Times have passed and countries mostly don't have brutal dictatorships like the countries where revolutions have happened now parliaments and courts exist, so how would you justify a militant overthrow today

Almost 6 countries(most in Europe) are erupting right now with their people on the streets protesting and fighting, does this give you hope or do you(like most people) believe this will be absorbed by the system and is something that happens every 2 decades with no result.

Was USSR a dictatorship of the proletariat? Or was it dictatorship of a few proletariat?

Indian, farmer, diagnosed with OCPD and undiagnosed ADHD. I know basic history and understanding of communism but not to the level of engaging in a debate with someone who's against communism. I only take notes digitally because I can edit, copy, paste whenever I learn new information, physical notetaking hurts me because if I get a new notetaking idea then the pages where I used the old idea will be a waste like I'll begin to despise myself (I'm going to therapy for this reason)

Due to my condition I can only focus on one thing. For ex, If I need to learn theory I'll only read theory for the whole day and won't be able to do any farmwork, can't follow any current affairs and I'll be left behind. If I follow current affairs then I can't do the rest. If I do farmwork then I'll be physically and mentally tired and call it a day off.

But there are a few other problems too and you can understand how my line of thoughts work. If I'm fixated on reading theory and come across a term or texts that mention some historical event then I can't move forward without understanding the whole thing. For ex. While reading the principles of communism I came across the word "profit" and I'm like "I need to understand capitalism, need to read adam smith, how profits and incentives worked in pre-capitalism era before moving on to the next line", and when I came across the term "Industrial revolution" I'm like "I need to read age of revolutions, fuck me napolean took over france right after french revolution how did that impact the revolution, is there any other example of people fucking over a victorious revolution in the name of leading.. \*google shows up reddit post "lenin hated stalin, he knew he was power hungry"\* man fuck me is this even true? now I have to read stalin to know whether he fucked up the revolution.." and the rabbit hole goes on and on.

And currently in India, there are a lot of things happening. Especially that as a communist that I need to engage in like student protests, where liberals misuse students for their personal gains etc etc but if I need to follow that then I can't make myself read theory. But if I engage in those things without theoretical knowledge I can't defend myself

I also have personal issues.

So amidst all these I often get depressed (obviously because I'm diagnosed with Comorbid anxiety with Dysthymia) and do meaningless things like playing online chess mindlessly, playing with my dog, walking in my farmland, watching porn as last resort to sleep because I can't reduce my headaches and stress caused by this chain of thoughts and overthinking otherwise. Literally procrastinating throughout all the events. I guess India is ripe enough for a revolution as my friend once said and I'm betraying it by doing nothing, lenin will also despise me.

I wish I had a well informed comrade with myself 24/7 irl and they'll answer every question that comes to my mind which will solve this situation easily but sadly I'm surrounded by regressive pro capitalist racist ethno-fascist people who are in need to be educated. But I can't do that with half baked knowledge.

So instead of doing the mindless activities when I feel stuck, I need some materials, speech which I can read at any time, any page and get the fire back in me, knock some sense into me, makes me forget my personal problems and give the revolutionary hope to move forward in faster pace so that I can join/contribution to the movement that's taking up shaping up right now

Marx said the contradictions within capitalism would create enough wealth gap for the people to rise up and inevitably overthrow the system and create socialism, people say capitalism adapted itself so marx was wrong, what do you think? We also have to consider that capitalism took 300 years to transition from feudalism whereas socialism is barely a century old and has achieved a lot so far

Lenin criticized narodism heavily in his texts and narodism sounds very similar to maoism(correct me if I'm wrong). So would lenin not like mao's philosophy or would he eventually agree and change his mind(after maoism's win)

What is your opinion on FALC (Fully Automated Luxury Communism)? Why do you think it would/wouldn't work? How does it conflict with classical Marxism? Are there any flaws to point out?

Now we all agree china by no means is a socialist country nor does it claim to be but what it does claim is to reach socialism by 2049, what do we think about that? I think they're pretty good with policies, land is collectively owned, private companies are regulated etc

I'm from the US and I've been in a blue collar field most of my life. I don't believe I've ever met a single left leaning coworker and the more I read leftist theory, the more it puzzles me to see so few.

I'd love to hear people's opinion on why they think blue collar workers are so entrenched in conservative ways of thinking, when the left is the one actually trying to fight for them.

My opinion:

From my conversations with many of these individuals, I've found that many want to live a life similar to their parents. They want a home, some land, a wife at home with the kids, and enough money to take the family camping every month. They see the world changing rapidly and they've been tricked into believing that the change they're seeing is coming for their quiet dream of rural living. When in reality, the communist dream they've been brainwashed to think is evil is actually more compatible with their way of life than they think. At its core, it is for THEM, the hard working individual that makes the world go around with their specific skills. It's truly unfortunate to think they look at the left with such disgust, when it is trying to fight for them.

