Marxist-Leninist politics is like 40% of who I am. I started studying it when I was a preteen, and it's influenced my personality greatly ever since.
toolongpost
You will not see my eyes light up about anything quite like when I'm divulging some arcane secret regarding Trotskyists' probable collaboration with Japanese Imperialists and Rudolf Hess in attempting to dissolve the Soviet Union, or such a smile on my face while explaining that at one point, the CPC was almost 9/10 ethnically Korean.
This leaves me in a weird position. I have other interests, other hobbies. But I like reading, I like learning about this stuff. I devote a lot of time to it, and I love to talk about it. Few and far between do I encounter another Amerikan as interested merely in politics as I am, let alone one who's not a CIA-agent-in-training, genuine fascist, or confrontational, perpetually-offended liberal with whom constructive discussion is impossible.
I have dated open-minded people before, and they have all taken a fleeting interest in what I know or have read about. But it tires them. They typically didn't like seeing me "obsess" over breaking international news. They'd ask to talk about something else, anything else, please.
I also am so, so very tired of hearing "I just don't think I know enough to talk to you about this". I don't enjoy feeling like I'm in some sort of position of intellectual power over my partner, and I always tried to approach these conversations as conversations and not, say, lectures, but when the conversation is over before it even starts...
I don't want to feel the need to radicalize my partner, I think. That all being said, if I wind up falling in love with someone who is not already a communist, then so be it. They will likely be ready and willing to talk with me about it, though. It's a big part of who I am.
I also am so, so very tired of hearing “I just don’t think I know enough to talk to you about this”. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m in some sort of position of intellectual power over my partner, and I always tried to approach these conversations as conversations and not, say, lectures, but when the conversation is over before it even starts…
This is a strange one, isn't it? Imagine starting to talk about your Lego collection or new furniture or your job or anything else and the other person says this. It probably happens. But with important topics? So fucking annoying. Okay you don't know, so listen, I'll tell you, and you can tell me what you think and you might even realise that you do know something and what you don't know, I can put you on track to learning more. The same way that any other fucking conversation goes.
Jilin Province is located in Northeast China, in Manchuria, and shares a border with north Korea. Jilin is important in the history of the Korean struggle for several reasons. It's the place where Kim Il-sung joined the resistance movement, and also where, as a teenager, he founded the Down-With-Imperialism Union, which contemporary literature in north Korea considers as the original foundations of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). A large number of Koreans had fled to Jilin to escape the brutal Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, and Jilin was home to the largest base of Korean resistance.
In the struggle against Japanese imperialism, Korean and Chinese communists (and at various points, nationalists) were part of a united front. In fact, at the urging of the Third International (Comintern), which at the time was organizing the world communist movement, Korean communists joined the Chinese Communist Party. It's estimated that, when the merging process was consolidated in 1931, as much as 90 percent of the Chinese Communist Party was actually Korean, as their efforts at recruitment among the peasants in the region had been much more successful.
-- Foreword to Socialist Education in Korea by Kim Il-Sung, written by Derek R. Ford and Curry Malott, emphasis mine.
copy-pasted from previous ask:
Marxist-Leninist politics is like 40% of who I am. I started studying it when I was a preteen, and it's influenced my personality greatly ever since.
toolongpost
You will not see my eyes light up about anything quite like when I'm divulging some arcane secret regarding Trotskyists' probable collaboration with Japanese Imperialists and Rudolf Hess in attempting to dissolve the Soviet Union, or such a smile on my face while explaining that at one point, the CPC was almost 9/10 ethnically Korean.
This leaves me in a weird position. I have other interests, other hobbies. But I like reading, I like learning about this stuff. I devote a lot of time to it, and I love to talk about it. Few and far between do I encounter another Amerikan as interested merely in politics as I am, let alone one who's not a CIA-agent-in-training, genuine fascist, or confrontational, perpetually-offended liberal with whom constructive discussion is impossible.
I have dated open-minded people before, and they have all taken a fleeting interest in what I know or have read about. But it tires them. They typically didn't like seeing me "obsess" over breaking international news. They'd ask to talk about something else, anything else, please.
I also am so, so very tired of hearing "I just don't think I know enough to talk to you about this". I don't enjoy feeling like I'm in some sort of position of intellectual power over my partner, and I always tried to approach these conversations as conversations and not, say, lectures, but when the conversation is over before it even starts...
I don't want to feel the need to radicalize my partner, I think. That all being said, if I wind up falling in love with someone who is not already a communist, then so be it. They will likely be ready and willing to talk with me about it, though. It's a big part of who I am.
This is a strange one, isn't it? Imagine starting to talk about your Lego collection or new furniture or your job or anything else and the other person says this. It probably happens. But with important topics? So fucking annoying. Okay you don't know, so listen, I'll tell you, and you can tell me what you think and you might even realise that you do know something and what you don't know, I can put you on track to learning more. The same way that any other fucking conversation goes.
-- Foreword to Socialist Education in Korea by Kim Il-Sung, written by Derek R. Ford and Curry Malott, emphasis mine.