needed given the circumstancs.

But Stalinists are something different.

Button

10th July 2010, 09:38

Thirsty Crow

11th July 2010, 14:32

Menocchio, what you see as troublesome, I see as a strength. Ideas and positions, especially your own, need to be constantly questioned if they're to be worth anything.

Show me somebody who hasn't budged significantly in their life and I'll show you a dull person...in more ways than one.
Let me elaborate a bit on that.

I don't consider these shifts troublesome. I just don't comprehend completely how these extreme shifts occur. My path was different, in that my former convictions have been given a more radical form. In other words, my conviction that the existing mode of production (and the social relations it engenders) should be replaced is in fact an extension of my "former" convictions.
Have I budged significantly, I don't know really. But a lot has changed, I would say so.

King of Frogs

16th July 2010, 17:43

Started out as a kind of poor leftwing/Liberal anglican kid (oh god, I was so enthusiastic about Church when I was young). Met a very good, and precocius friend at school who made me question my liking for religion and introduced me to socialism, which seemed to fit me quite well. My mother brought me up and she had been a Christian socialist in her youth and passed some of the principles on to me, even though her politics have really gone quite centrist in recent years.

At the age where I started to identify as a socialist however (about 10 I think), I had no idea of all the different factions within the field, and a vague idea that something had gone horribly wrong in the Soviet Union and China. As I got into my teens, the religion dropped away like a heavy load and I began to feel more at ease with my beliefs. My socialism has always stayed in the realms of a quite libertarian attitude, so I was a sort of social democrat some of the time, but mixed in with some old fashioned Marxism.

Realised the contradiction between the two about the age of 15 and decided revolutionary violence was perhaps sometimes necessary (although I still find myself uncomfortable with the concept) and became a sort of Marxist-Leninist, though I wouldn't have known what you had meant if you had said it to me.

However, due to an extremely good History course at my school on the Russian revolution I quickly lost my faith in figures like Lenin and Trotsky, finding myself confused at the distinction between the politics they preached and the way the revolution panned out. I considered myself possibly-a-Trotstyist for all of two weeks - these being the two weeks between us learning about Trotsky's influence in the 1905 revolution and us learning about Kronstadt. The course also convinced me against any group operating under "democratic centralism".

It was learning about the Kronstadt uprising which really led me to the kind of politics which I found myself most at home with and ever since then (about 4 years) have found myself coming back to anarchist analyses for things, but often put off anarchism proper because 1) I still, despite myself, often think genuine positive change can occasionally come about through government and 2) because of the actions of people like the black blocs, who, it seems to me, don't really get anything remotely constructive done. So these days I don't call myself a Marxist or an anarchist, I just call myself a libertarian socialist, nice and generic.

HammerAlias

19th July 2010, 03:28

Yes, I have. Two or three years ago, I was a devout Christian conservative and supporter of the Republican Party. My ideological views were extremely right-wing, basically fascist. Now, I am an outspoken Atheist and Revolutionary Marxist as well as a theorist on the proletariat revolution (Though none of my articles have yet to be published or widely acknowledged.). :lol:

MrCharizma

20th July 2010, 15:32

Months ago I had an epiphany, which made me question things, I then found myself questioning things every day, and began reading and asking questions to a fellow close Comrade. I then read into socialism, then communism and began to think for me, that anarcho-communism is no doubt my school of thought.

As well as many past events such as an incredible history lesson from one of my elder (wiser) cousins who told me about my parents significance - Asian Dad who grew up in a neo-Nazi private school in Australia, as well as my Mother the full Irish blooded leftist who fled Belfast to come here. [How they were rebellious and pushed on through yada yada]

This then brings me to becoming a member of RevLeft and having this constant need to understand and learn about global issues and situations. Only slightly have my views changed over the past months only because I was undecided for a little while between socialism / communism etc. So I just really call me and my comrade anarcho-communists.

Bad Grrrl Agro

20th July 2010, 21:06

Of course I've changed. I'm not some static character who is stuck in the rigidity of stunting the evolution of growth as a human being.

