People just dont care about communism

[Let's Get Free]

Most people in the world want to realistically address the problems today, without wasting resources on ideological claptrap that has no bearing on the immediate reality coming at them from the various leftist sects who are constantly sniping at each other.
Maybe at some point 300 years from now when we have acquired a better understanding of what it means to live in solidarity, where we're all in this together, maybe then we can surpass a world of wage slavery, capitalism, and oppression.

[Comrade Samuel]

Oh, since it seems unlikely to happen in my lifetime I guess I'll just quit this whole revolution business.

What exactly do want to get out of this thread?

[blake 3:17]

Communist movements have done their best when they've combined the immediate fights against injustice, oppression and exploitation with a vision of a better world.

The foolish sectarianism that often appears does put people off and is mostly a waste of time.

I really dislike the idea that any individual, organization or intellectual current has some monopoly on Truth.

[Ostrinski]

Communist movements have done their best when they've combined the immediate fights against injustice, oppression and exploitation with a vision of a better world.This, this, and so much this. To get people to understand what communism can mean for them and how it can address the difficulties they face today as well as the sorry state of things around them we need to attempt to bridge the gap between the concrete struggle for the expression of the working people's interests and the movement toward a communist society.

[Manic Impressive]

So not enough people are interested in communism what shall we do?

Lets keep doing the same thing over and over again because it's worked so well it's got us in the position we're in now.

sometimes I despair

[subcp]

Events will force people to act against their wishes- nobody really wants to take over their factory, fight with the cops, riot over food prices, burn highways and take their boss hostage- they're driven to it because of the 'material conditions'. We probably have a better chance at communism because no one listens to revolutionary specialists anymore (the PCF is now in charge of municipal things like garbage pick-ups; the irony). And the petit-bourgeoisie, the anxious class who gave us wonders like Fascism, is so scared of every eventuality threatening the little slice of the pie they've got, they're all busy buying up gas masks and canned corn and building the equivalent to an ugly pastel Orlando suburban housing complex half a mile underground to wait out a nuclear disaster, or super-earthquake, or the Mayan doomsday, keeping up the good ways of the small businessman with other small businessmen, that they're all likely to kill eachother underground when food and water run out to give us any trouble up on the surface.

Seriously though, the times look far more optimistic for communism from my perspective than they have at any point since that sailor told the constituent assembly to go home.

[blake 3:17]

The most hope inspiring book I read this past year was Glenda Gilmore's Defying Dixie. It covers radical and revolutionary roots of the struggle for Black liberation in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, with a pretty strong emphasis on the US South. It grounds itself in teh biographies of a number of Black radicals, a couple famous, but mostly not.

I can't quote the passage, but there's a part of the introduction where she mentions how much hope she has for change, for justice, just knowing these people lived the brave lives they did.

One of the messages that the Zapatista movement brought internationally, which they haven't been able to do for some time, was to ask their supporters to be Zapatistas in their own communities. Worry less about them and figure out where the struggle for justice and equality is in where you are. The earlier Sandanista movement encouraged supporters to visit Nicaragua and spread the word, which I think was right.

You don't know when things will change suddenly. I agree with the OP that the struggle is a very very long one, but if we can take any steps to building a fairer, more just world, take them.

[RebelDog]

I've been active for over 20 years and I've had highs and lows, mostly lows. I cannot even say whether anything I've done has changed anything. I often get so sick and tired and think about packing it in but when it comes to the crunch I cannot. No matter how shit things get and how more impossible it seems that things will get better, I still carry on, because it makes me feel alive. If dirt poor Bolivians or Venezuelans can struggle against the odds and achieve something then us in Europe can surely do so.

[Os Cangaceiros]

we need to attempt to bridge the gap between the concrete struggle for the expression of the working people's interests and the movement toward a communist society.

Isn't that what communists have been saying for the past 100 years, though?

[Questionable]

Hey, I care

[Art Vandelay]

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Lenin.

You never know when things are going to erupt. I'm not saying that revolution is imminent by any means. However if capitalism is still in existence in roughly about a 100 years, then the world will be fucked anyways due to ecological catastrophe. So as someone relatively young 20, I must say that these are very interesting times to be alive. We have the possibility to give this thing one more go; sadly it will probably be our last chance.

[Clarion]

If you preach ideology, you won't find a receptive audience. If you tell people to forget about their immediate worries and concern themselves with some hypothetical distant future, they will rightly dismiss you.


The trick to being a communist within the actually existing workers' movement is to argue for the right solution to the problems of today. The socialist revolution is naught but an accumulation of correct solutions to immediate concerns.

[The Jay]

People care. They are just dealing with a lot of propaganda. I actually prefer to talk to reasonably skeptical people.

[Manic Impressive]

If you preach ideology, you won't find a receptive audience. If you tell people to forget about their immediate worries and concern themselves with some hypothetical distant future, they will rightly dismiss you.


