You don't need to go shouting it, but if someone starts talking politics at you, fucking own it. Some coworker is like "trump sucks", say "yeah I know, I'm a communist". Your grandpa says "trump rules", say "no he sucks ass, I'm a communist". You're on a date and they ask who you're voting for? Say "I'm a communist". Cashier asks would you like change? "Yes, I am a communist".
Be open about your politics and lay claim to the title. Be a communist.
I've done this, but when I end up getting into debates about it with lib friends, I find myself flat-footed because I usually end up either having to explain in detail how my ideal society would work or to argue about history that I typically don't know all that well (which of course tends to bring in lots of Western anti-communist propaganda, and without a strong grounding in the details of the history I can't easily push back on it). So my goal is to get better-versed in theory and history so I can actually defend my views adequately.
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Why do they get to the be the ones shocked and appalled? They definitely know less than you and have much poorer political literacy. They react to your ideology in disgust instead of comfortably engaging with it only because their worldview is sanctioned and yours is demonized. Ignore this and then you are on equal footing; don't start from a position of the defensive outcast.
If it is a very negative reaction ask them why they don't like communism. "What do you think communism is? What does a communist believe?" Americans are really well programmed with thought-stopping ideas about communism e.g. "everyone the same" but they often lack even an rudimentary definition of it, so asking this can prompt original thinking. Or, ideally, ask them what they believe, how they think we should design society. Most won't have any sort of coherent answer to big picture questions, so you can ask about their current political concerns. This lets you know what they care about. Agree with them, amplify, explain how capitalism shits on these values and how your reorganization of society would help.
This is all around great advice. If someone reacts with shock, disgust, or scorn, always ask them pointed questions to get a grasp on what they think words mean. Then it puts the ball back in your court where you can correct their definitions, and show that your definition is not worthy of their reaction.
Perfectly said. Asking about their ideals gives you hints on how to frame your own views to them. Rule number one should always be to find out what a person values. It should be your first goal. Once you have that, you just have to work to dislodge capitalism (and it's ideologies) from being the closest system to satisfying those ideals.
This should also be done with questions. You can dismantle someone's views by forcing them to rectify them with ideas & ideals they value more. They want to justify their beliefs, give them a challenging enough question or paradox, and they'll bend over backwards trying to mend two incompatible things, and destroy their confidence in that belief in the process.
Ex: Freedom
If someone highly values individual freedom, ask how a few people dictating what happens where people spend 8 hours a day than the people who work there making decisions together. Ask how the "freedom" to not have your Facebook posts removed is more freedom than having the financial stability to choose where you actually want to live or visit. Are you more free buying a car, spending money on fueling/maintaining it only to be stuck in traffic for hours a day or having a tiny fraction of that money withheld to build a rail system where you have another 90 minutes every day to do what you want with?
Always ask questions, express sentiment that you value their thoughts and input, and always pepper in lil "hmmm I've never thought about X from that perspective" type statements.
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You must always choose between subtle listening and agitation and outright embracing communism.
Once you're openly a commie, closed-minded people will shut their ears, and you lose the benefit of the doubt with intentionality when listening to someone's concerns.
Choose based on the circumstances and your own rhetorical strengths.
Many people are very intrigued by the open embrace of communism. These are my favorite targets because I can be more authentic. Plus, they're usually more willing to entertain theoretical talk. I find it easier to destroy belief in an overarching, abstract system (capitalism) than a bunch of smaller issues then have to connect them.
But understand that people do talk, so don't necessarily out yourself in an environment where listening and agitation would be more suitable.
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Well, I don't really see these people too often these days, so I'm not really going for conversion. Plus, the conversation starts with them seeking to understand my views, and typically becomes a debate when they take issue with something I say. When I'm going for conversion I typically don't come right out and say I'm a communist; instead I just make individual points about how capitalism is fucked up and let things evolve from there (this worked on at least one co-worker).
meeting them at their beliefs is absolutely the way to go. If you start off with "im communist" you're immediately on the defensive footing, having to defend your position while they mouth off over a century of propaganda. If you're new to talking about that stuff that might be fun, but after hearing "muh animal farm," "human nature," and "100 gorillion dead" you get really fucking tired of debunking it. If you engage them with the things they believe in, and then bring them out to their logical conclusions, you will have MUCH more success.
