It's nice reading perspectives like this from older comrades. Makes me feel less demoralised to think of how far we've come from those days. I grew up in the late 00s and remember them feeling very much as you describe. Being on the left was a really marginalised position and 99% of people I knew were totally disengaged but with the instincts of Clinton/Blair-style liberals. We are in a much better position now, even if part of that is that the world has become much more obviously fucked. There's a latent class consciousness developing across larges parts of society that if cultivated can help us create a better world
There's something the old people in my party love to say, it's like a paraphrased quote from Marx with their own added analysis I believe
"Historical progress is akin to the tides at the beach. When the tide rises it doesn't just all flow in in one go. It comes up slightly the first time then retreats - that was the Paris Commune which lasted just over 70 days before being drowned in blood and gunpowder. As the waters fell back everyone wondered if the tide was actually rising or if it was just an ephemeral wave.
Marx, Engels, and even Lenin thought that next swelling wouldn't happen in their lifetimes but regardless went to work building the movement in preparation for that moment it would be needed the most with the same fervor as Noah did as he built he Ark to survive the great floods that he knew were coming but knew not exactly the moment when.
The waters rose once again as is inevitable during the rising tide and we saw the Soviet Union come and went. That great experiment lasted for nearly 70 years. We went from 70 days to 70 years with each advance of the tide, and so we must wonder what will come with the next tide. That's no excuse to sit back and act like socialism will sprout up from the ground like the trees in a forest, Comrades! Just like Marx, Engels, and Lenin had done before during the periods of drought, we must do the same as them - and that is build the power of the Party into the General-Staff of the Working Class! That is to move our cadre among the working class, in the Unions, in the Trades, in the individual shops and workplaces! We have to work to organize the people as we've done in the past! We have so much work that needs to be done and as Lenin said, there will be weeks that feel like months much like how there will be months that feel like weeks."
It's nice reading perspectives like this from older comrades. Makes me feel less demoralised to think of how far we've come from those days. I grew up in the late 00s and remember them feeling very much as you describe. Being on the left was a really marginalised position and 99% of people I knew were totally disengaged but with the instincts of Clinton/Blair-style liberals. We are in a much better position now, even if part of that is that the world has become much more obviously fucked. There's a latent class consciousness developing across larges parts of society that if cultivated can help us create a better world
Remember that in 1915 Lenin said that a revolution would never happen in Russia during his lifetime. Be patient, be disciplined, get organized
We wil fail, horribly, terribly. Again and again and again. Until somehow we don't, and the world trembles.
There's something the old people in my party love to say, it's like a paraphrased quote from Marx with their own added analysis I believe
"Historical progress is akin to the tides at the beach. When the tide rises it doesn't just all flow in in one go. It comes up slightly the first time then retreats - that was the Paris Commune which lasted just over 70 days before being drowned in blood and gunpowder. As the waters fell back everyone wondered if the tide was actually rising or if it was just an ephemeral wave.
Marx, Engels, and even Lenin thought that next swelling wouldn't happen in their lifetimes but regardless went to work building the movement in preparation for that moment it would be needed the most with the same fervor as Noah did as he built he Ark to survive the great floods that he knew were coming but knew not exactly the moment when.
The waters rose once again as is inevitable during the rising tide and we saw the Soviet Union come and went. That great experiment lasted for nearly 70 years. We went from 70 days to 70 years with each advance of the tide, and so we must wonder what will come with the next tide. That's no excuse to sit back and act like socialism will sprout up from the ground like the trees in a forest, Comrades! Just like Marx, Engels, and Lenin had done before during the periods of drought, we must do the same as them - and that is build the power of the Party into the General-Staff of the Working Class! That is to move our cadre among the working class, in the Unions, in the Trades, in the individual shops and workplaces! We have to work to organize the people as we've done in the past! We have so much work that needs to be done and as Lenin said, there will be weeks that feel like months much like how there will be months that feel like weeks."