You live and you learn. I was once an authoritarian Communist. But I grew up some and realized that the authoritarian thing isn't my cup of tea. I slowly evolved into an Anarchist.

21st July 2010, 07:52

Sturzo

21st July 2010, 16:14

I grew up in a family with two far-left social democratic parents, two Communist grand-parents. My parents though never tried to steer me in any direction when I grew up, and were very open and accepting of what I became. I remember asking my Dad the first time "What's Communism?," he gave me a very neutral answer saying "it is a society where everyone shares property in common so no-one becomes really rich or really poor." Since then I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

I read a lot of Marx and Lenin in high school, kind of ping-ponging from one tendency of Marxism-Leninism to Left Communism, etc. I went to a high school in a privileged area, so none of the other kids cared about anything else except mundane things such as popularity, cars, and buying the newest iPod etc.

After high school I really started drifting from Marxism, and have been in a bit of confusion of what I was. But, recently seeing the financial crisis it's really pulled me back into being a radical socialist - the most I would say as a Democratic Socialist, but I wouldn't put any labels on it. I got so sick at how liberals were so blind to the structural problem of capitalism, choosing only to get upset over the most odious symptoms of the capitalist system. Of course, they show their true colors when supporting the Iraq War in the face of an uncountable number of innocents murdered by occupation troops.

So High school Marxist -> Confused & Lost -> Social Democrat -> non-doctrinaire radical socialist.

Saramago

21st July 2010, 19:00

I always have support the communist party, and my ideologue was since very young to fight for universal heath care, universal education and eliminate every types of discrimination. And of course Freedom for the people!

1

4kmrx

21st July 2010, 19:57

Original truth can be only found from original source. To me PSR line right on, for they did the all "heavy lifting" in Russian revolution. Lenin & Co. just walzed in when the dust settled. IMO bolsheviks killed revolution and Stalin then killed bolshevik so in my book anything coming after Stalin can not be described to be even communist state but party led dictatorship with more people guarding its own citizens than its borders against invaders, so where is freedom in "workers paradice" ? Also I am great admirer for rebublican socialism especially Irsp's and Seamus Costello

22nd July 2010, 07:52

Original truth can be only found from original source. To me PSR line right on
What's a PSR?

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

22nd July 2010, 21:41

I was always a communist, always loved the idea.

I just had a few years where I didn't want to embarrass myself in public and be seen as unreasonable or some idealistic 13 year old

Revolte_Wolf

24th July 2010, 11:51

Well, I used to be fairly conservative (in belief), guess it had something to do with growing up with two very right winged parents and a very right winged, well, everyone else. However, I never really did what was asked of me and always did the opposite, it just felt more right then doing something because I was told to and not because I wanted it. Then when I was about 15 or sixteen, fifteen is probably when it all started, infact yes I was 15. I dont remember exactly what made me wonder what anarchism was, it may have very well come from googling Sex Pistol lyrics (This was before Anarchy In The UK was overplayed to me). Regardless of WHY I looked it up, I did, and it all seemed so right. So I went through different forms of anarchism finding pieces I could agree with in nearly all of them (before I found out about anarcho-capitalism and tribal-"anarchism") so eventually I just decided to consider myself an anarchist, in general. That's what I've been rolling with for the last three years or so. I tried being nothing once, dropping all drives. That lasted about a month.

Kuppo Shakur

25th July 2010, 03:19

There definitely seems to be a large amount of people that have turned communist after:
1.Losing faith in the current political system.
2.Turning to alternative political systems, but staying within capitalism.
3.Realizing that all capitalism is baloney.
4.???
5.Profit!-er-Communism!
As for the ???, I guess that's where it differs from person to person. Some people see how stupid Libertarianism or whatever is, and then turn to the left, while others realize that communism isn't all that bad, before deciding that capitalism makes no sense.

Optiow

25th July 2010, 03:20

Well my politics have not changed much at all. I have always been for equality and no rich people and all that, and I have just built my beliefs around that until it came out communist. I have not placed myself into a specific communist 'subgroup' yet, mainly because I don't want to solidify my leftist beliefs into stone before I study it longer.