Radicalizing people isn't immediate, but you're most successful when you explain how the issues people care about all end up pointing back to the failures of capitalism. It's not a one time thing either. When people ask about what you believe in, be open about it. When they ask good faith questions, answer them to the best of your ability. It's ok to say that you don't know - but then you should go find out and learn so that you get a better understanding, and are able to explain it the next time you see that question.
Most people can sense something is wrong with the way the world is. The only answers to why are given by communism and fascism, and one is obviously superior to the other.
However, If someone is engaging in bad faith argument and just trying to waste your time, or trying to say that you're a communist so they can go "muh look at crazy commie!!!!", then just send them pig poop balls and dunk on them until you're bored or they go away.
A lot like this society but politicians actually do what people want because they're accountable to worker councils and I don't spend 8 hours a day living in a dictatorship.
Out of character -- I don't recommend going into detail about utopian communism. Talk about the society you'll actually live in, not the utopian ideal we seek to achieve. We'll be gone before communism is actually achieved, we should talk about the real society that people will live under, the practical future.
Don't argue with people about history. Ask them about their lives, find the things that are fucked in their life and relate it to how the rich are stealing from them. Don't try to sell them communism itself as you'll hit a brick wall, agitate around the exploitation in their lives, find things to empaphise with them on, find the broken things in their world and agree with them how messed up those things are. Relate those broken things to the enemy. Talk about workers and how they're a worker and how you're both the same, build class consciousness.
Some people respond well to theoretical arguments. Others definitely do not. Actual ancaps (as rare as they are these days) are the types that will respond well to the former.
Unless you're dealing with a Sanders stan, never focus on completely rewriting the system. Avoid revolutionary terms at all cost, especially for anyone older than like 30ish, as they'll want to avoid disrupting what little stability they've already achieved.
Most of the main ideas of a socialist economy can be accomplished with seemingly minor classification changes (with obviously huge implications). You can present this framework as a series of "shortest-path" alterations from a hypothetical standpoint. You'll inevitably get the "well how do we actually get there?", and that's when you give the "well there's a lot of different thoughts on that, none of which are easy." You can gain quite a lot from presenting big theoretical changes as humble changes presented humbly.
With most people, you should definitely focus on listening to their issues and agitation.
Agreed. Avoid history unless someone directly throws it upon you. It's too much work for not enough benefit. But you cannot always avoid it.
I like to respond to "but Stalin!!1" by painting Stalin as being (correctly) paranoid about their new, fragile system from being destroyed from both powerful people inside and much more potent exterior powers. Say the U.S. was a huge threat because they wanted to capitalize on their people, and without the largest institutional threat (the U.S.), Stalin wouldn't have been so paranoid.
It fits with my response to "socialism has never worked". I say "the United States is the only place that socialism can work because there is no United States to destroy or invade it"...Not 100% true, but it allows you to brush off a lot of propaganda baggage as aggressive U.S. foreign policy and it's role & effects. Also "China adopted a weird variant of capitalism so that the United States wouldn't focus on destroying it."
Be very careful with this. Nothing will hurt your efforts more than misrepresenting their work or their problems and trying to commandeer their legitimate issues for political gain. You really should make sure you have a grasp of what their problems actually are before you go about suggesting solutions. Listen closely, especially at first. This is great advice for those you work alongside or those whose work you have intimate knowledge of. Less so for people where you have a decent chance at offending via having ulterior motives about their closely held struggles. This advice is best for building issue-oriented organization vs radicalization.
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely not saying suggest solutions. I find a good approach here is to hear their problem then respond with "that reminds me of" an experience either yourself or "a friend" has had, tell that story. Then you use that story to direct aggression and blame towards the class enemy. This then isn't going to be taken as "you know nothing about me" or come up against personal walls people put up around their lives. It's about you or someone else but in context of conversation people link it to themselves by way of how it flowed there. When I've been salting this has been a common interaction I've had around workplaces, someone says a problem they have then some other worker is reminded of their problem or a friends problem and blames that problem on migrants or something -- the original person then relates the blame on migrants to their problem themselves. It never hits any walls in this way and this seems to be how these trends spread through the workforce.
Much of my work salting has used this tactic to agitate a workforce into anger at managers and owners. Agitating in this way is half of the battle.
Or you out punt your coverage and get accused of changing the topic too much because they are incapable of grasping the concept of intersectionality.