or lenin or mao or etc

i’m curious. I don’t think I’m a marxist but I have been trying to read marxist theory and I got caught by my family and had a huge argument with everyone. it was really interesting because it seemed like we weren’t talking about the same thing at all. Things like everyone is paid the same or everything is made by the government etc, I know very little but I have asked and read the basics and I was able to point out that wasn’t true

i’m used to people being smug about things they know nothing about, but it’s interesting how they look down on communists, like looking at a silly child that doesn’t know anything - while not knowing anything about what communists said in the first place. I actually tried to pull out quotes from the book but they didn’t want me to, they actually refused to know what they hate, it’s strange. I mean, I do the same, I’ve never read fascist theory or ayn rand or stuff like that, so I can’t really blame them, but I don’t try to seriously argue with fascists and libertarians anyways

some of them have a lived experience in eastern europe or cuba or something so I can’t really argue against that, but when it’s just an argument I’ve never met someone extremely vehemently against communist thoughts who actually read any of what communists wrote

have you ever had like, a productive, genuine conversation with an anti-communist?

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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    42 years ago

    The only person I’ve ever met who was against communism but very well read on Marx was a very odd Swedish fascist I met online once. It was the strangest conversation. He actually had a good understanding of Capital and knew what a materialist conception of history looks like.

    Problem was he was also a bizarre contrarian Catholic fascist. He was against communism, but he did praise Marx’s scholarship a few times. He seemed to be some kind of professor or historian though, so this might be cheating. He had to understand Marxism probably because of his job, since I think his field was some kind of 20th century history or sociology or something.

    Weird guy, would have been a nice informed conversation if not for his rampant bigotry he didn’t conceal. I’d hope reeducation could fix people like him but I’m not holding my breath.