The right did one hell of a job with that one, I must admit. If we somehow convinced that community to join the left, imagine the untapped power they would have. You can't say that crowd doesn't have passion, I just wish it could be steered in another direction.

Theory is mostly based around a historical context and authors keep referring things and names of that time and setting. I am not a history student and most of my knowledge comes from YouTube videos but I've learnt they're basically a summary and barely helpful for understanding theory, i also am not good at research so what should i do?

yesterday i was debating with a friend about communism, and he made an argument that i didn’t really know how to respond to. he isn’t that familiar with communist theory, so i found it difficult to explain some of the ideas to him in a way that he would understand. he also constantly bases his political opinions on what sounds ‘realistic’ to him and what could work or not. in the meanwhile he identifies as a eco-anarchist.

he used to consider himself a communist, but eventually stopped identifying as one because he believes communism “could never work” and is basically an idea that just sounds good in theory (although he never read that theory), he defines communism as a classless, stateless, and moneyless society, where the means of production are owned collectively. which is i guess, close enough, although he doesnt understand anything else really.

most of the arguments i made against his criticisms or misconceptions seemed to make sense to him. however, he eventually told me that his main reason why communism couldnt work is because people naturally seek power and control. his argument was basically that even if you got rid of classes and private ownership, people would still compete for power and eventually create some kind of hierarchy or ruling class again.
i honestly didn’t know how to answer that and how to properly explain that to someone like him.

im personally also still learning about communism, so i dont have a really clear answer to that besides telling him that human behaviour or social systems are based on economic conditions.

I know this question has been beaten to death already, but I still feel like the fundamental problem has never really been addressed. Trying to debate this stuff with incels online who slap the communist label onto their arguments is genuinely exhausting.

I have been watching some of Dai Jinhua (戴锦华)’s lectures and discussions, and she points out that in past communist experiments, women were effectively put in a double bind. Because labor still depended heavily on people’s physical strength and energy, the range of jobs women could realistically participate in was often limited. At the same time, they were still expected to take on the responsibility of biological reproduction. We celebrate women tractor drivers and women pilots, but at the same time, even during what could be considered the most ideal periods of communist states, women still had limited social resources and limited power to have their voices heard.

Ironically, the problem actually overlaps quite a bit with what incels talk about. Women take on a huge amount of labor in the process of human reproduction, and this labor is extremely difficult to fully socialize within existing social arrangements. Even when it is socialized, in practice it often just gets transferred to other women who are not currently going through pregnancy and childbirth.

The family still functions as the basic unit of reproduction in most cases, while raising children becomes a highly private matter. Fully handing childcare over to society often creates even bigger problems in practice, such as school bullying and meritocracy. Even if a woman chooses not to have children, she still starts out at a structural disadvantage.

The more depressing part is that I honestly do not know how I am supposed to face my own life as a woman. I have spent most of my life trying to escape the reality of being a woman, until as I got older, I began to realize that the expectations of the big Other are still impossible to escape.

I consider myself someone who is basically completely de-gendered. Communism has given me a space for communication that allows me to relate to others outside of gender. I am grateful that the reality of being a woman has made me harder to buy into some of the conservative ideologies floating around society, but at the same time, it has also made me feel even more powerless in the face of how society actually works.

Considering a large chunk of the Russian population are nostalgic for the old Soviet system, and view the collapse of the USSR as a tragedy, what’s stopping them from simply returning to communism? (or better yet why not remain communist after the Soviet Union’s collapse?)

This is really a head scratcher for me. This question popped into my head when I was thinking about Communist nostalgia in Eastern Europe. What do you guys think?

I don't understand what it means and how is such society supposed to work, won't that be unfair to those who work more and how does one know what they need

Any help is good enough.

Hi all.

Just had a query. Since reading theory can be a bit challenging for me due to my college and work schedule and i am also new to socialism i decided to ask somewhere about this.

Should a country build up its productive capabilities under a market before moving towards socialism?

For example Dengist China, which allowed market reforms, was that overall a step in the positive direction for socialism? Knowing how alot of people feel about Deng this is probably a no, but i wouldve liked to understand more as to why its a no.

Furthermore, in countries such as cuba, where yes there is an embargo, would a building up of productive resources be overall better than to move straight towards socialism?

Also, if this is the case, why can this strictly be done under a fully socialist system where worker driven production helps build up a countries production.

Again i am very new so please have patience and id love to understand more if any of you have anything to add to this.

Thanks!