When did you discover leftism?

On the 7th grade our history teacher told us about Karl Marx and socialism and I was amazed by the fact that there are rightseous peope and allways have been. People here are very narrow minden about socialism and true equality.

I started reading about the reds in the finnish civil war and took a historical perspective on socialism. Then i called myself a socialist. After that i called myself a communist. I had friends that were "anarchists". I didin't know what it really meant to be an anarchist so i decided to find out. Since then (and allways) i have been a LIBERTARIAN socialist, anarchist, communist, syndicalist, feminist you name it. It feels good to be a commie.

Around grade 10 (age 15ish) I knew I was a leftie, then I read up on stuff and got my commie wings around grade 11-12 (age 17ish)

I have always been left as far as I can remember myself having any interest in politics. My mother never told me her religious or political views with a label or in depth, so it is a surpirse I find myself a leftist and not Mormon conservative (I previously was Mormon). I read the Communist Manifesto a few months ago, and here I am. I went from liberal to anarcho-communist on my own accord and I must say ... it's been an interesting journey.

during the election in 2008, i was a huge ralph nader supporter, and when obama won (not that i had any belief that ralph nader would WIN an election), i realized how representative democracy had failed the country. so i began promoting direct democracy, and looking further into communism than 1984.

I just learned about communism about 4-5 months before my freshman year of high school was over. I was just into learning about jusat some general ideas and I am still mostly learning and i am about a month into sophomore year

I just learned about communism about 4-5 months before my freshman year of high school was over. I was just into learning about jusat some general ideas and I am still mostly learning and i am about a month into sophomore year

Believe me, you've got a lot more to learn. The forum is a good start though.

yeah I still have not found my place (ism) yet but i am pretty sure that i am a communist

I would also buy books too but my parents are heavily anti communist, socialist, etc... they know i am left wing but they do not know how far i have gone. I can't even tell my friends, this is what they said one time, "the only good communist, is a dead communist."

well, my parents were communists. they didn't indoctrinate me or anything- they never really talked about politics. However, by the time I was 11 I was getting pissed off by the fact that I had to share my room with two sisters who themselves had to share a bed themselves. So, I saw someone discuss "socialism" on the news with a socialist, and (because my parents were leftists), I had access to books that they had about socialism. i started off with 'an introduction to socialism", and is escalated so by the time I was 13 I had started reading Marx, and now (i'm 15) I'm a marxist-leninist.

9th grade (age 14...) I developed this fascination with communism.... I really liked the ideas but I still considered myself a social democrat (from parents).... I didn't believe it could work, but I always defended leftist ideas from misconceptions in arguments, and I hated capitalism..... So everyone already thought I was a communist anyways, even though I would deny it constantly. Then when I started lurking on revleft I got convinced and accepted it. (I'm now 15 )

Last year, in the 10th grade. Before that I was pretty apathetic/apolitical. It began when we started studying the history of revolutionary/labor movements and the USSR in my world history class. I then became more curious about the communist philosophy itself so I started researching communism and then read the Communist Manifesto and discovered that I agreed with leftism and so here I am.

I love the band Rage against the machine but never knew what there talking about! But when i hear them say " what! the land of the free, Let me tell you that's your enemy!" from the song Know Your Enemy.. I just had to know what they were talking about and then I got really interested and involved!

After some run-ins with the police in the 9th grade I had a very anti-police mindset, I became somewhat reformist. In the 11th grade, I took a curious visit to an occupy camp, this is where I was introduced to revolutionary(primarily communist) thought, but after quite a bit of reading and talking to some local leftists I found myself leaning more towards anarchism. By the time I graduated high school I was an anarchist.

I started calling myself liberal ever since i got into paganism and alt. religion. Now in 7th grade i dropped the superstition realizing that god doesnt exist. Out of curiosity I researched leftist ideas soon after (recent 3 or 4 months) I identified as communist. Now in between debating religion, politics, and the stupidity of teabaggers I educate my family on truth of marx.

9th grade. I started watching the video's of Libertarian Socialist Rants, and things developed from there.

For me, I owe my introduction into Leftist ideology to my father who is a social-democrat. But up until a year ago I didn't really care about politics too much.

But then my family decided to invest in having cable and internet privileges, and I became more exposed to the world around me. Politically, I really began to really agree with the views of a Democratic Socialist Senator from Vermont: Bernie Sanders, and thanks to the spark that Mr. Sanders set off, over the past year I've really developed a passion for learning everything I can about Socialism and understanding the major flaws of Capitalism.

A year an a half ago, I was your average American teenager with the usual "liek americaz ist da best countwy in da world" reactionary attitude who only gave a shit about Chuck Norris. It all started on that one day when I thought it would be amusing if I searched "Soviet National Anthem" on Youtube. Now, after 16 months and a lot of detoxifying/removal of the damage that was done to my malleable brain, I identify as a non-doctrinaire communist.

I was about 15, and I had a "redpill" moment. Still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of literature and ideas to absorb but I'm getting there, albeit at a slightly slower pace..

I first learned, technically speaking, early on as my father is an Ex-Soviet former Combat Engineer and my mother was an East German secretary. I got more interested with Red Alert 2 as I loved the Soviet faction with it's Apocalypse Tanks, Dreadnoughts, and Kirovs from an early age (also the fact that the Soviets represented my Dad's country helped, whereas Germany got all of one tank destroyer in the game) and played the shit out of that. As I grew older I did more research on the Soviet Union and while I found it wasn't the doomtank producing land of tesla coils I thought it was, it had an underlying ideology that just spoke to me.

As I grew older still I consumed more and more information in my quest for knowledge and decided that leftism is something that became part of my identity, as well as a high value for creativity and science. I'm fourteen now, still slow on the puberty thing but I believe that I have made the right choice in deciding to go over to the left. I will admit, that being raised in a leftist household likely also had an influence on my decision.

I'm a ninth grader and I like Anarchism and my buddy is a classic Bolshevik. We get along well. I'm also an atheist.

I was very late in discovering politics of any kind, until I finally became a liberal at 12 and a Social Democrat at thirteen. It was only about seven months ago when I became captivated by the Radical Left, after reading The Communist Manifesto. First, I identified with Trotskyism, but then I read Peter Kropotkin, and Emma Goldman, and got interested in Anarchism. Learning about Makhno's Free Territory of Ukraine was what sealed the deal for me, and made me decide to become an Anarcho-Communist.

I was introduced to Communism at a very young age by my grandfather, at 8 years old. However I became a liberal and even flirted with right-libertarian leanings for a very long time. Around the ages of 13-14, that was when I was a TYT watching liberal. However eventually I listened to the communist manifesto at around 14 and haven't left it since.