When did you take up communism ?

[guevarism]

I became a communist at the age of 14.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I first encountered Marxism as something positive and useful during my first year of university, when I was 18 and I probably came to revolutionary conclusions by the end of my time at uni so 19-21ish.

[guevarism]

Wow thats great giantmonkeyman I hope I took the right decision early

[The Intransigent Faction]

I started reading up on/discussing it in my later years of high school as a kind of intellectual experiment. Making a good case for Marxism, at the time, seemed like a challenge. As I learned, though, the arguments I encountered in favour of communism made more sense than any counter-arguments I found (most of which, granted, were cliches unthinkingly echoed by edgy right-wingers).

[Ele'ill]

What is meant by 'take up' communism?

[ComradeAllende]

I was a liberal Democrat after Obama got elected in 2008, and I only turned towards socialism sometime in high school. I began identifying myself as a "communist" sometime during sophomore or junior year of high school.

[Laika]

I got interested in Communism age 14/15 after reading about the five years plans and industrialisation in the USSR from a history textbook. We were studying the Great Depression in the USA and Germany but there was another section on Russia (1900-1941) in there and I was struck by the contrast. It was only after I left University dropping out at the start of a second year economics degree (age 19) that I really got into it though as I started reading Marxist books I got from second hand bookshops. Actually studying economics and realising how narrow and intellectually unsound it all was meant I started looking for my own answers.

I left the course in October 2008 and realised the financial crisis that was going on then made the course material largely irrelevant. There were personal factors at work in my leaving (as I started to have depression) but I was maybe a few years ahead of my time: in 2012 a large number of economic students started the "post-crash economics society"at Manchester University challenging the course material and it's message went global. it got some attention in the Guardian a few years back. I wasn't at Manchester Uni but still it cheered me up to see that this was getting attention. (see "post - crasheconomics . com" minus the spaces )

[guevarism]

I started reading up on/discussing it in my later years of high school as a kind of intellectual experiment. Making a good case for Marxism, at the time, seemed like a challenge. As I learned, though, the arguments I encountered in favour of communism made more sense than any counter-arguments I found (most of which, granted, were cliches unthinkingly echoed by edgy right-wingers).

Comrade are your Marxist*Machiavellian ? Well I couldnt get it

[IbelieveInanarchy]

Working in a factory a few years back when i had a gap year before college. Was absolutely appalled by working conditions, and with that i don't mean its dirty or unsafe. I live in one of the richest western countries, but i still found wage-labor awful. Me and my colleagues only seemed to live for the weekends and unable to live, really live, during the week.

[ckaihatsu]

Working in a factory a few years back when i had a gap year before college. Was absolutely appalled by working conditions, and with that i don't mean its dirty or unsafe. I live in one of the richest western countries, but i still found wage-labor awful. Me and my colleagues only seemed to live for the weekends and unable to live, really live, during the week.


This is the working norm, and I'll add that it's implicitly a good argument for the use of some kind of revolutionary vanguard vehicle, with some degree of unavoidable substitutionism, if the proletariat is to get this show on the road. I'd *prefer* to see a fully ground-up, mass political participation from 100% at all workplaces, but we can't just wait-around for that to happen on its own. A catalyst is needed.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

This is the working norm, and I'll add that it's implicitly a good argument for the use of some kind of revolutionary vanguard vehicle, with some degree of unavoidable substitutionism, if the proletariat is to get this show on the road. I'd *prefer* to see a fully ground-up, mass political participation from 100% at all workplaces, but we can't just wait-around for that to happen on its own. A catalyst is needed. I know its the working norm. However i don't know if a vanguard is a good idea. :)

[CallInTheDogs]

Starting when I was in 8th grade. I had been reading about it online and at first I had took it up as a sort of symbol of rebellion and defiance. Then after a while I started to look deeper at communist theory and found that not only did it make sense but it was immediately relevant

[ckaihatsu]

I know its the working norm. However i don't know if a vanguard is a good idea. :)


What approach *do* you subscribe to, then?

[GLF]

Around the age of 25 I began calling myself a communist and Marxist due to disillusionment with the state of the country, even though in retrospect I was more of a fascist than a leftist. I wasn't a Marxist at all - and not for a long, long time after. In truth, I was very reactionary and held beliefs that were downright contrary to Marxist thought. For instance, though I would've disagreed with these labels at the time, I was still racist, sexist, homophobic, religious, etc. I came from a very conservative, extremely reactionary and white lower class family...and a family that was very close. Even today my folks will say that I know better - that I couldn't be a communist because that's not "us" and it's not how we are. My road to what you might call "communism" is a continuous personal journey of deprogramming and critical thinking. You don't just wake up one day and become a Marxist. And it's not something you do just because you think it's cool or edgy. It's a perpetual war with yourself and everything you've been taught and conditioned to believe, and subjecting every thought, feeling and predisposition to ruthless critical analysis. And this is doubly true when you come from my background. It's been ten years since I began the journey of personal liberation and I am still nowhere near where I need to be. We are born and raised slaves to this oppressive system and remain so, in body and mind, long after the scales fall from our eyes. If I'm still around ten years from now I'm sure I'll look back on the me of today and say that I was no Marxist. So at the risk of sounding sanctimonious and cliché-ey, communism isn't something we "take up". It's something for which we continually fight, inside and out. I can't help but wonder how many so-called communists/Marxists are only in this to stroke their own ego by making a novelty out of themselves. This isn't a costume party...people are fucking dying out there. It's at the point to where I'm loath to even call myself a communist because all it is nowadays, particularly online and among students, is one big cosplay circle-jerk.

[comrade-el-doggo]

first democratic socialism then eco-socialism then egalitarian eco-trotskyist the minute i realized that playing fair and winning in a system that has had years of tinkering to be the most counter revolutionary system alive isnt just unbeatable but all so a perpetual waste of energy we could be arming and organizing and eventually met them on the battle field that we know cant be rigged via voter suppression and just strait up voter fraud.