Changed Tendency or Political Perspective?

[Andropov]

How many here started off in one tendency and eventually ended up becoming an adherent of another Tendency?
And out of curiosity did Revleft influence your decision process at all because I think it would be very hard to change ones political perspective on this forum because of debates degenerating into sectarian shit slinging matchs which back opposing sides into their respective corners and polarises opinions removing the chance for consensus or indeed growing or developing your thought perspectives through debating with opposing dialogue.
Myself I started off as a traditional Republican Socialist with no real grasp of Marxism and grew from there and I would like to think that Revleft did help develop my own politics and my commitment to a Marxist-Leninist perspective.

[Crux]

Once upon a time I was something not entirely dissimlar from an anarchist. Then I got organized.

[anticap]

Have you ever changed ideologies?

[ArrowLance]

Yes, I was a bit of a left communist when I first became interested in leftist politics. But as I read more and talked to various people here I moved more and more towards Marxism-Leninism.

[ContrarianLemming]

I was once an anarcho communist, now I'm an anarcho-syndicalist

[GPDP]

I came here as an anarchist, and ended up a generic revolutionary socialist who doesn't stick to any one tendency exclusively.

[Sir Comradical]

The Dear Leader converted me to communism telepathically.

[The Intransigent Faction]

'Stalinist' tendency to...Left Communist, but interested in learning more about Trotsky since all I'm really familiar with is the boogeyman conspiracist depiction.

[Sir Comradical]

'Stalinist' tendency to...Left Communist, but interested in learning more about Trotsky since all I'm really familiar with is the boogeyman conspiracist depiction.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the work of traitorous Trotskyite elements within the party!!!!!

September 11, also the work of Trotskyites!!

Rick Astley...again the work of traitorous Trotskyites!!

I kidd...

[Tablo]

Once upon a time I was a free-market lunatic. At the time I didn't realize the true nature of market capitalist economics. Now I'm an Anarcho-Communist.

[Sir Comradical]

Once upon a time I was a free-market lunatic. At the time I didn't realize the true nature of market capitalist economics. Now I'm an Anarcho-Communist.

Sounds interesting, how did you change? Who influenced you?

[Die Rote Fahne]

I said this before. But i'll shorten it.

I went from a liberal capitalist to a social democrat to a Luxemburgist. More in between. I floated around the ultra left a lot. Anarcho-communism, syndicalism, council communism, etc.

[Tablo]

Sounds interesting, how did you change? Who influenced you?
What influenced me was an article I read that provided a Leftist critique of Capitalism. It pretty much made my entire perspective collapse in an instant, haha. Then I started reading a lot of essays by Leftists like Emma Goldman and here I am today. I wasn't the most educated individual prior to becoming a Communist. :lol:

[Sir Comradical]

What influenced me was an article I read that provided a Leftist critique of Capitalism. It pretty much made my entire perspective collapse in an instant, haha. Then I started reading a lot of essays by Leftists like Emma Goldman and here I am today. I wasn't the most educated individual prior to becoming a Communist. :lol:

Great to hear. I'd say Chomsky had the biggest influence on me.

[zimmerwald1915]

Rick Astley...again the work of traitorous Trotskyites!!
And thus they've made up for everything.

...what?

[Q]

When I became politically active back in 2003, I joined the Dutch SP and for a few years I was very active in it. Setbacks in the branch, bureaucratic confrontations and ideological shallowness (if there was an ideology to speak of anyway) led me late 2005 to consider other ideas. I became interested in Marxism and looked for a Marxist group in the SP. I joined the Dutch CWI in November of 2005 and since then developed myself rapidly into a communist direction, mainly due to my own curiousity and debates with comrades. I still consider myself very much "developing" and think that is a healthy stance as when you reach a point where you consider you can learn no more, you might as well die.

For better or for worse, I do consider my experiences in the SP useful. It thaught me a strong reflective antagonistic approach towards anything that resembles bureaucracy. On a political level this works out great as it made me put a lot more emphasis on democracy, open organisation and the like. Personally I don't like to be put in confrontational situations and tend to avoid them, which in turn is learning goal for me to overcome, but this doesn't have a lot to do with my political stance so I'll just stop my rant :)

[Wanted Man]

Well, I think I can safely repost what I said in the other thread on the subject:



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.

In addition, I also appreciate this point by Devrim in that thread:


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

I would add to this that a lot of people here seem to regard the acquisition of an ideology as a purely individualist experience, depending on coincidence or whim. You sometimes hear that people turn from anarchist to M-L, or from M-L to Trotskyist, not because of experiences in class struggle, but "because I finally got around to reading a book from the other side, which instantly impressed me, because I always dogmatically isolated myself from opposing viewpoints up until now", or "because those anarchist/stalinist/trotskyist assholes on Revleft pissed me off".

To answer a question from the OP, I don't think Revleft has had a direct influence on my way of thinking. That's not to say that Revleft can't be interesting or educative, but class struggle in real life has (or should have) a much more profound influence. There are some people on Revleft whose approaches I like, but that's about it.

[howblackisyourflag]

I am embarrassed to say I though Ron Paul had a few great ideas back in the day.

Then I started redading Noam Chomsky, and realised all the myths of western ideals of freedom and democracy were just that.

What sealed the deal was one line he gave in an interview, "You can vote for politicians, Why cant you vote for your boss?"

That blew my mind and Ive been a fellow traveller of the revolutionaries of the left ever since.

[Crux]

For a very brief period of time, like a couple of months, I was a member of the green youth organization. In my defence I must say their program has a vague anticapitalist rhetoric and they consider themself "influenced" by socialism. And I was 16. I got out pretty quickly. Still...:blushing:

[cb9's_unity]

I'm only 19 and I found revleft around the same time that I was dismissing liberalism (around when I was 14). Since then revleft has helped me focus my views, its a possibility that if I never found this site I would have trumped around as a liberal influenced "anarchist" for a while before giving up and becoming a liberal again. This site gave me the sources that gave a strong base for socialist thought. Now there is no way that I'll revert back to capitalist thought.

Now I just call myself a Marxist though I understand how much more Marx I need to read. I have also been identifying with Luxemburg the more about and by her. Altogether I feel like I have built a good core of base beliefs that I now must work to expand on.