Although I did have a small phase a few years ago when I was pro-monarchy. But I slapped myself out of that pretty quick.

howblackisyourflag

25th July 2010, 19:48

Started off with milton friedman when i was 19, eventually got to Noam Chomsky when I was 22, havent drifted too far since.

Nikolay

3rd August 2010, 23:02

I started out as a Liberal (I believe I was 13 when I labeled myself as such), started reading more about it than saw all the flaws in it, so I dropped that ideology. And then I did the worst.. read into Conservatism and liked it a bit until I read more, and it just disgusted me.

For the past 1-2 months I've been *trying* to read and understand Marxism, to no success, so I gave that up. If I could find books that are easy and use modern language, I may resort back to Marxism. Believe me, the things I actually understood I really liked.

But as of now, Anarchist Communism seems the most appealing to me. And I find reading about it is a lot easier.

MagÃ³n

4th August 2010, 01:23

I used to think that my ideas leaned more towards Trotskyism actually. Then I went from there to Communism, and then I found myself in what seems to really suit me since it's history and creation really seem to make me grow towards it: Anarcho-Socialism/Syndicalism.

The Vegan Marxist

4th August 2010, 09:44

Yes, I used to be an anarcho-capitalist that had favorings in libertarianism within the conspiracy theorist movement. But then, I started growing a bit disillusioned of capitalism & started embracing a line of anarchism where it wasn't necessarily individualist nor communist, but somewhere in between (though at the time I didn't realize how close I was to communist thought & was still fixated on being anti-communist). From there, a little while before I left the conspiracy theorist movement, I started embracing Socialism in a trotskyist sense. It was socialism that made me disillusioned with the conspiracy theorist movement, so I left.

From there, I started reading up more on Communism & how it relates to anarchism, & I eventually started embracing anarcho-communism. Started reading up a lot on Bakunin & Kropotkin. I was that for about a year, if not less, & then eventually I found myself here on RevLeft, & after a few months of non-stop discussions, I grew my beliefs past anarchism & advanced my beliefs towards Marxist-Leninist. I thought I could bring both Marxist-Leninism & anarcho-communism together, but I found myself wrong. And, this past few months now, I eventually embraced Maoism after doing extensive studies on Mao's work.

So it's been a long road for me & I've never been happier. :)

Communist

4th August 2010, 18:00

Konstantine

4th August 2010, 18:31

At first, I was capitalist. Then Leninist, and now, after much studying, Trotskyist with Luxemburgist ideas.

deLarge

4th August 2010, 19:50

I came full circle

0. Socialist (My family is poor and this sucks)
1. Objectivist (A=A IT IS SO OBVIOUS BOOTSTRAPS RA RA RA)
2. Libertarian (Fuck yeah Locke)
3. Anarcho-Capitalist (I guess labour unions are OK as long as they're non-coercive)
4. Syndicalist (Labour unions should rule everything, now that I think about it)
5. Socialist (I can't believe I bought into deontological/a priori-ethical-system-based-politics for so long)

HammerAlias

6th August 2010, 14:29

That is quite a change! What triggered it?

After reading several, several articles that exposed the corrupt, inadequate two party system, I decided to become an independent. But as an independent, I felt uncertain of my true political affiliation. I wanted an identity. So after studying and reading books, articles, newspapers and almost every other news source available, I came to the conclusion that I am a Marxist. Though, at first, I was apprehensive to become one. I was afraid of the ridicule, the alienation from society. I didn't even know what Marxist exactly was. So later that month I decided to purchase and borrow Marxist literature. It facinated me, it enlightened me but more importingly, I had found my identity. Through those pages, I saw a theory that could revolutionize the world. It could topple governments, empires and any oppressive, corrupt system that exists within the global political sphere. But my story doesn't stop there. Unfortunately, I live in a state that does not tolerate anyone who does not follow their beliefs, both politically and religiously. I try to defend the glorious ideology that is socialism/Marxism/communism. But these people do not understand it, what's even worse, they do not want to understand it. So, here I am today. I'm still trying to enlighten those, to educate them. My outspoken and often abbrasive atheistic voice found it's grassroots within the institution, the church. As I listened, read and saw more, my faith became weaker and weaker. I began seeing the inconsistencies, the illogicalities and the absurdities of religion. It was a way of oppression, tyranny and control over the mindless and accepting masses. I became infuriated and enraged by it's incompetence and deceitful nature. That is when I became outspoken. And yet again, my lectures do not chip the ice. People are so mindlessly obstinate and steadfast with their convictions. They are dogmatic, divisive and dangerous. But I will continue trying to help the people. It's just what I do.:)

