What inspired you?

[canadian_worker]

As someone new to the left I was wondering what inspired you to become a left revolutionary, communist, anarchist, ML etc. Was it a book? movie? person?

For me it was my son and the writings of Marx once I had the gumption to actually read him.

[theblackmask]

Living a shitty life.

[Ele'ill]

Society being at war with me but not knowing why I wasn't good enough to be alive in 'their' world.

[Positivist]

I used to be a liberal but then I realized capitalism sucks.

[Geiseric]

Well I've been afraid that capitalists will end the world in a nuclear halocaust for profits since I was about 7. So at least subconsciously it's about survival.

Otherwise being a socialist seems natural. I'm not faking anything or acting artificial when it comes to political stuff, so I don't know.

[The Jay]

I was a Ron Paul supporter and pseudo-ancap, but then I realized that my conception of property rights was ethically flawed.

That sounds like bs but it's true.

[Ostrinski]

Studying history

[TheGodlessUtopian]

It was a long and exhausting process...

http://www.revleft.com/vb/glenn-lenin-my-t168141/index.html?p=2369958#post2369958

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Alienation. Alienation from Capitalist society as a teenager and having time on my hand as a student to think about the reasons why people acted like assholes. Then of course i discovered the taboo of Marxism and i went on the internet, saw a youtube video with some stuff about Karl Marx, went to the book store to get Das Kapital and was a marxist after 20 minutes of reading the first chapter. Three years later i finished it and called myself a communist.

[Marxaveli]

Going back to school opened the door for me, but I would say just mostly self-research and enlightenment is what helped me attain class consciousness, among various material factors (such being treated like shit at almost every job I worked at, voting making no difference, and the cycle of booms and busts that occur in Capitalism).

[jookyle]

I was 15 when I realized that people shouldn't have to starve while other people live in luxury. Or that people should starve in general. Or not have shelter, or clothes, etc.

Everyone milks the cow, everyone shares the milk.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Poverty, anger, social deprivation, a shitty background. Communism was like 'wow this is actually a theory?'. It asked most of the questions I had/have whereas bourgeois politics didn't. When I asked my dad what I should do, he said 'join the Labour Party, be a socialist.' - he was old school, clause IV Labour, but I just took the socialist part and went from there because I realized that socialism is the necessary system but that it wont be achieved by rich politicians.

[Art Vandelay]

Fucking alienation; and becoming a Marxist hasn't made that go away.

[MotherCossack]

As someone new to the left I was wondering what inspired you to become a left revolutionary, communist, anarchist, ML etc. Was it a book? movie? person?

For me it was my son and the writings of Marx once I had the gumption to actually read him.

good thread comrade... i salute you. very interesting.



Well I've been afraid that capitalists will end the world in a nuclear halocaust for profits since I was about 7. So at least subconsciously it's about survival.

Otherwise being a socialist seems natural. I'm not faking anything or acting artificial when it comes to political stuff, so I don't know.

i remember feeling the same.
But to be honest it wasn't just that..... growing up in a relatively poor household.... lots of 'can't have' situations.... lots of jumble sales, sales and general embarassing wearing of untrendy clothes due to lack of available funds.
Growing up with a family of pretty solid socialists, albeit inactive ones.
Being unlucky enough to live through 18 years of catostrophic thatcherism was a huge part of it.
Lastly i think i was born with a clear belief that the system was wrong.... big time, and that sharing stuff out fairly, would be a monumental improvement!!!!
Actually i never could understand why any sensible human being would ever think otherwise!

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I used to be one of those Anonymous-kids, who I later came to hate. So, I more or less already had sort of a hate for how things were, even though I didn't really understood them. Then at history-class, there was a part about Communism. Instead of starting with the usual “Stalin killed everyone”-nonsense, they started with teaching what Marx' ideas where. Although later I came to learn that what they taught me wasn't fully correct, it suddenly made sense to me what was wrong with the world.
I began lurking on RevLeft, started reading Marxist books, and began looking closer at history. So, looking at history probably inspired me the most.

[Conscript]

I'm sick of wars and empires.

[Philosophos]

I saw that capitalism really sucks and communism is much better and more fair than all the other systems

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Fucking alienation; and becoming a Marxist hasn't made that go away.

Well no, in fact, I suspect your radical political beliefs would make social alienation even worse.

[Positivist]

Well no, in fact, I suspect your radical political beliefs would make social alienation even worse.

Well I can't see how being a Marxist would make any alienation better, except for maybe realizing that whatever afflicts you is probably not your fault/nothing to be ashamed of.

[Prometeo liberado]

Oddly enough it was an experiment in elementary school where we handed food donations out in very poor neighborhoods. I was 8. These "poor areas" were maybe a 10 minute drive from our school. Most of these people were cooking over wood in their back yards. You can't help but start to question everything they try and tell you after that. All that American Dream nonsense goes right out the window.

[Art Vandelay]

Well no, in fact, I suspect your radical political beliefs would make social alienation even worse.

Indeed it has.

[kitsune]

I used to be a liberal but then I realized capitalism sucks.

Pretty much the same. Basically very liberal socially, but economically not at all knowledgeable, or even interested. At some point I realized there's no fixing the system; it is inherently flawed.