The trick to being a communist within the actually existing workers' movement is to argue for the right solution to the problems of today. The socialist revolution is naught but an accumulation of correct solutions to immediate concerns.
Have you got anything to back this up with or what do you base this opinion on? Why do you think Marx was wrong in this aspect?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

People care. They are just dealing with a lot of propaganda. I actually prefer to talk to reasonably skeptical people.

I don't think the problem is a lack of skepticism - many people are cynical about mainstream political and economic institutions - but that there are many pitfalls into which naive and/or misapplied skepticism can fall into. The many and various types of conspiracy theory being an example.

The upshot of this is that skepticism and cynicism is just as likely to lead to apathy and/or some kind of blind alley as it is likely to lead to questioning the socio-economic hegemony.

[Clarion]

I don't really understand, what do I base my opinions on? Personal experience and assumptions taken as axiomatic, I would guess.

I'm not aware that Marx was wrong on this.

[Manic Impressive]

I don't really understand, what do I base my opinions on? Personal experience and assumptions taken as axiomatic, I would guess.

I'm not aware that Marx was wrong on this.
ok so nothing concrete then like evidence merely subjective opinion. I believe Marx was right but he certainly disagreed with your opinion and backed it up with some nice juicy facts. You may want to re-read the last 2 chapters of value, price and profit.

They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!" After this very long and, I fear, tedious exposition, which I was obliged to enter into to do some justice to the subject matter, I shall conclude by proposing the following resolutions:
Firstly. A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, not affect the prices of commodities.
Secondly. The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages.
Thirdly. Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

If all you ever do is give workers improbable solutions to the myriad of current problems then that's all they'll ever want, and they'll always be disappointed when they don't get it. You'll end up with a movement of workers fighting for reforms and that is what you will ever be able to become. If you tell them correctly that THE ONLY SOLUTION to their problems is revolution then you'll end up with a movement of revolutionaries.

Workers aren't the problem Communists/socialists/anarchists are

[Clarion]

Blah. I can't read. Blah.

Far for me to interrupt you're brave charge against the armies of straw, but I agree with the above quotation from Marx.


Let's see what I wrote:



The trick to being a communist within the actually existing workers' movement is to argue for the right solution to the problems of today. The socialist revolution is naught but an accumulation of correct solutions to immediate concerns.The “right” and the “correct” solution, implicitly in contrast with the “wrong” and “incorrect” solution. The wrong solution being precisely the kind of limited, defensive, guerilla reaction to capital that Marx identifies in the quote you cite. The incorrect solution being reformism and economism, whether in its industrial form (such as strikes) or political form (social democracy, welfarism, etc.).


Are there any other opinions I don't actually hold that you would like to debunk?

[LeonJWilliams]

Being 'left' can be disheartening at times at a lack of progress but people are pissed of at the system and we need to be there to show people that there is an alternative.

We need to be constantly critical of the system and highlight its failings while showing that the origins of the vast majority of the worlds problem stem from the Capitalist system and that Socialism/Communism offers a real alternative.

Sometimes I harp on about it and I don't want it to seem like I'm flogging a dead horse or anything but even if you are very limited with what you can do to help the cause of leftism you can always write articles/propaganda etc.

See my signature link!

[Ocean Seal]

The most fortunate thing about communism is that it doesn't require people to care about it.

[Old Bolshie]

It really depends on where you are. In south European countries interest for communism is growing again due to the crisis and the austerity plan and will continue to grow since the austerity will inevitably lead to more poverty among the population. The problem seems to be that Western Communist Parties are too much institutionalized within the system. Revolutionary consciousness is lacking in the direction of those parties but hopefully this will change in the near future.

[Luís Henrique]

The most fortunate thing about communism is that it doesn't require people to care about it.

Scary.

Luís Henrique

[Geiseric]

Most people in the world want to realistically address the problems today, without wasting resources on ideological claptrap that has no bearing on the immediate reality coming at them from the various leftist sects who are constantly sniping at each other.
Maybe at some point 300 years from now when we have acquired a better understanding of what it means to live in solidarity, where we're all in this together, maybe then we can surpass a world of wage slavery, capitalism, and oppression.

Right people don't care about communism which is why we have to work with the consciousness that exists, and vie to expand it to other realms. however nobody's going to fight for communism if we can't keep unions and social services intact, which themselves have had to been struggled for in the past.

[Geiseric]

It really depends on where you are. In south European countries interest for communism is growing again due to the crisis and the austerity plan and will continue to grow since the austerity will inevitably lead to more poverty among the population. The problem seems to be that Western Communist Parties are too much institutionalized within the system. Revolutionary consciousness is lacking in the direction of those parties but hopefully this will change in the near future.

If they're institutionalized into the system they're not a communist party.

