Hello comrades! I feel like I've come to a bit of a crossroads in my personal intellectual journey with communism and how I want to make my political mark on the world, so I thought I would share my story and ask for any advice on what to read next or critiques of my thought process and beliefs.So a little bit about my situation. I come from a petty-bourgeois family in the United States. My parents are liberal teachers who are relatively well off. I am white. I grew up in the suburbs and I'm a college student. So obviously I come from a position of privilege that I want to see destroyed. So my first forays into radical leftism started last year. Before that, I was what in the US we would call a democratic socialist (or a social democrat, they're pretty similar). Basically, I was pro human rights, pretty anti imperialist, pro choice, pro universal healthcare, education, housing, basic income, etc. I had no idea of the difference between communism and socialism or really anything about Marx besides that he critiqued capitalism and was pro labor. I was working on unlearning my inherent racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, etc, but not to the same extent that I am now.And then that all changed when I got sick for several months, had to leave school, and started reading to pass the time. I picked up the longest book on my parents' bookshelf I could find: Les Miserables. And obviously that's not some great work of revolutionary literature - Hugo was a bourgeois - but it is a good read, and it really got me thinking about how at least on an ethical level, Capitalism is pretty messed up and incompatible with freedom. So then I picked up the communist manifesto and the wealth of nations and I read through them to compare which one made more sense to me. And while the wealth of nations was obviously more liberal than I thought it was going to be, the manifesto was inspiring and intriguing, as I'm sure you all know. And so I picked up the Marx and Engels reader and took a turn with that. And as I did my research - the idea of the difference between personal and private property was the biggest misconception I had about communism - I decided that I was a communist.After that, I started looking into branches of Communism and found Marxist Leninism, Maoism, and Anarcho Communism obviously. Now at first, I thought I fell more in line with Ancoms but that was until I started researching the ideas behind Dialectical Materialism and Scientific Socialism. I was already a big fan of Hegel and his dialectical approach to history and I had no idea that Marx was so influenced by him. I was still skeptical of Marxist Leninism and Maoism because as a student of history, I knew that there was a lot of death going on in the USSR under Stalin and in the PRC under Mao. But then I did a bit more research into the nuances of those periods and the philosophies of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. The mass line is actually pretty cool huh. Though I have a better understanding of the purges and famines in the USSR and China, I still think its fair to say that those weren't exactly utopias and there were some times where I definitely wouldn't want to live there. But now I certainly appreciate what those countries did for homelessness, education, health care, nutrition, art, science, and industrialization a lot more. Plus soviet democracy, no one ever teaches you about that in school. From there, I've read Kapital, admittedly I've skimmed some of the bits that are specific to 19th century economics and industry, but I understand the concepts of exchange value, surplus value, MCM vs CMC, currency, how laborers are removed from the fruit of their labor by capitalists over time, etc.Now from all this, you might surmise, especially because its the majority ideology of this sub, that I would be a Marxist Leninist right? Not exactly. Right now I classify myself as a Libertarian Marxist. This is because I am still kinda split on the idea of a vanguard party or a single party state in the sense that all members of the government have to be members of the party. My issue with the vanguard party and I am very open to counter-arguments or evidence someone can provide me to the contrary, is that I don't think it can be held accountable by the entire proletariat. It may be a useful apparatus for revolution, but I think in the context of a socialist state it can give way to elitism and cults of personality that end up perpetuating proletariat oppression. So for example, soviet democracy worked by having local workers vote for party representatives but at the end of the day, if Stalin wanted something done, who was realistically going to stop him? Again, if anyone has any sources or instances where Stalin's authority was actually checked or where soviet citizens got to vote on policy, I'd like to see! :). That's actually why I really like the idea of the mass line so much because it allows the proletariat to have more insight into the central planning process. And as a brief disclaimer, I'm also not a council communist because I believe in the need for central planning but I think it needs to be more democratically controlled than just by select members of a single party. The other reason I don't identify as a Marxist Leninist is because ethically speaking, I don't believe in the prison system given the way they used it. I don't want to have to pretend that gulags were in any way humane, although they definitely weren't used as indiscriminately as western propaganda will have you believe. One of my other big ethical beliefs is that the state should never have a say in imprisoning people for free speech, culture, or religion, even if its counter revolutionary. And yes, I have read Popper and am aware of the paradox of tolerance. I believe that bigots and counter-revolutionaries should be held responsible for their speech, but that it should be done by citizens rather than with direct state action. The Uyghur situation is a good example of where I diverge from some posts on this sub, because I really don't think people should be forcibly re-educated by the state on the grounds of culture or religion.All this said, I am not trying to be sectarian with this post, because I still recognize that socialist states have historically been under overwhelming pressure by bourgeoise interference and counter-revolutionary efforts, and well, how do you expect a threatened state to react? I identify as a Libertarian Marxist because I think that when we have the chance, we should not resort to using authoritarian methods to maintain socialism. And again, I understand dialectical materialism, I know that Marxist Leninists aren't talking about ethics as much as they are talking about historical inevitabilities and contradictions. I just think that ethics should still play an important role in our revolutionary praxis. So yeah. If you have any critiques of my thought process so far, please let me know, although be respectful, because I am trying to keep developing my thought and discuss in good faith :). I really tried to follow rule 5 as much as possible in this post and I still respect all my Marxist Leninist homies! Any suggestions to more stuff I should read is also very welcome! I'm considering getting into Luxemburg but I'm also about to start State and Revolution. Thanks! via /r/communism https://ift.tt/3g4lV4E
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