fa2991

7th August 2010, 05:37

Has anyone ever jumped around from one ideology to another? For example, leninism or maoism to syndicalism, or vice versa?

Propertarian --> Mutualist --> Anarcho-communist

MellowViper

28th October 2010, 04:59

I was a Right-Libertarian, mainly because I wasn't exposed to any other ideas and the fact that it gets a lot of media coverage relative to socialism. When I read some Noam Chomsky and learned about labor history, I shifted to a Left-Libertarian position. I was really into right-libertarianism over the social positions individual liberty and not so much free market politics. I did pay some lip service to it though. I think that personal liberty is important but needs to be counter balanced with a social conscious or else you can end up with something very ego-centric and pathological.

Ravachol

28th October 2010, 13:33

I find it amazing how much influence Right-Libertarianism/Anarcho-Capitalism seems to have with American kids these days....

Here in the Netherlands, the only people espousing it are a bunch of crooked lawyers, real estate brokers and some grumpy old farts who run a blog shouting about how the European Union is really a communist dictatorship...

Sosa

29th October 2010, 05:45

I grew up with my parents voting for the Democratic Party (They emigrated from Dominican Republic before I was born), so growing up I sympathized with the Democrats. Then around the time I was 19-20 I joined the Libertarian party, only because of their position on eradicating victimless crimes (like drugs, prostitution, etc). That was short -lived. After that I believed that Capitalism was bad but could be regulated, so I was a Social Democrat....then shortly afterwards realized Capitalism cannot be regulated and became a Democratic Socialist until this summer. I became more of a Socialist after reading Marx's Communist Manifesto. I recently began to be influenced by Libertarian Socialist philosophy, especially after reading some Chomsky. I'm opening my eyes to Anarchist literature. I don't particularly like labels but I guess I'm mostly influenced by the Anarcho-Syndicalist view.

Apoi_Viitor

29th October 2010, 07:08

1. Democratic Socialist
2. Social Conservative / Fascist
3. Right-Wing Libertarian
4. 'Libertarian Socialist'
5. Anarchist/Marxist/Communist Whatever.

L.A.P.

29th October 2010, 21:03

I was always a left-leaning person because of the factors of my life I guess.

Years as a Modern Liberal: raised in an upper middle class family who are also Liberals, at age 7 I asked questions about the fact that both of my parents' religions contradict each other (my mom is Hindu and my dad is Roman Catholic but they both aren't practicing) and one day after I read a children's story about Noah's Ark I called bullshit and became an atheist. Always had a strong anti-racist stance from that age all the way to age 13 (still am an anti-racist of course but in those years that was the only politics I was concerned about). Always admired Malcom X and the Black Panther Party since age 10 and thought that the reason why the poor were poor especially African-Americans was because of exploitation of the rich European-Americans. At age 13 I grew a hatred towards big corporate companies and consumerism so I refused to buy into brands that I thought epitomized this (I still won't walk into an Abercrombie store to this day).
Year as a Wannabe Centrist: At age 14 I thought it would make me look cooler and smarter to be in the middle of both conservatism and liberalism and I became actually quite conservative compared to my family and I usually thought of my mom as completely left (now I consider her quite to the right). However, in reality I was still left-leaning.
Month of trying find myself politically: At age 15 I started to read more about different political ideas and realized that the idea of communism and socialism is a lot different than what I was told. During that same time I also realized that I was just too far different to really identify with either the conservatives or liberals, although I identified with the liberals more I just thought that the ideas were really mediocre and realized that they didn't want radical change like I did, so I switched a lot between different types of anarchism and libertarianism. Eventually I settled on anarchism (but with the more libertarian forms in mind) until
Seeing the light: I watched Capitalism: A Love Story not even a year ago and finally realized what my views were since I already had a more accurate understanding of communism and socialism so I proclaimed myself a marxist!

