I guess it’s one of the ways in which capital maintains its own checks and balances, but it’s very hard how, as contradictions heighten, your family that at some point might have ignored what you say, now will ostracize you for your views.
My parents have called me saying that me supporting Petro (a socdem at best) is akin to supporting murderers and thieves and they won’t support me with that (which ofc I think the same about the people they support, but I won’t antagonize them over it cause I know they won’t change their views).
Now it’s a sister of mine, married to an american, that considers that my criticisms of gringos also applies to her husband (which, to a point but not really).
I’m now understanding that there is a non zero chance that I will end up shunned out of my family altogether at some point.
Some friends and acquaintances have also cut contact from their end and some from my end.
Basically, being a communist means you will very likely lose a good percentage of your initial social network. It’s probably one of the ways that capital maintains its control on society, forcing you to choose between community or your ideals, while you build a new leftist community (which is likely to be ostracized from their families as well).
And I’m not alone, my comrades in the area in which I organize are basically in the same position. In most of their families they don’t know they are in the communist party for fear of their reactions. Or in the case of one of them, they consider it will be a phase they grow out of.
It’s exhausting but enlightening to see how the left continues to be attacked through so many mechanisms.
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Love what you’re saying, but I have to nitpick because it’s important for our messaging and strategy.
Is there any ‘class struggle’ which isn’t a ‘particular manifestation of class struggle’? Trotskyists, Ultras, marx-only-marxists like to talk about class struggle as if it’s only meaningful manifestation is that of the Bourg-Prole struggle. We must struggle against that. Losurdo’s “Class Struggle” is a great book on this subject. It’s about why national liberation is a class struggle, and why internally colonized liberation is class struggle, and why international strategic China-US struggles are class struggle. We must act in support of all progressive positions in all struggles (collectively), but of course don’t waste all your energy on too many. So your focus is very good; you’re taking part in class struggle very well
Not everything is a class struggle, but we must understand that Marxism has always had and definitively needs to understand class struggle as more than wage conflicts between 2 particular classes.
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I would recommend reading Losurdo on this! His book is my favorite ever on political philosophy. I would like to make his argument in favor of understanding class struggle as larger than economic classes, and including national liberation and national struggles, But I couldn’t make the argument to a comrade as well as Losurdo can.
The broadening of the term only reinforces the importance of national struggles, it doesn’t demean that struggle to lesser in any way. There are ultimate goals and current struggles, and the current struggles must take precedence to the ultimate goals while not coming into conflict with them. As Losurdo once said ‘every revolution begins IN a nation.’