Everyone romanticizes the act of revolution as the short burst of violence, but that is only the climax of something much bigger. Of course it should be regarded as marvelous, even cathartic event, but it is only so because of everything behind it. Revolutions, like in films, build up to that climax, revolutions are hard work, work of years, even decades. You can't have a communist revolution without communists, and communists aren't born, they are "made". And this is the task of our generation I think.
Precisely, that is one of my main sources of despair on this regard, that we are much more alone than we think we are. As of now, I think that our task is, while defending the legacy of the enlightenment and the democratic standards that not even liberals will; to rebuild (or even plainly build) a new communist movement, spreading our ideas, becoming universal and rejecting cliquish individualism. People constantly attack Zizek but he is the prime example of what is to be done (no pun intended) to revitalize the left, because he alone has done lots of revitalizing, in some way it shows if one person alone (as an example, not excluding others) can bring left revolutionary politics the way he has, imagine what could we do if there was an entire leftist movement. Theorists and intellectuals are as important as fighters.
At the moment, only few individuals have the capacity to work on this. It won't be a surprise if the great majority of the present Left will be excluded from this revived Communist movement, simply because they have been our enemies all the time.
Today, it's totally meaningless to refer to oneself as a Communist, any idiot who is full of shit can do this. Why is that? To cut a long story short, Marxism lost its radical nature: Due to various ideological/intellectual developments, Marxist theory became susceptible to crass misinterpretations and vulgarizations. That is to say - in simplified terms -, it is largely understood superficially but not "spiritually". This is basically why you have long-time Marxists maundering on about economic processes in difficult language who - at the same time - argue that humanity is still not "ready" for Communism, yet. What is lacking is a profound rediscovery of Marxism, a kind of "neo-Leninism", if you will, in relation to present intellectual controversies, including and especially those which are unique to our historical context.
I cannot disagree with your observation regarding the "Left's demographic". Being an active Facebook member myself, I regularly talk with and listen to self-proclaimed Communists on the internet, and I can only say that we would be fucking lost, if this was the radical Left that'll be our inevitable future. I think it's not even controversial to point out that the present radical Left finds itself in a deep ideological crisis - ironically, even those contemporary "radical Leftists" themselves consider this to be a fact. Anyway, just because they identify as Communists, one should not think of it as though they share the same practical inclination as genuine Communists, i.e. "They would be my comrades and appreciate my support, if it weren't for..." etc. The fact of the matter is that their reactionary politics aren't just incidental to their identity - in fact, it's the other way around, it is their identity, which exists at the expense of their reactionary positions.
I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I'm very busy at the moment and decided to eschew RevLeft for a little while. I still feel obliged to respond to the recent posts in the Sanders thread but haven't even begun to do so, yet. However, I will try to find the time to engage in your discussion. It's Oskar Schindler. There is no meaning behind it or a "connection" of a sort, I just watched the movie right before I created this account.
Hi, just wanted to drop by and thank you for you insightful posts. Could you drop by the Left demographics thread? I'm interested on what's your opinion on the situation. Who's the man on your avatar by the way?