PilesOfDeadNazis

30th October 2010, 00:35

1. Die-hard Republican.
2. Right-Libertarian/Conspiracist.
3. Libertarian Socialist.
4. A time of confusion among far Leftist ideologies(influenced by many contradictory ideas and couldn't put my fingers quite on where I stood on different issues).
5. Marxist-Leninist.

But this isn't to say that I think I'm done learning. Still got shit to figure out.:p

Chris

1st November 2010, 22:47

Well, I'm fairly young so I haven't had time to shift much ideologically (and I doubt I will, for that matter). Grew up in a pretty left-winged family, with my mother being a socialdemocrat and my father being a socialist (radically when it comes to unions, and open to pretty much any kind of leftwinged revolution).
Didn't really care about politics until about at the age of 15-16. Before that the only political side I really took was that I supported the trade unions. Decided to check everything out (from fascism to marxism to anarchism), at least the norwegian alternatives.
My "ideological journey" could be summed up as:

1. Socialdemocrat/trade unionist (before I decided to take a real stand)
2. Radical socialist (nonsupportive of any party/organisation besides the trade union)
3. Marxist-Leninist

Sentinel

2nd November 2010, 00:14

I don't feel particularly happy when some troll on here suddenly decides that he's a "marxist-leninist"

Oh fuck, you're not making this easier for me. :lol:

***

As a kid, I identified with the same positions my anti-revisionist m-l mother had back then, to the degree I could understand them of course. Then followed my apolitical teen years.

When I then became a leftist again in my early twenties, it was on the anarchist 'side', and I've identified myself as an anarcho-syndicalist for a few years now; I'm also a member of the syndicalist union SAC. Recently I've been gradually moving back towards the marxist view on things though, while I still see grassroots decision making, personal integrity issues wtc as important I am no longer as critical as I used to be towards the idea on a socialist transition state.

I'm currently considering changing organisations, or at least joining an additional one for non-union purposes. It will likely be a trotskyist one, perhaps the swedish section of the CWI. Sorry to all of my anarchists comrades on revleft, if you feel I've let you down, but well yeah this is how it is: I'm becoming a marxist.

I will need to do a deal of studying and discussing before I'll apply a more specific label on myself though.

A good thing with the Jazzratt quote I have in my sig is that it can be funny from any perspective, hehe (seriously speaking, I actually still don't think that what happened in Kronstadt was very nice, not that it's very relevant today's situation). :D

Wanted Man

3rd November 2010, 00:14

Oh fuck, you're not making this easier for me. :lol:

***

As a kid, I identified with the same positions my anti-revisionist m-l mother had back then, to the degree I could understand them of course. Then followed my apolitical teen years.

When I then became a leftist again in my early twenties, it was on the anarchist 'side', and I've identified myself as an anarcho-syndicalist for a few years now; I'm also a member of the syndicalist union SAC. Recently I've been gradually moving back towards the marxist view on things though, while I still see grassroots decision making, personal integrity issues wtc as important I am no longer as critical as I used to be towards the idea on a socialist transition state.

I'm currently considering changing organisations, or at least joining an additional one for non-union purposes. It will likely be a trotskyist one, perhaps the swedish section of the CWI. Sorry to all of my anarchists comrades on revleft, if you feel I've let you down, but well yeah this is how it is: I'm becoming a marxist.

I will need to do a deal of studying and discussing before I'll apply a more specific label on myself though.

A good thing with the Jazzratt quote I have in my sig is that it can be funny from any perspective, hehe (seriously speaking, I actually still don't think that what happened in Kronstadt was very nice, not that it's very relevant today's situation). :D

We'll make a Stalinist out of you yet. It's in your roots.

Sentinel

3rd November 2010, 00:21

We'll make a Stalinist out of you yet. It's in your roots.

I doubt it, hehe. If it's any consolation I do think that you guys have the best music though, such as the World Youth Anthem.

