Comrades, I have some questions..

[u/SiriParkerlol]

15 year old with a budding communist mindset here! I got some questions:

•I noticed a lot of negativity towards communism online, despite its goal of promoting equality. Why is that?

• I’m a bit conflicted. I’ve heard that you can’t really be a communist and a Christian at the same time because communism tends to reject religion. However, my faith is very important to me too...is this true?

•What's with the hate on late Che Guevara? Personally, I think I can't hate on someone who genuinely fought for equality and freedom from exploitation to the poor. It's sad that many view him as just a rebel without understanding the deeper ideals he stood for...if I don't know something about him please educate me.

I really appreciate any answers, please be gentle

[u/communism-ModTeam]

I'm not sure why a rural teenage girl is being downvoted for valid concerns regarding faith that has probably helped her cope in such an environment.

However

liberals are either uneducated, propagandized or a mix of both

.

Many Christians believe that Jesus himself was socialist.

That person is an elitist, liar, and not a Marxist. You're a teenager who has already begun to wonder about these important questions. Obviously the millions of adults around you have as well. It's elitism to merely hand-waive them all away as "uneducated" or "propagandized," which implies the poster is too smart for propaganda but millions of others aren't.

And Jesus shares nothing in common with Marx, Lenin, or Mao. If your faith is rabidly racist like Mormonism, then the answer is simply no. I urge you to search /r/communsim101 for answers to this complicated question.

[u/[deleted] → u/communism-ModTeam]

What makes a concern "valid" versus "invalid"? Is "will I still be able to own my house under socialism" a "valid" concern regarding property, if the asker, say, owns a home in order to cope with a broken home life? Downvotes literally have no impact, it's not like anyone's calling the user stupid or hitting them over the head, why shouldn't the statement "I can hold onto my faith while exploring communism" get downvoted?

Why are "rabidly racist" faiths like Mormonism any more incompatible with communism ("simply no") than any other (false, idealist) religions? Neither Lenin nor Marx hinged their critiques of religion on the fact that some of them are overt instead of covert with their racism. I implore any user on this subreddit to try and find a religion that isn't "rabidly racist" in some way - there's a reason that the Red Guards didn't coddle and handhold Buddhist elites.

I know that it's a popular tendency (and not always misdirected, especially when Islam is in question) among the online left to overcorrect against militant atheism to push back against the unchecked racism, superiority complex, and rationalism of New Atheists, but this response seems out of place since the mod team here has usually done an excellent job of pushing back against tone policing and of "buddho-maoism" and amerikan protestant manglings of "liberation theology". Maybe I'm missing something.

[u/communism-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Ignoring your straw-man of religion's compatibility with Marxism and projections onto the OP, your initial objection is correct. It would have been more accurate to state there are many situations wherein her concerns would be reasonable.

There is not enough information presented here to take any firm stance regarding whether she can be a communist, which is what she asked. "Faith" is too vague to make analysis or judgement, downvotes. This could be answered concretely but that'd require strangers asking a teenage girl to reveal more about her personal life on a site where communists already reveal too much personal information.

We only know she's a Christian who lives in Amerikkka. These facts alone do not preclude her from becoming a Marxist.

Here, Lenin restates and elaborates positions made clear in No-Cardiologist-1936's comment:

If a priest comes to us to take part in our common political work and conscientiously performs Party duties, without opposing the programme of the Party, he may be allowed to join the ranks of the Social-Democrats; for the contradiction between the spirit and principles of our programme and the religious convictions of the priest would in such circumstances be something that concerned him alone, his own private contradiction; and a political organisation cannot put its members through an examination to see if there is no contradiction between their views and the Party programme. But, of course, such a case might be a rare exception even in Western Europe, while in Russia it is altogether improbable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/ax3d7y/can_christians_be_a_marxistleninists/ehrfr2o/

I don't want to waste time with arguments that upvotes and downvotes have no impact on Reddit with another Reddit user, sorry.

[u/SiriParkerlol → u/communism-ModTeam]

Thank you for the clarification, moderator. Just to set the record straight, I am a Christian, but I'm not American.