How to bring communism closer to the people?

[MaximMK]

In my country most of the people think of communism as the same with socialism and call you communist like if it as a bad thing without knowing anything about the final communist society and the ideals of Marx. They use the term communist as a negative word to describe injustice of any kind. We can't hope for communism as a minority. What do you think is the best way for the people to learn about the true meaning of communism and get familiar with the fact that there is a way out of this self-destructing society trough socialism into communism? Because any man that understands the true ideas of communism wouldn't go against it. People must be educated on this topic. People not knowing a thing about communism and criticizing it really get on my nerves.

[DinodudeEpic]

What is this country in question? It sounds a lot like America. :laugh:

[snerfuplz]

I blame the Cold War. Here in America especially the Soviets are still the boogey man and thus tainting the rest of the left especially with the student protest movements of the 60's have enforced the caricature of leftists as "dirty pot-smoking hippies." What the left needs is a charismatic, politically savvy individual. As much as I hate elevating one man, respected leftists is what the world needs.

[MaximMK]

I'm talking about Macedonia on the Balkan. It used to be socialist in the past but now is capitalist and has no strong communist party. People don't hesitate to use communism as a negative thing in politics. In-fact a guy criticized the ruling Nazi right with party as communist when it is completely the opposite and i just wanna strangle people like him. And im just one guy between 2 million people looking for a way that can inform them about what communism really is.

[pluckedflowers]

I'd say forget about communism for the moment and just try to get them to think coherently about what capitalism actually means. If people actually reflect on the matter, most aren't going to be too insistent on keeping an economic system that is contingent on the upper-class appropriation of their surplus labor.

I mean, why would anyone support a revolution if they don't have a clear understanding of what's wrong with the current system?

[MaximMK]

Oh they eventually see the bad side of capitalism but without knowing there is a possible better society they think they can fix capitalism by changing the leader and hoping he will change things without removing the current society. You are right and they should see the bad side of capitalism first but also the exit and the better society too.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

1.) Go against false-statistics paraded around by the Black Book.
2.) Quote them statistics of Capitalist slaughter, starvation, and other causes of death that are in fact higher than the crimes of Stalinism and similar systems that were formerly in place in the USSR and in other countries. Feel free to include the fact that at a minimum, 5 million per year will continue to starve due to the effects of Capitalism and that millions of others will face malnutrition that will eventually lead to their deaths as well, combined with the effects of Neo-Colonialism and conflicts attributed to it this leaves the death toll of Capitalism from 1990-2011 alone so far at 105 million (Starvation alone) at the lowest and combined with the effects of Imperialism the numbers go even higher.
3.) Show them and present them the need for a society in which the Proletariat owns the means of production and society isn't under Bourgeois control, don't be idealist in your arguments, be realistic, rational and materialist in each of your arguments against Capitalism and Imperialism.

(For a Hoxhaist website Espresso Stalinist has managed to document what I've pointed out quite well, unfortunately I'm unable to link it though as my post count is too low at the moment.)

[MaximMK]

Really nice advice thanks. The main problem is that we leftists know both sides and choose the good one. We do research and discover what is the true side. They on the other hand are poisoned from early ages with the false right ideals and false myths about the left and won't even bother listening to us explaining them the truth. They are so manipulated that they sometimes even don't know what their party which is right winged stands for and when you tell them that right wing puts the capital in the first place and all they are like "No way you are lying dirty commie". I sometimes wonder if there is hope.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm talking about Macedonia on the Balkan. It used to be socialist in the past but now is capitalist and has no strong communist party. People don't hesitate to use communism as a negative thing in politics. In-fact a guy criticized the ruling Nazi right with party as communist when it is completely the opposite and i just wanna strangle people like him. And im just one guy between 2 million people looking for a way that can inform them about what communism really is.


Maybe remind people that they'd better at least be *getting paid* to spout their nonsense, because otherwise they're just parroting the politics of the ruling elite *for free*, which doesn't benefit them personally *at all*....

Also:


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals

http://postimage.org/image/34modgv1g/


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

http://postimage.org/image/1g4s6wax0/

http://postimage.org/image/2cvo2d7fo/

[redSHARP]

dont call it communism or socialism. dont even use those words. try to reword arguments so that they seem inquisitive and try to get people to answer your questions. but try always seem like you are trying to learn, not preach. once you see a whole in their logic then start asking questions about their logic. its like the Socratic method in a way, ask questions and eventually the person you are talking to will self discover answers.

[Red_Devotchka]

explain them the difference between communism and dictators who claim to be comunist.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll also add that there's no *quitting* when it comes to politics -- politics is as wrapped up with social life as life itself, so as long as the world is considered to be less-than-perfect by *some* group of people, there will be politics.

Just because dictators co-opted the vision of socialism in the last century -- as leaders continue to do today -- doesn't mean that the politics and struggle for socialism is over. It continues on...!

[bezdomni]

Perhaps what Mao wrote on the mass line (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch11.htm) will be helpful.


To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses. All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.... There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them.

[Emphasis is mine]

[Lyev]

dont call it communism or socialism. dont even use those words. try to reword arguments so that they seem inquisitive and try to get people to answer your questions. but try always seem like you are trying to learn, not preach. once you see a whole in their logic then start asking questions about their logic. its like the Socratic method in a way, ask questions and eventually the person you are talking to will self discover answers.I'm not sure that that is some very good advice. And the rest is a bit vague. Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. What are going to call the future society that is to be built if not communism or socialism? It is worse to withhold information. I can't make a detailed post right now, so maybe I'll come back to this. But there is pretty poor advice throughout this thread if you ask me.

[Savage]

class consciousness does not arise from the propagation of a minority of intellectuals, communism is the result of capitalism; itself as a movement was born out of capital. The communist struggle exists so long as capital does, the proletariat is forced into class struggle:

“Men make their own history, but not of their own free will; not under circumstances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted.” (Marx. Eighteenth Brumaire…)

The unpopularity of the perceived understanding of communism in your country may be demoralizing to you, but in the end, regardless of semantics, class struggle will always continue; vanguards do not create revolutions, revolutions create vanguards.

[ckaihatsu]

---








It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently.





I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.

However, the explanation is not really difficult to find. It is simply this. Misery and poverty are so absolutely degrading, and exercise such a paralysing effect over the nature of men, that no class is ever really conscious of its own suffering. They have to be told of it by other people, and they often entirely disbelieve them. What is said by great employers of labour against agitators is unquestionably true. Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilisation. Slavery was put down in America, not in consequence of any action on the part of the slaves, or even any express desire on their part that they should be free. It was put down entirely through the grossly illegal conduct of certain agitators in Boston and elsewhere, who were not slaves themselves, nor owners of slaves, nor had anything to do with the question really. It was, undoubtedly, the Abolitionists who set the torch alight, who began the whole thing. And it is curious to note that from the slaves themselves they received, not merely very little assistance, but hardly any sympathy even; and when at the close of the war the slaves found themselves free, found themselves indeed so absolutely free that they were free to starve, many of them bitterly regretted the new state of things. To the thinker, the most tragic fact in the whole of the French Revolution is not that Marie Antoinette was killed for being a queen, but that the starved peasant of the Vendee voluntarily went out to die for the hideous cause of feudalism.

[W1N5T0N]

It depends. "the people" are basically against communism because many associate it with monsters like Stalin. If you go and say "Killing millions of innocents can be justified in the name of communism", then you can say farewell to public opinion.

[Pawn Power]

How to bring jesus closer to the people?

[ckaihatsu]

How to bring jesus closer to the people?


Just rip it off the dashboard, re-position it, and plunk it back down...! (Duh.)


= )