you actually have to "go outside" and "build some communism" to learn how to be a communist. not all knowledge comes from books and articles, and you can learn a lot from IRL organising

Important knowledge you'll never find in books!

I literally did this and the answers for people are depression, the sheer suppression that the US specifically does to orgs, burnout caused by school and work, Covid, and overworking. Telling people to go organize seems… well it’s good, but until we start posting resources that can help with one or all of those issues, very few people will actually do it

we have this conversation every week tbh but you're right

well you wouldn't be the first cringe person to join an org, not by a long shot

Careful... It's darker than your think out there. You need to be ready for real war.

marble countertop gang is encouraging people to be "normal" again.

I hate it.

it's the sex pest problem, unfortunately. a lot of the women I know in local organizing circles - including myself - have been SAed by other organizers (usually dudes). I don't personally have a problem with dating in organizing circles but I know others do.

dating within an org is only a problem when more influential members date less influential members, the representative of a local chapter probably shouldn't start dating one of their members, it creates an imbalance of power, this isn't limited to socialist orgs though, it applies to any organisational structure.

the sex cult pattern isn't just a rare occurance unfortunately. it's practically inevitable in any organization which 1) asks that its members become deeply emotionally invested, 2) places emphasis on stability, unity, and not rocking the boat, and 3) concentrates real power in the hands of those few with the most time, energy, and charisma. Mainstream political parties notably give salaries to the people who keep the party actually running. This allows individual members to subsist on more than the good feelings they get from seeing their friends at meetings, as well staves off the fear that the entire organization might collapse if an abuser is challenged.

Yeah, it’s a huge problem just dealing with the widespread alienation we experience and the mental health problems it creates or makes worse. Trying to bridge that gap could do a massive amount of good.

Each orgs chapter has an average of like 20 active people, that's why it always devolves into a sex cult in the US

The Chilean socialist movement that brought Allende to power worked because they had Party offices in the community where members of the community could go and socialize as well as learn! There are lots of stories of people who met their first dates at the party community centers, and so the social pressure forced people to become more based to fit in.

How many comrades of the past met each other through the Soviet Party or the Communist Party of China or in Cuba or Vietnam? Probably millions.

I would not be so sure. From what I have read party members in the Indochinese/Vietnamese Communist Party explicitly described themselves as having a sibling-like relationship with each other and sleeping around in the party would cause scandal. At least one man was executed by other party members when a woman comrade reported him, though there might have been some SA behavior going on in that case. I'm pretty sure that the CPC was similar in that regard too. I also believe Trotsky had somewhat of a "reputation" within the Bolsheviks for that sort of thing, which seems to indicate it wasn't that common there either (or that could have just been made up one of his many haters).

Not saying it never happened in history but ultimately people should be there to work and it's the same problems with dating at work, and those problems multiply when you're trying to run the party as an honest to marx people's liberation army. It did seem more acceptable later when those parties transformed into government bureaucracy though.

I have a long comment history of ripping into Evangelical Christianity. Sometimes I feel like I rail against it more than anyone on this site. I have a million issues with American Christianity that still get me angry when I think about them even though I left the religion almost a decade ago.

BUT… when I think about the time I spent with various young adult church groups or Bible studies, I still have a lot of fond memories. Or even going further back to when I was a kid, my small little church had a pretty healthy social life that I do think made a positive impact in my life. Churches understand that and they’re pretty good at it. All that social stuff you mentioned really does matter. We are so alienated and disconnected from each other. To be able to offer a salve for that I think will help draw people to the org as well as help meet those social needs we all have.

This seems absurdly dishonest wth

Figure out the communist and communist-aligned groups in your area, get on their mailing lists, turn out to do the things they ask of you sometimes. Try to make a compromise between good politics, successfully doing things in the real world, and being a larger org. Find out which orgs meet those criteria by going to their things. Once you're sure which org(s) are good, ask them how you can get more involved.

You know, finding an organization and becoming a member of it. Attending meetings. Paying dues. That sort of thing.

An org is just a group of people that do work together and have a name. It might be a political party, it might be a group focused on a specific thing that approaches it from a socialist perspective, it might just be four people trying to figure out what they want to do but they know it should be socialist.