NoOneIsIllegal

3rd November 2010, 00:34

When I then became a leftist again in my early twenties, it was on the anarchist 'side', and I've identified myself as an anarcho-syndicalist for a few years now; I'm also a member of the syndicalist union SAC. Recently I've been gradually moving back towards the marxist view on things though, while I still see grassroots decision making, personal integrity issues wtc as important I am no longer as critical as I used to be towards the idea on a socialist transition state.
Gaaaahhhhhh. My heart!
Well, I use to be the opposite. I was always a vague socialist, although I was always weary about the state and it's handling of socialism. But I knew I believed in socialism, the taking of the workplace and putting it in the hands in the people. I finally realized anarcho-syndicalism solves all the problems I had. I guess I just view it as the most practical answer to capitalism. Why be in a party when the radical unions are the ones in the battlefields? The problems we face are in the workplace, so we must have a vanguard in the workplace, that is highly democratic and egalitarian. I guess this is why I favor syndicalism. Sorry for my rant.

I was never a crazy stalinist, or a Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, Insurrectionist, or anything like that, I suppose.
When I first entered "true" politics (actually getting aware of the world), I was a social democrat who spoke revolutionary. I started to shift leftwards, towards a vague democratic socialist who held hesistation about the state (what will happen with the revolution? will it be like before?) and sympathy towards unions. After a long period of researching and educating myself more on ideologies and the current world, I came to the conclusion syndicalism is the answer.

Sentinel

3rd November 2010, 00:59

I still think anarcho-syndicalism is a great theory, it's the practical side of things that has gotten me disillusioned. Unfortunately I've learned that for a majority of people starting a fight at work is simply too great a risk to take, unless of course they've been directly provoked by the employer side, or their jobs already are at stake for some reason.

Thusly while I still see union struggle as very important I just can't see it as the core element of the struggle anymore, at least not here and at this junction. This, in combination with the fact that I feel too old for the syndicalist youth federation which does other kinds of activities was what got me to reconsider my positions.
It should be added, that I've always felt sort of in-between on the issue of the state, perhaps due to my background; while I did pick the anarchist 'side' I've never been one of those 'hardcore' anarchists who actually hate marxists. In retrospect I think that I might have 'landed' a little too far to the left to begin with, when I decided where to stand when I picked up an interest in politics again.

NoOneIsIllegal

3rd November 2010, 01:34

I've never been one of those 'hardcore' anarchists who actually hate marxists.
Nothing wrong with that. As an anarcho-syndicalist, while I do think the state is repressive, I didn't become an anarchist because of my hatred of the state. I became an anarchist because I think it's the only rationale way towards socialism. :)
But I totally understand where you're coming from. While I support organizing, I think we need to organize certain industries and workplaces first. I wouldn't ever unionize my workplace until similar industries has unions in place and/or the surrounding area was more friendly towards unions. I think once syndicalism starts to get a foothold in more places, then workers can start to freely speak publicly about it more, rather then in fear. I've been trying to salt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_%28union_organizing%29), very slowly but surely.

A Proletarian Manifesto

7th November 2010, 04:56

I've never really classified as a capitalist.
Although I really wanted to be a die-hard mercenary from the ages of 11 to about 15. (Still wouldn't mind, but it's most likely never gonna happen.)
Then I got into more of a street punky "Anarchy is chaos" theory.
Then at about 17 I started getting into all different subs of real anarchism.
Now I really identify with the workers self-management party,
so i guess you could sort of classify me as an anarcho-syndicalist.

