GenZedong

I've been firmly socially progressive ever since I got ever my edgy phase when I was like 13-16 years old so when it came time to vote I was a Labour voter, originally Corbyn and then Starmer. I didn't go deep into what these people represent or what they have done I just thought it was a fight to keep progressing and getting rid of the tories. I lacked any real political education and feel for the culture war bullshit, like many people.

All I heard all my life about communism is it is violent and brutal and it doesn't work and so on, I knew my country was far from perfect but I didn't think they would lie to me my whole life in so many different ways, so in a way the naïvety kept me anti-communist.

A few years ago I started getting really depressed and realised I had been quite depressed for a long time, it lead me to question everything, why should I live, what is this society, what type of person should I aim to be e.t.c. and while this was happening I was seeing the end of 14 years of the conservative government, I put all my hope in Labour bringing back hope and progress. Well it became clear maybe about 6 months in to Starmer's term that these guys are not the solution. Then I started getting into the tax the rich and wealth inequality sort of crowd (AOC, Gary's economics, JimmyTheGiant, Hasan somewhat) that pushed me to be less of a liberal and more of a demsoc, socdem type of guy and be opposed to neoliberalism and centrism.

But crucially after that depressive episode and the existentialising that came with it, I had learned to keep an open-mind and I realised that now identifying as a socialist, I was hearing about Marx and Lenin and I just decided to hear out these communists side of the story, because what didn't make sense was that if the USSR was everything I had been told about it, no one in their right mind would still be a communist.

I think it might have been Hakim who did the most for me with youtube class consciousness or whatever you want to call it but I can't remember an exact video that 'pushed me over the edge', so to speak. It didn't take long for me to recognise the genius in Marxism-Leninism anyway, I then had to undo all my anti-com propaganda (that was still making me doubt if I was on the right path) and start learning the theory, science, philosophy, start applying it where I could, and here I am now, still doing that. I've come to really love the online culture the imagery, the music - red sun in the sky will always be a hell of a tune - and the community of course, I really want to see that kind of community IRL one day.