You join one by talking to people and asking them if you can join.

Joining a political organization that fights for better rights. In this context, a socialist org/party working towards building a socialist nation

An example would be joining the IWW. You pay dues, show up to meeting, talk about politics with people, and try to organize your workplace or help other people organize theirs.

A bunch of other orgs are basically like that, except instead of workplace organizing it might be electioneering or selling newspapers.

Sucks living here 'cause all the bourgeois freaks from Ottawa are spilling out here to get the cheaper real estate while bringing their equally awful shitlib politics. So it's them and freakish Canadian QAnoner types.

Those trying to build up the socialist movement early on were all heavy readers though. They need to be. Most of us live in a country where the movement is in the infantile stages

If a revolution does ever come to America, 99% of participants will have never read a single communist book, yea

Back then, it would've been, like, the one guy at the factory who knows how to read, reading things to fellow workers, right? So reading theory would've been to a large degree a social activity back then, whereas now it's often a pretty lonely activity. Even if you aren't just reading alone, but are doing a book club or something... a book club isn't quite the same when it's 12 people from around the world on Discord, compared to when it's 12 people in the room with you. And even if you're going through the effort of making the information you learn more accessible to others, making an audiobook for the consumption of countless anonymous people online isn't quite the same as reading something to someone in person; nor is translating a work and publishing it online quite the same as actually going through the effort of making a translation in paper and giving it to someone.

Basically what I'm getting at is that "theory" can and should be praxis in itself, and this is achieved by changing the ways we interact with and think of "theory". That is, sharing information can itself be a productive, creative, and social activity grounded in our immediate surroundings, that builds the networks and skills to make us good revolutionaries, rather than just giving us explanations of why the world's kinda messed up so that we can debate with internet strangers to prove who's more well-read.

Just because people were illiterate or had low literacy levels doesn't mean they didn't engage in theory though. This is also why vanguardism was so important to historical revolutions.

But you only need one comrade who can read for a classroom sized group of people (or larger) to be able to learn and discuss theory.

Part of what Mao did so successfully was to convey complex ideas in theory in very simple to understand language. In fact, he was so effective in doing this that most of his writings manage to cross a vast linguistic gap in a very nimble way.

Theory isn't the be-all and end-all, of course. But a party or the masses without theory is like a ship without a rudder.

We should honestly have dedicated disabled socialist orgs. I've gone back and forth on this idea a few times but the thing that's hung me up on pursuing it is the fact that participation in any org no matter to what degree is very likely something the tories here would use to say you're capable of working and therefore should lose benefits.

There's a lady who shows up at Palestine protests here who has the palestine flag attached to her wheelchair. You do what you can. From each according to their ability and all.

Spiritually, disabled people can usually go outside/build communism. "Go outside" is really about logging off from your internet patterns and trying to have human interactions, which you can do from home in case a disability makes literally going outside uncomfortable or impossible.

Of course, with generalizations we should also understand that there will be exceptions but that naming them right away would prevent the call to action from being pithy. So if a person's disability precludes building socialism, I'm sure OP and others would understand.

Though I would say that there are many ways to build socialism, so even someone that thinks they can't might just be unaware of ways they could help out.

What about disabled people?

What about them?

Yes, but it'll be revisionist.

Alienate your existing social circles and strangers with this one easy step!

I know I definitely could have handled it better, but coming out as Giving A Fuck Enough To Actually Do Stuff really fucked my social life up. People who would rather bitch from a place of comfort than make a difference even if it's uncomfortable seem to really not love it when you decide to stop bitching and do stuff.

How are we going to get the pastors and their brainwashed masses on our side then?

Chaz failed because it was a spontaneous uprising that devolved into a disorganised mess due to ideological incoherence which led to it having no proper resident organisational structure and thus no authority to administer or govern the pop up municipality without being capable of demonstrating a popular mandate of the residents. Not because autonomous zones are a bad idea.

If the ideological contradictions had been resolved then proper organisation could have occurred, a council could have been formed of the residents, and a real structure of authority built. This would have solved the vast number of problems that occurred as a result of the authority power-vacuum that formed.