How do you get past the stigma

[Green]

I'm talking specifically about America, I don't know if there is a similar situation in any other countries...

Most of the people I meet where I live will immediately associate Marxism/Socialism/Communism with extreme Stalinist authoritarianism. The people here are never taught to think anything differently about it.

I've been thinking a lot about the feasibility of any (significant) radical leftist movement in the US, and I think one of the biggest problems with gaining new members is the people who see the word "communism" or the hammer and sickle and immediately walk off.

What do you think is the best way of getting past this prejudice?

[Q]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 03:08 am
I'm talking specifically about America, I don't know if there is a similar situation in any other countries...

Most of the people I meet where I live will immediately associate Marxism/Socialism/Communism with extreme Stalinist authoritarianism. The people here are never taught to think anything differently about it.

I've been thinking a lot about the feasibility of any (significant) radical leftist movement in the US, and I think one of the biggest problems with gaining new members is the people who see the word "communism" or the hammer and sickle and immediately walk off.

What do you think is the best way of getting past this prejudice?
Stay coolheaded and patiently explain your stance and, if applicable, explain also why you oppose Stalinism/Maoism/Jucheism and other totalitarian caricatures.

[Ismail]

Explain why Stalin did what he did, explain that many of the crimes attributed to him were either not his fault or were in fact not crimes but bloated to absurd levels. Uphold Marxist-Leninism, and refuse to buy into revisionist lies.

[Green]

Thanks, but I was thinking more along the lines of having a name that doesn't sound so radically extreme, at least at first (like the "progressive" something party). That way you won't instantly overwhelm people. Then once they've gotten interested in the party and have started reading stuff from your website you can casually say that you are a marxist party.

People might start getting into a patriotic fervor and throw things at you if you look too anti-american.

[Ismail]

When I talk about Communism, I explain the basics, and also explain why Socialist states fell (due to revisionism, "peaceful co-existence", and the USSR itself taking an imperialistic character after Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and etc took over) and why things that Lenin/Stalin/etc did were necessary, but also note that just because Stalin had to resort to what would appear to be extreme measures (killing kulaks, who essentially had a grip on peasants and were refusing to hand over food, etc) doesn't mean that we would need to resort to such things in the US, as it is already industrialized, has no peasantry, and has enough food for everyone.

It appears that since other Communists types can just say "Oh, so and so sucked and were anti-Communist" others focus more on the end result of Socialism (that is, a Communist; stateless society) while Marxist-Leninists usually seem to spend more time defending Lenin/Stalin/etc than the actual society that Communism creates.

I myself try not to get into "Khrushchev and Mao were revisionists! Uphold the five classics! (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Hoxha)" mode and such, but it can be tempting.

[mikelepore]

I suggest these answers to the question.

1. It needs to be explained to people that the reasons for replacing capitalism by socialism, as a management system, are largely the same as the reasons for replacing monarchy by a republic, as a political system. You get better administration, more just as well as more efficient, when the administrators who issue instructions are representatives elected by those to whom they give instructions. It's the only way that can have problems and injustices become incidental, instead of being systematically biased toward creating problems and injustices.

2. It needs to be explained to people that the word "socialism" is like the words "liberty, democracy, justice, progress," in that tyrants and dictators tend to adopt such words to sugar-coat their miserable rule. For someone to reject socialism because the word has been associated with dictators, ask people to consider how it would sound if people did the same with other words,, for example, "You say you believe in 'Justice'? No thanks! Vlad the Impaler tried 'justice', and the results were horrible." Remind people that "freedom" was a Nazi slogan. People have to be pressed to face this reasoning so they will no longer habitually judge something by its name. This isn't postponing the socialist education -- this is a vital_part_ of the education.

3. I do not suggest dropping the name socialism. If the ruling class's mass media can make a dirty word out of "social", which means human beings interacting, followed by "ism", which means "the way of...", then they will just as easily be able to make a dirty word out of any other term we might decide to use.

Besides, no one would be fooled for a minute if you use a different word. All you have to do is say something like "a democratic process at the workplace", etc., and conservatives will immediately respond, "Uggh! Marxism!" So you didn't make the lesson easier to swallow. All changing the name accomplishes it to dilute the educational value and keep yourself in continuous retreat.

[Lenin II]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 03:08 am
I'm talking specifically about America, I don't know if there is a similar situation in any other countries...

Most of the people I meet where I live will immediately associate Marxism/Socialism/Communism with extreme Stalinist authoritarianism. The people here are never taught to think anything differently about it.

I've been thinking a lot about the feasibility of any (significant) radical leftist movement in the US, and I think one of the biggest problems with gaining new members is the people who see the word "communism" or the hammer and sickle and immediately walk off.

What do you think is the best way of getting past this prejudice?
I think that associations are people's way of avoiding the consideration of other ways of thinking. It's like a circuit breaker that "cuts off" new flows of electricity into their brains. Take my brother for example. Though he leans to the left, he is still a capitalist liberal and is critical of communism. He maintains that Venezuela has a bad government (even though Chavez was democratically elected) because they censor free speech and he's shut down a few radio stations or whatever they're accusing him of this week.
This serves him well, because instead of considering Chavez's position, he can always have that one little fact to stop him from thinking about communist ideology. "OH! Wait, no need to think about that. He censors free speech. I dismiss his entire way of thinking!"

You can try to give them a line like that. Also keep a cool head. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I know it's incredibly hard, but try. Most people have never read Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Trotsky, etc. and have no idea about it. Reading these texts and being able to simply communicate the basic points contained within them is essential. Be sure to keep yourself educated above all.