My friends and I are all in our early 20s, most finishing/ out of college. A few years ago they were all liberals who either turned their nose up at the word socialism or were “apolitical”.

Now, having been through a pandemic, living through a housing crisis, working in minimum wage jobs, witnessing the rise of European fascism and seeing the sheer disrespect capitalists have for us, all of them, without exception, have become or are becoming leftists. I don’t even talk about politics that much with them, although they know I’m a communist. They have all voiced dissatisfaction with capitalism and named capitalism directly as the cause of their problems. Some of them openly call themselves socialist. None of them have any faith in liberals.

My main political issue now is to get them to become active in politics. I’ve encouraged them to join workers and tenants unions and will do that more every time I’m drunk. I try to get them to pro-Palestinian protests. I have high hopes that within a few years, I will successfully convert most of them to communism

bloomer it is never joever for the working class

  • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    29·
    1 day ago

    Next step is to get a sense of where they’re at with their political development and hear them out then gently challenge their ideas or follow those ideas to their logical conclusion (e.g. talking through the practicalities of reformism, exploring what happened to the New Deal, speculating on just what it would take to achieve a Berniecrat New New Deal etc.) while encouraging them to explore this stuff.

    DO NOT engage your inner debatebro or your dunk mode. You want to be non-threatening so they feel comfortable to explore and to bounce ideas off of.

    When you’ve figured out where they are at, then it’s time to suggest a reading (e.g. Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg) and if you’ve managed to pique their interest then they’ll probably read it and it will help them along on their journey to radicalisation.

    Comrade cowbee has assembled a really good reading list here almost all of which have audiobooks attached that you can pick and choose from depending on your friend’s particular level of ideological development and their interests.