How to Radicalize your social circles in 5 simple steps! [Left Unity Edition]
Spoiler Alert!
None of these steps are in any way simple, easy, or even necessarily likely. It's important to remember that even minor victories should be celebrated as it's never one thing that accomplishes anything, but the sum total of your efforts which compound over time!
1.) What?
Radicalize people (If you can)!
- Whatever your tendency, you may have opportunities to radicalize people in your everyday life. Certainly not all of us, many of us are isolated or for whatever reason don't have much of a social circle, and that's okay, this isn't a demand that you have to do this or aren't a good leftist, just an attempt at generating some resources from what I've learned over the past year.
2.) When?
Now and always, comrades
- We have a world to win! :left-unity-3: :anarchy: :pika-pickaxe: :hammer-sickle: :left-unity-2:
3.) Who?
People who you can interact with or work alongside as equals
- Be it at your job with your circle of co-workers, the other residents of your apartment building, your libby friend group, hell- even your church if applicable. Any situations like these where you interact with or, even better, work alongside others, are potential opportunities for radicalization. These are contexts in which people are (usually) more inclined to think of each other as equals in a social circle. Of course, material conditions in your area and the particulars of your life and these social circles, your results may hugely vary, but if you can find something like this situation, it's definitely worth a try. Even if it goes poorly, you'll learn a lot that will make the next try much more likely to succeed.
4.) How?
Don't 'hide your power level' but also don't go full [insert tendency here] on the first date either
- You might be concerned about going all in or failing to "hide your power-level", but I'm here to tell you that 'hiding your power level' is libshit (and cringe ngl). That's what opportunists do to grift, not something revolutionary leftists should ever abide. That is not to say go right into "how great it is that mao killed all the landlords and hey what if we got some guns and paid our landlord a visit 😎" I agree that'd be cool, but also would scare off most people you're likely to meet.
Introduce concepts slowly and naturally
- Like I said, you shouldn't go full [insert your tendency here] right away, you have to escalate to that slowly (slowly could be pretty quick depending on what's happening, as usual material conditions comin in clutch, if you lived a block down from the MPD station that was burned down things are naturally gonna move faster). Again, I don’t mean to water down your politics, but to introduce them slowly and without explicitly labeling them as radical politics. You gotta trick em into eating their vegetables since they’re convinced they don’t like them. Start building from basic concrete perspectives on stuff, describe current conditions with terminology that will be useful later so they’ll be familiar and it won’t feel like they’re being sold to.
Borrow from the Bolsheviks
- You may not agree with how Marxism-Leninism does things, but this isn't about the ideology, it's simply excellent practice for winning people over and influencing them. I’d highly recommend that you consider borrowing from the Bolshevik playbook and be an exemplary factory worker who earns the admiration of their fellow workers, or in this case… whatever is appropriate for your context! Sorry, but this guide has homework and you gotta figure that part out yourself. By doing this, you’ll have earned their trust and be looked up to, and if in doubt they’ll be far more willing to take your word for things, or be more inclined to listen to your perspective and less likely to become defensive and retreat to thought terminators. When you're more respected, so are the things you say.
5.) Concrete Example
Genericized example based on my irl interactions
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For example, as a marxist, I'd use dialectical materialist terms and analysis when shooting the shit with coworkers, but I wouldn't just start spouting about it, I'd prompt the basic discussion and guide it towards a topic I knew I could drop some good concepts about, and get them to engage and want to know more.
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I could bring up a headline I read about BLM and discussion would then inevitably turn to the violence, and then I could naturally bring the conversation to discussion of the systemic factors that inherently lead to ACAB, without ever saying All Cops Are Bastards, as that would throw up their firewall and make them defensive. I also try to avoid directly (over)explaining too much myself, ideally you don't want to be talking more than them because then it starts feeling like a lecture not an exchange of ideas (even though it's secretly been a lecture the whole time). Just steer the conversation as best you can while citing examples and pointing out contradictions. Over time, you can really do a lot for someone's political development/ education without them really noticing just by shifting the framing of the discussion and the terminology used, and before you know it you're making jokes about what you hypothetically wish you could do to Jeff Bezos and talking openly about the various ways capitalism is fucking everyone, or how the boss is doing the same.
5.) The most important bit
This is the actual last step: Go out and try to radicalize people! Do it now if you can, do it next time there's an explosive mass movement that polarizes and highlights contradictions, whatever. Get your hands dirty and start earning some cold hard praxis experience!
Then, when you can, pass on the knowledge you've gained and use it motivate and teach others to do the same! Pay it forwards, that's the last step, that's how we contribute to the grand and proud tradition of common folks fighting for a better world, that's how we win!
P.S. please pitch me more strategies from other tendencies would be useful to toss in here like I did with the Bolshevik bit, as I think we can all agree every tendency has at least a few great ideas, they're not included right now only due to the limits of my own political education
P.P.S. I used spoilers to condense stuff and make it more digestible/ better to look at. If I actually made it worse and ugly, let me know and I'll edit it o7
so about being an exemplary worker... are there any good marxist thinkers on leadership?