𝕆𝕔𝕦𝕝𝕚

Arab anarcho-communist. Not a ba’athist

I may have odd opinions sometimes. Sorry.

أبدء هنا لا تجد حركة لاسلطوية في العالم العربي, لاكن الماركسية حتى لو أقلية في المجتمع, هو الأجلية في الحركة اليساري العربي الأوسع

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Joined 3 个月前
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Cake day: 2025年9月20日

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  • Good to know my understanding to this point has been correct! And as for dialectics, I’ve been trying to figure out good examples on how to apply it to understand a situation but did not understand how. Based on your comment, are dialectics in Marxism only really used for Historical materialism, or is it used for more applications? If so, then I see I was wrong in trying to understand dialectics without looking at historical materialism 🙃

    And the class struggle explanation makes sense. Just a question, do the labor aristocracy count as petite bourgeoisie, or are they the non capital/land-owning equivalent? That would explain on why more middle class people I meet (even the progressives/leftists sometimes :/) are more likely to support imperialism / liberalism to preserve their own material conditions, at the cost of others. And I’ll read the two texts, thanks

    Thank you very much for the suggestions ❤️ I’ve always wanted to read wretched of the earth/how Europe underdeveloped Africa, but I knew I should at least get familiar with Marxism first, since both books are Marxist, the majority of national liberation movements are Marxist. These books/facts are very important to me personally, since before I even considered myself a socialist, I was still firmly anti-imperialist/anti-colonial since that’s the only solution the turmoil in the middle east, and the rest of the global south.

    And yup, Stalin and Mao are the ones I take issue with. I used to do so too for Lenin, Castro (not a huge extent but there is still a lot of BS around him, unfortunately) but my views toward them softened, since Lenin’s work emphasizes democracy but the USSR was in big turmoil, but it was the very first, and only in its time Marxist state that had to face WW1 which they suffered hugely + a devastating civil war where there was a huge coalition against the reds, the economic turmoil due to both these wars and new governance at once and that he had an assassination attempt on his life, it’s easy to see why things turned the way they are for his time. Ultimately though the USSR under Lenin was incredibly progressive in comparison to the Tsar a few years ago, and the strides in literacy, healthcare and him giving more rights for the minorities in the Union was very admirable despite all his faults. I have the same opinion here about Fidel, lots of errors but the CIA was constantly attempting to kill him, the bay of pigs, and worst of all the embargo, comparing him to Batista the difference is astonishing. The mark twain quote about two reigns of terror applies pretty well.

    But Stalin? From what I’ve heard, i don’t think much good of him. I will read the book you recommended about him, though! As for Mao, I think the same reasoning applies above too somewhat, but the mismanagement of the cultural revolution, great leap forward and four pests campaign is hard to ignore. I definitely haven’t done enough reading on these events and hope I’ll learn more soon.

    This Soviet world, along with the book “Soviet democracy” I see you comment a lot about definitely sound like good books to get hands on. Thank you! And damn I love Parenti. I listened to his ‘Imperialism and Drugs’ speech and fell in love immediately lol. I haven’t watched the yellow parenti speech (yet) but I adore the quote about how countries are rich, not underdeveloped; its their working classes that are overexploited :)


  • Thanks!

    I don’t like to tackle more than one subject at once, so currently I’m just focusing on Marxism, which i have unfortunately limited time for, but i still try :) iirc I’ve read/am reading currently:

    • How Marxism Works (Trotskyist pamphlet, but still pretty good even by anti-Trotskyist standards),
    • Principles of Communism (still reading, but easily digestible, thankfully)
    • The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism

    And thanks to the last text, I think I have a good framework of what i should focus on while studying; i.e.:

    • Dialectic materialism (I’ve grasped the laws, but I’ve yet to learn how to apply it to analysis of the world),
    • Labor theory of value (understood!)
    • Class struggle, which from a first impression, sounds like a basic “no shit Sherlock” concept, but I’m sure it ties back to materialism, and the transition of feudalism -> capitalism -> socialism, though I’ve yet to reach the relevant reads for that.

    I’ve actually been using your reading list as a good starting point (thanks for that, by the way!) so far, I’m only loosely using it to know what I should read next, since i already recognize a ton of the material there anyway, but it is still very useful for it to be organized well. But eventually I’ll probably follow it more strictly for the sake of accuracy.

    After I’m finished with the principles of communism, I’d have completed my current 3 ‘to read’ texts and move on to the next one, which would probably be: What is to be Done, The Wretched of the Earth, and (tediously 🫠) all volumes of Capital.

    Although, an important point now for me is trying to re-understand history/figures. I’ve found it easy to like Marx+Engels/Castro/Ho Chi Minh (and by extension, more fairly analyze Cuba/Vietnam + read their works without a negative bias), since there’s very little hatred towards them in my region/on the online spaces i regular, but a lot of material that most Marxists today consider crucial, I have negative/mixed views towards the authors; but in fairness most of my negative views have been earned years before, and I’m no stranger [now] to how propaganda can reframe even good people into being “scary baby eaters”, so my goal as of now is trying to read on important figures and change my opinions on them, for better or worse. Of course, I’m not saying my views are wrong and I should force them to be positive, but a critical re-analysis of them all would be very useful. If they are bad people, then that’s that, and there’s nothing I could do about it, but otherwise, it would help me a lot in reading their works, and in general, change my world-view.

    Okay, this comment is getting long lol. Thanks again for the reading list :D


  • Here are mine. I don’t think about (or know?) what ideology i’d adhere to, but i’m not sure it matters much. Imo it’s my views/opinions of the concepts themselves that are important, not a big-tent name of an ideology.

    I am still not comfortable enough with my grasp of marxism/anarchism/etc (still reading theory to understand them all. I’ve been progressing well) to the point i could answer properly to these questions so it’s probably not reflective of my actual views,

    Nonetheless i of course get this is just a fun little online test, nothing serious ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • Wild previous thread but I’m glad you’re happy with your choice!

    mobile apps aren’t up to date with the API, but they work well enough so I main this account now. It can be a bit rough on the sides too but that’s to be expected, it only started accelerating development half a year or so and it’s made stunning progress.

    I’m happy to be here and I’m pretty optimistic about the software’s future