At the same time, the concept of people working together for the common good has always been an obvious, fundamental assumption about the way a functional society should operate.

[Geiseric]

Marxism is something that i've decided on by myself, completely independent from my community, so that along with Ultimate Frisbee and the weird music that I like will probably stick with me my entire life.

I also can't think of anything more worthwhile to do with my life. Haha I could "make money," seeing as I understand capitalism, and use marxism kinda like Mussolini did, but that would mean I have to hang out with tea partiers.

[Comrades Unite!]

All my life I had strong opinions on a lot of things, but never considered anything political.

I also used to be huge into music and discovered The Clash, Their Socialistic lyrics made me want to know more about Socialism and then I asked around to find out more and was told to check out Karl Marx.

So I did and went to the book shop to buy a Karl Marx book, I found one and it was 'The Communist Manifesto'.
Alarm bells were ringing at this stage, I believed that Communism was murder,famine and poor people and so I was un-sure of it but bought it anyhow.

Read the book within a day and was astounded, I practically agreed with the whole lot of it.
Now I had to look into the whole ''Murder famine poor people'' thing and found myself seeing how Marx's views were thwarted and became a dedicated Marxist.

Thank you Joe Strummer!

[radicalbaker]

It was while working with the homeless and seeing how the capitalist system has no use for the least among us.

It was also my own experiences that taught me that the rich want to keep the poor buried in debt so that the poor will never rise against them.

[leftistman]

I started out as a centrist under the impression that we can end the severe case of ecological destruction, poverty, injustice, and alienation by voting for "progressive" politicians. As I looked at all of the broken promises, corruption, and deception of society, I moved towards more left-leaning liberalism, eventually identifying as a social democrat. I then became a more radical democratic socialist(at least as radical as they can get), eventually adopting anarchism. As far as economics go, I accept aspects of various systems, such as syndicalism, left communism, mutualism, anarcho-collectivism, etc.

[Geiseric]

All my life I had strong opinions on a lot of things, but never considered anything political.

I also used to be huge into music and discovered The Clash, Their Socialistic lyrics made me want to know more about Socialism and then I asked around to find out more and was told to check out Karl Marx.

So I did and went to the book shop to buy a Karl Marx book, I found one and it was 'The Communist Manifesto'.
Alarm bells were ringing at this stage, I believed that Communism was murder,famine and poor people and so I was un-sure of it but bought it anyhow.

Read the book within a day and was astounded, I practically agreed with the whole lot of it.
Now I had to look into the whole ''Murder famine poor people'' thing and found myself seeing how Marx's views were thwarted and became a dedicated Marxist.

Thank you Joe Strummer!

Joe Strummer's a republican though :confused:

[Comrades Unite!]

um ... wut?

Are you confusing Joe with someone else? Strummer was a fairly proud and loud Socialist.

[Questionable]

I felt like society as a whole sucked. At first I thought it was because people naturally sucked like a true liberal, but then I read some Marx and realized that people suck because society sucked, and there's a way we can make it suck less.

[Synergy]

Reading a lot of leftist political forums over the years has made me realize that Capitalism is causing the majority of poverty we see around the world today.

[Geiseric]

um ... wut?

Are you confusing Joe with someone else? Strummer was a fairly proud and loud Socialist.

Wait I was thinking of Johnny Ramone. Sorry.

[Collectorgeneral]

I was actually inspired by soviet music from the 40's that I found whilst searching for an alternative to whatever came from the radio. I remember listening to "The march of the soviet tankists" and thinking "Hey.. this sounds way better than that western pop crap I keep hearing on the radio, anything that makes music /this/ good must have something behind it all." Then I decided to embark on an intellectual journey concerning the soviet union, from there I discovered the actual meaning of communism... socialism... and so forth until I finally realized that the aforementioned 'something' was the righteous will of a free people adhering to a just ideology that is very capable of ensuring the survival of our entire race as opposed to crapitalism that had failed us not too long ago at that time.

[smellincoffee]

I started getting jaded as soon as I hit my twenties. I learned conflict theory not from Marx, but from the history books and my own experience. My first job, in a glass factory, was an eye-opener. We'd spend 55-60 hours a week pounding the conrete in our steel-toed boots for piss-poor wages while the bosses flew in from across the country every other weekend and then toodled around the floor in golf carts because they couldn't be bothered to walk.

Moving to university radicalized me. I discovered Erich Fromm in the university library, and his works criticizing consumerism changed my values. I read from the Greeks, like Epicurus and Epictetus, and then from the Transcendentalists. For me this was an exploration into the meaning of life, a celebration of the human spirit -- of will, and intelligence, and creativity. But at the same time I'm taking European history from a professor who is also anti-consumerist, who was critical of states and businesses and so on -- and more importantly, my sociology professor was a Marxist, and every class with him was a riot. I even took him for some classes on Gender Roles, but the highlight was his sociological theory class, where I discovered the Frankfurt School and re-visited Erich Fromm. And then I read Red Emma Speaks...

I think my move toward the left was prompted mostly by my humanist values: what we've built so far is an insult to what we're capable of.