WeAreReborn

7th November 2010, 05:02

When I was a kid probably 8-10 I was for Capitalism. I thought the idea of being rich was awesome, mostly because I didn't realize the extent of poverty as I was lower-middle class. Then I started becoming Libertarian due to the anti-Authority and anti-raping other countries ties. Slowly I started becoming more and more left and now I am Anarcho-Communist. I'm just glad I didn't go in the other direction.

black magick hustla

7th November 2010, 06:55

i dont like the whole discussion of whether someone was a stalinist/trotskyist/ultra left super star when considering ones teenage years. i mean, i obviously consider my self a left communist, but that has a lot to do with the particular historical and current specificities of it not so much on really small theoretical nuances (i.e. was the bolshevik revolution proletarian or whatever). since i was a teen i always had a visceral hatred for nationalism, parochialism, and the senseless exploitation and murder of people. i was not born from a terribly traditional wedlock and never had a big family (all my "family" is spread across the globe, we are all expats). so this idea that i have a loyalty to a nation or identity was alien to me. when i was a kid i was religious because i would see my grandfather kneeling and praying and i thought that was kindofbeautiful and i felt really alienated from other kids so it was always good to talk to myself in the head. so i told my parents i wanted to go to church and go to sunday school. but then in sunday school because i was very gentle and overtly sweet kids abused of that and i got bullied so i never liked god after that.

when i was in highschool i was still a very angry kid. i got bullied a lot in junior high because i was very shy and gentle but at the same time i was really big so i think kids liked to test themselves against me. i got into a lot of trouble with the school because i physically got into many fights. i remember coming home with a black eye and then being asked where is that from and i would lie and say i fell. i grew much more agressive and mean. i withdrew myself into books and i found about bakunin and then i felt like he understood what i felt about the world and then i started reading more. i read in my teen years bakunin, rudolf rocker, malatesta, marx, nietzche, kant, the history about the commune, about the class, the history of where my parents came from, etcetera because i felt those people understood what i felt and a lot of other people did not. my dad would tell me stories about the algerian guerrillas and ben bella and boumedien and the cafe wars and i just absorved everything.

then i read when i was 16 about the situationist internationale and the dadaists, and vaneigem and debord and i didnt get much about them but i did get that vibe of a visceral hatred for civilization and everything that makes human beings sad and miserable. they didnt give a fuck about the logic of the world they wanted to remake it and i also wanted the world to be remade on more fair terms for everybody.

then i grew and i met some people with my ideas and dreams and aspirations and realized they exist. and then i matured and i realized most people have similar dreams but they do not express them in the theoretical framework i acquired.

aaaaa that was a long post i guess it was therapeutic?

Amphictyonis

7th November 2010, 06:57

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Marxism

I'm an orthodox Marxist With sympathy for anarchists. I didn't always think anarchists had valid points so I guess my views surrounding anarchism have changed.

Victus Mortuum

7th November 2010, 06:59

1) Christian Traditionalist - Feudal Theocracy
2) Christian Libertarian - Government protects life, "liberty", and "property"
3) Uninformed "Communist" - Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, etc!
4) Uninformed "Anarchist" - Man, fuck the po-lice!
5) Orthodox Marxist - Marx as scripture
6) Tendency-less Socialist/Communist
7) Social Proletocrat

BeerShaman

7th November 2010, 09:17

Well, in the start I just they made me think I was an ML! :lol:
Then, I started searching more about the matter:lol:!
And I found out I surely were a communist. And then, like what Ovi said, I realised that I always was anti-authoritarian and that anarchism came naturally.
However, now it's like all factors are united together in order to make me an atomist petit-bourgeois and de-radicalise me! But SCREW THEM ALL!

BeerShaman

7th November 2010, 09:19

PassTheBeer

2nd December 2010, 19:57

Is there a thread where I can see what all of those ideologies are about ? I'n other words to see the differences.

Communist

2nd December 2010, 21:15

Is there a thread where I can see what all of those ideologies are about ? I'n other words to see the differences.
The various tendency groups on RevLeft are listed here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=grouplist&cat=3).

Zanthorus

3rd December 2010, 01:29

Interesting, the last time I posted in this thread I was an anarchist bordering on Council Communism. Funny how these things happen. To be honest right now I really have no idea where I stand. I know some things. I know like Marx a lot, and I really don't like Orthodox Marxism. What actually really made me interested in Marx was realising that Marx did not necessarily concord with how he was presented in OM. I don't really understand what attracts people to scientistic versions of Marxism over humanist ones. If I was starting this all over again I'd be much more convinced by Communism if someone told me that in commodity producing society all human activity becomes alienated and subordinated to the logic of capital, which destroys the initial naive unity of the primitive human community and leaves no other bonds between man than the cash nexus, and that capital can only be destroyed through a totalising social revolution which restores the human community on a higher level, than if they told me that Communism was the outcome of some inevitable historical progression propelled by laws akin to those found in the natural sciences. I like Bordiga because he also believed that communism was not merely capitalism with improved productivity or whatever, merely a 'super-capitalism', but a complete break with commodity society.

