New Lefty, teach me your ways!

[HixRixWoop]

Hello all,

I'm HixRixWoop (Random name, meh), I've never really been interested in politics (until now) but I've always thought we should help each others and have basic needs available to everyone, no matter what social class they are.

I'm not even sure if that makes me a lefty but I don't like the current world, it's full of greedy people who care more about themselves than helping others who are in need of real help.

I hope to learn a lot here and wish you all a happy friday! :)

[ColonelCossack]

Welcome! You'll certainly find many people willing to help you learn. :)

[Lobotomy]

Welcome to the forum. Check out the learning forum for answers to any questions you have. Since you're relatively new to leftist ideas, try not to get too caught up in the tendency wars (Leninists vs anarchists vs left communists, etc).

[daft punk]

Hi, just joined myself. I have been a leftie all my life, though my parents were both pretty right wing. In 1984 I met someone in the Militant, which was the Marxist left within the Labour Party in the UK. I was lucky, they were a good organisation, now they are outside the Labour Party and are called the Socialist Party. This was because the Labour Party shifted to the right and was no longer a workers party.

You sound like a good potential leftie. There are various trends, reformists, anarchists, Trots and Stalinists (who call themselves Marxist-Leninists). Reformists think capitalism can be reformed, anarchists want to go straight to communism, Trots believe communist cant be achieved overnight and has to be preceded by a workers state. Trots would say socialism has never existed. Stalinists follow the ideas of Stalin who was dictator over the USSR, which no longer exists. Trots believe Stalin gave up on socialism during the 1920s.

That's your basics, there are loads of things to learn but it's not too difficult. If you want something basic to read try In Defence of October which describes what caused the Russian revolution to happen. It's good background reading. You could read Communist Manifesto, just bear in mind the language is very dated so one or two bits might look a bit odd cos you might not fully understand them immediately.

If you want to read the basics of inequality today try something like the Oxfam site where they outline the basics of unequal trade between rich and poor countries.

For general news I recommend Socialist World.

[Mulciber]

Welcome to RevLeft!


Hi, just joined myself. I have been a leftie all my life, though my parents were both pretty right wing. In 1984 I met someone in the Militant, which was the Marxist left within the Labour Party in the UK. I was lucky, they were a good organisation, now they are outside the Labour Party and are called the Socialist Party. This was because the Labour Party shifted to the right and was no longer a workers party.

I'm just curious...when the split occured did you follow the people who supported Ted Grant, or Peter Taafe?