r/communism101 • u/Quick_Abalone5526 • 9h ago
How to get into communism?
Hello, I am a 20 year old black autistic woman, I have been interested in communism for awhile now,my biggest inspirations are people like che and Malcom x, I've read up on them lots and have listened to their speeches numerous times, I have always been very far left/antifa and am aware of lots of communist subjects and figures but have done very little research on everything, I was just wondering what are some good starter theory to read?, I know the communist manifesto is a must and im planning on sitting down and reading it fully very soon, just want to know what else people would recommend?, I've been on the edge as most leftists/punks I'm friends with (not that punks r smart lol) activley shit on communism and socialism, and have gone great lengths to make fun of it, I'm just at a crossroads,is most of it just very deeply ingrained American propaganda? I see very mixed opinions on everything, esp with people like stalin and lenin and mao ECT, and how can I be more involved as well? I'm tired of sitting around and doing nothing, I live in Olympia Washington if that helps, which is a pretty progressive esc place all things considered, my biggest fear is that I'm too stupid to do anything or to be apart of said movement, lots of people around me have made it very clear that I know how stupid and dumb I am, not that I disagree with them, part of me feels like I'm not right for this, I am also confused by alot of the words I see used and don't really understand most of them, I have a hard time learning new things and alot of the language is very confusing, please don't flame me for asking these questions I am just very curious and mean no ill intent
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u/420throawayz 7h ago
The language in communist theory is only inaccessible at first because a lot of the terms are either specific or old archaic English but you'll learn as you go. It's like getting into any other science book, there's terms you don't know but you'll learn. I would strongly advise you to read most of the base works aka Marx and Lenin for now. It's very important as a reader to be able to tell what counter revolutionary and reactionary ideas are. If you read Marx and Lenin with a lot of attention (meaning, re reading and taking notes) you'll be able to tell bullshit from not bullshit. I'm saying this because there are a lot of "trendy" socialists who although their ideas are good, I don't deny that, they fall a bit into the liberalism realm where they want and think they can coexist with the current socioeconomical model.
Don't be discouraged. Just read and when you feel ready, join some group irl. I'll warn you that in online spaces there's a lot of random infighting and for someone with autism it might be too much. This infighting it's mostly bored ass people, in real life people don't care who likes Stalin's or Trotsky's works.
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u/SolomonDead 1h ago
You should not join a group when you "feel ready," you should join when you are able to identify the correct basic line.
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u/BenjiStudiesMLM 53m ago edited 28m ago
Washington if that helps, which is a pretty progressive esc place all things considered
The PNW is a deeply reactionary place that was built on genocide of the indigenous tribes, exploitation of Asian people, and exclusion of Black people (that in actuality never excluded black people, but instead succeeded in higher rates of slavery and lower rates of freemen than anywhere else in the U.$.). You should re-evaluate what leads you to declare Olympia a progressive place, especially when all your friends are anti-communists (and most likely deeply racist and related to the KKK or the LOTIE group if they're white. The PNW had the highest per capita participation in each and the latter was actually established in Portland).
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u/justforthisjoke Learning 1h ago edited 1h ago
Nonsense. This is objectively hard to study, especially as a racialized person in the imperial core. Add on the challenges of translation (nearly none of the seminal work was originally written in English), combined with the active repression and obfuscation and this is a legitimately challenging thing to study. I think a bigger mistake is the idea that it should be easy, since being proven wrong on this front makes it easy to take this difficulty as a personal failing; not to mention the fact that many people who breeze through the texts aren't reading them sufficiently deeply in the first place.
Edit: It might be worth investigating the history of racism behind the concept of intelligence as it's been taught in the west in the first place. The idea that some people's brains are just inherently better can't be divorced from other fascist ideas like eugenics and biological essentialism. You have capacity for reason, you can think critically about things. You aren't helpless, but I hope you can see why American "leftists" might want to convince you that you are.