[Art Vandelay]

Right people don't care about communism which is why we have to work with the consciousness that exists, and vie to expand it to other realms. however nobody's going to fight for communism if we can't keep unions and social services intact, which themselves have had to been struggled for in the past.

Unions have been almost entirely incorporated into the bourgeois superstructure (minus the IWW); they had their hey day, however as a means of revolutionary struggle, they are a lost cause. Work with the rank and file? Absolutely. However to attempt this archaic idea of wrestling the leadership away from the union bureaucrats is a dead end.

[Geiseric]

Unions have been almost entirely incorporated into the bourgeois superstructure (minus the IWW); they had their hey day, however as a means of revolutionary struggle, they are a lost cause. Work with the rank and file? Absolutely. However to attempt this archaic idea of wrestling the leadership away from the union bureaucrats is a dead end.

Union bureaucracies have been incorporated into the bourgeois superstructure, but to refuse to work with and protect organizations that rise organically, and which historically have been led by communists, would be stupid. We need to support any rank and file movements to get rid of, or to work around the bureaucracy, as in we NEED to support strikes and other working class actions, seeing as the bureaucracy will never support and will act against those.

I don't advocate wrestling away the leadership, but at some point we need to recruit union members to a real communist party, which doesn't exist yet, that's all i'm saying. IWW and union militants like James P. Cannon, Ferrel Dobbs, and the Dunne brothers were some of the founders of the Communist Party in the U.S. which is a lesson that we could learn from.

[Let's Get Free]

The most fortunate thing about communism is that it doesn't require people to care about it.

And do you expect people to go on strike or go up against the state and risk their lives for something they do not care about?

[subcp]

And do you expect people to go on strike or go up against the state and risk their lives for something they do not care about?

Why do you think strikes and/or struggles against state forces have to be ideologically motivated?

[Clarion]

If they're institutionalized into the system they're not a communist party.

And the Scottish Tories aren't true Scotsmen. . .

[Art Vandelay]

And do you expect people to go on strike or go up against the state and risk their lives for something they do not care about?

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

Marx, German Ideology (1845)

[Comrade #138672]

I care.

[Luís Henrique]

And do you expect people to go on strike or go up against the state and risk their lives for something they do not care about?

I expect people to strike and go against the State for what they care. Which starts by their immediate interests, wages, living conditions, rights, etc. I do expect people, through fighting for these, to realise that the capitalist system cannot on the long term accommodate their immediate interests, and so turn against the system.

Otherwise I wouldn't believe in class struggle, I would believe in intellectual strife between ideas.

Luís Henrique

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

Marx, German Ideology (1845)

As such, instead of trying to seek out people who care about "communism" in name, we should be looking for signs of movement. Probably there are more people who "care" than indicated by adding up the membership tallies of however many organizations.

[Let's Get Free]

I expect people to strike and go against the State for what they care. Which starts by their immediate interests, wages, living conditions, rights, etc. I do expect people, through fighting for these, to realise that the capitalist system cannot on the long term accommodate their immediate interests, and so turn against the system.

Otherwise I wouldn't believe in class struggle, I would believe in intellectual strife between ideas.

Luís Henrique

I think it's of absolute importance that people know what they're fighting for. Overthrowing this system without knowing what to replace it with is a road to a new dictatorship.

[Comrade #138672]

I think it's of absolute importance that people know what they're fighting for. Overthrowing this system without knowing what to replace it with is a road to a new dictatorship.I think that when people start struggling for their immediate interests, they will naturally be more open to ideologies that contribute to their struggle.

[Art Vandelay]

I think it's of absolute importance that people know what they're fighting for. Overthrowing this system without knowing what to replace it with is a road to a new dictatorship.

Our goal, as communists, is not to conjure up some utopian society which will never correspond to material conditions (this is exactly what Marxism arose in opposition to), but to struggle for the interests of the proletarian class and to work to merge the workers movement with the Marxist one.

[subcp]

"Three days previously the men had had no thought of striking. Now they formed eager audiences for such extremists as Albert Parsons." - Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America, p.26

1877, right before the Great Upheaval, the American proletariat's Paris Commune.

[Luís Henrique]

I think it's of absolute importance that people know what they're fighting for. Overthrowing this system without knowing what to replace it with is a road to a new dictatorship.

Maybe, but people will only learn what they are fighting for by fighting.

Luís Henrique

[Monkeyboy]

I'm not a real communist, and forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but I think one problem that communism faces is it's name.

For me it has a bit of negative meaning because of Stalin, Mao, North Korea and the cold war.

And because of that people don't care what communism is about, they get a negative feeling from the word because of what they associate it with and so the general public except for a few don't care about communism.

Priming comes to mind of what I'm meaning. But as I looked priming on the internet it seemed like a different meaning. I know there's a psychologic term for it.