alexei_1917

Horseshoe theory, lol!

To use this exact tactic, we'd have to hand out theory as "the government doesn't want you to read this", but that would absolutely work. Especially in places where current public trust in government is at an all time low.

I mean, this would absolutely work on nonconformists who break rules for the sake of breaking rules, and kids/teenagers. Want a kid, or someone with a childish mindset, to study something, the best way is to convince them they're not supposed to and they're getting away with something. Use that on people with demand avoidance tendencies or who break rules to break rules, and use "the government doesn't want you to read this" to reach a broader group. But yeah, if you want to get teenagers reading ML theory, this would probably work better than anything a lot of young commies are doing to radicalise peers...

I had a similar experience the first time I got harassed for allegedly being a communist, because someone in a position of limited power wanted to make trouble for me...

I'd heard of Marx, but never been interested in reading his work, but I had no idea who Lenin was, when I was brought down to the front office of my school, to be asked some questions by some guys from the district. They asked whether I was a communist, I told them I had no idea what a commie was, besides that we beat them in the Cold War. They asked if I'd read Lenin, and I told them I'd never heard of him. They asked if I could point them to any of my classmates to ask the same questions to, I told them that there are no commies in this tiny little Catholic school and they're wasting their time questioning us.

I didn't actually read any theory right after that, that took a lot more time and a few more nasty incidents, but I did find out who Lenin was and learn a lot more about communism than I'd known before that incident, so.

Yep. It's so weird to me that Americans don't seem to have electric kettles all that often, since they're quite common in a lot of places, including my country.

Actually, there's probably some interesting commentary to be made on modern workplace coffee culture being created and encouraged by the bourgeoisie to squeeze more productivity out of the proletariat...

But I'd rather bash the Trots for how they make their coffee, than do actual Marxist analysis of the ways the working class uses caffeine.

exactly 10 paragraphs of theory reading

I'd probably have to up that to properly time a cup of coffee... my mum says I read too fast.

You should see how Americans make tea. It's even worse.

You should read the Communist Coffee Maker story on NotAlwaysRight. I also seem to remember another story I saw online where clueless Americans accused the CPC of spying on them through cheap coffee machines made in China... like a good 90% of cheap consumer crap on Turtle Island. It's not just coffee machines! It's all bloody made in China! But they're not worried about any other consumer goods spying on them...

You're specifically the British or English local party of whatever your tendency is, then. Tendency probably depends on whether you use individual mugs or a teapot, how you heat the water, and whether you use teabags or looseleaf, and if looseleaf, the exact way that you put it into the water and remove it from the steeped tea.

(Or, you're a modern Chinese commie, see the pics of Xi with two teacups in front of him. But I like the British party branch joke better. Took me longer to write.)

Feel free to invent a new tendency

Like the Trots keep doing? (Party splits)

Or... Trot pretending to be a proper ML... I've run into a few of those. Most Trots are proud of being Trots (they shouldn't be, but at least it makes 'em easy to spot and ignore), but there's a few weirdos out there...

Ok, but I absolutely love this bit and have come up with something similar - "Big Sister Katya" - her whole thing is that she's a 1950s/60s Soviet sympathiser, who thinks McCarthy's a complete idiot, but her personality is otherwise every bit a sheltered middle class teenage girl of the era, she's often in the kitchen with her mum or helping with some domestic task in her videos, the mum is always a voice offscreen, or partially on screen for short periods but her face isn't seen, she's seen taking care of children sometimes - her little siblings - her whole vibe is "It's the beginning of souring relations with the USSR post war, and your big sister explains why the Cold War is bullshit and neither the guys on the TV news nor Mum and Dad know what they're yapping about". It's never made clear to what extent the character she's playing genuinely believes it's the beginning of the Cold War and the peak of McCarthyism, and how much of it is "it needs to be that soon after the Great Patriotic War for some of her points about fascism and defense and good allies to land properly". Every video follows a formula of "Today we're doing [insert domestic task] with Mum/for Mum while she's out today, and discussing [insert Marxist-Leninist theory concept]".