In terms of political tactics I can appreciate all the adherents of what might be termed the 'Marxist Centre', centre meaning in between anarchism/pseudo-anarchist Marxism and reformism, by emphasising the need for an independent party which does not merely utter platitudes about working-class independence and follow it up with reformist practice which lags behind the spontaneous movement, but which offers tactics and a platform which divide it qualitatively from and oppose it to all bourgeois parties, and for destruction of the existing state-system and the creation of a working-class political administration. In this current we can include among others Marx and Engels themselves, Kautsky Bebel and the 'Centre' current of the SI, Lenin and the Bolsheviks and the Italian Communist Left.

Jalapeno Enema

3rd December 2010, 03:29

Anarchist then Trot then nothing.

I'm still in limbo; perhaps someday I'll find something that fits. That's a big reason I'm here.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

3rd December 2010, 03:42

I used to believe in anarchy, now I believe in rule by the punx,
A rotating dictatorship of whomever is most drunk.
Th[ere]'ll* be LSD in the water, and we'll all bathe in beer,
Well the antinational anthem, rings in our ears:
(It goes) Up the punx, off the pigs,
Kill yr parents, fuck everything.
Up the punx, off the pigs,
Kill yr parents, fuck everything.

No, seriously though, I used to be some sort of weird workerist anarcho-syndicalist / libertarian-ish Marxist. Now I reject all ideology, and just run around willy-nilly living communism and spreading anarchy. Like some sort of magical-fairy-becoming-whatever-subjectivity.

psgchisolm

24th December 2010, 02:29

1. No self-defined ideology. So given where I grew up, everything conservative was true. You're a kid. The news doesn't lie. Insert other random nonsense.

2. Social Democrat. I want changes, but I don't want to be labeled a radical. And I work hard. Why should those lazy people get the same as me?

3. Democratic Socialist. Socialism is great, but we shouldn't use violence. Violence is bad, alright. Not cool guys. MLK!

4. Socialist. Revolution is cool, but equality. No way. Just give people want they actually earn based on how much they accomplish relative to their own skills. Individual efficiency relative to ability = reward.

5. Communism. Smash smash. Go go.

6. Anarchism. Marxists are crazy, everyone is evil.

7. Anarcho-Communism with an open-minded attitude towards Marxism. I'm very skeptical of power, and I'd prefer an anarchist revolution, but I wouldn't necessarily oppose a Marxist movement. I'd evaluate the situation and make further considerations. Open-minded about Democratic Socialism as well, but very cynical about the idea that it's (1) rational and (2) possible.
I'm not that far along in idealogies, right now I'm pretty sure im in transition from Social Democrat to Democratic socialist, main reason being Social Democrat still follows the capitalist economic ideals, To be honest about this, I actually name myself Social Democrat when I was trying to figure out what type of communist I am. I was thinking Communism+Democracy+=??? Then one day I saw Social Democracy on a list and I assumed it followed the same priniciples as communism but with a Democratic means.:laugh: Boy did I prove to be wrong. So now I'm somewhere near Democratic Communist. If i follow the same list as you I hope to only get as far as communism. Not to offend any Anarchists.

Lunatic Concept

24th December 2010, 02:57

I find for me its a constant battle (though thats probably the wrong word :)) between anarchism, communism and "regular" socialism. Really when i look at my beliefs I would consider myself to be an anarchist, but at this particular time in history I just don't see that such a system could work in our current political and social climate. Although I agree with marx on so much, the "withering" away of the state never seemed particularly likely to me, and really I would be perfectly happy with the kind of socialism described in The ragged trousered philanthropists, with an emphasis on democracy and anti-authoritarianism. I drift between ideologies :blushing: