The US aggression against Iran has generated even more political fervor. This is something I’ve witnessed in my closest circles with a Mamdani-lib sibling of mine commenting that “North Korea’s also never done anything” which was a shock to hear given some of our previous conversations.
My partner has made even more progress. They’ve almost completely flipped on many stances in regards to countries amongst the “axis of evil”.
This has all led me to wonder: What’s the best way to take advantage of the turmoil, and push temporary-baby-leftists to a more concrete position?
Thinking of something like the guide’s Cowbee puts out but even more digestible for entry level -potential communists, really want to create lasting impressions that generate questions.
With my past experience of trying to get people to read the most basic, short, easy and lib-friendly texts and 10-20 minute articles, I wouldn’t go for the approach of dropping a reading list on them unless they are the types who read encyclopedias for fun, or they actually ask you for reading material. And I wouldn’t go straight to communist theory with proletariat and classes and scary German philosophers and Russian revolutionaires either.
Theory is essential but you need to ease people into it. Make sure that you are up to date yourself with literature that deals with issues relevant to your friends, and that isn’t just straight up Marx or Lenin because libs are primed to be hostile towards those. In the case of US aggression, I would recommend stuff like Washington Bullets, Killing Hope, Against Empire, or The Jakarta Method. Then, since you mentioned these are people close to you that you interact with on a regular basis, spend time with them, listen to them, and capitalize on every opportunity to drop more of your leftist analysis while pointing at the resources that you used to build it. Essentially, you have to market reading to them by being well informed on topics they care about and showing the work that got you here.
I know a few people similar to your friends who are starting to question the official narrative on countries like Iran and the DPRK. One of them asked me for a link to Killing Hope, but this was after he brought up North Korea himself in light of recent events and we spent some time talking about the Korean War, its many associated US crimes against humanity, as well as how this pattern of US aggression repeated throughout the post WW2 world. I have no idea if the guy will actually read it, but if he does it will be easier to build on that and pitch Lenin to him.
We are fighting against a wall of heavily reinforced anticommunist narratives and liberal civil religion, which is why I prefer the cautious approach. Marxist-Leninist reading lists are for people who have broken through and decided they want to make sense of the world after the liberal narrative has collapsed. You need to work with your friends at their own pace and drill at the cracks that form organically until they get to that point.
Many great answers on this post, including yours. I definitely share the frustration you’ve experience in trying to get other’s to read basics. I think what I want to pursue is “content” with an emphasis on impression generation- since I can almost guarantee this type of media captures the most attention of contemporary audiences (think tiktok, instagram, YT shorts, <10 minute YT videos). None of these mediums are stand-ins for the tried and true, (books) but I’d go as far as to say that they’re the best for provoking questions. Especially since most aren’t willing to dedicate an hour or so to reading / watching some blowback pod episode.
Perhaps there’s some merit in taking a Cowbee-style reading list and matching the themes with short form content (1 min videos, images, tweets) sort of akin to the pamphlets communists of the past would create for the less educated workers.
Regardless, thank you for sharing your thoughts-- 🙂
I have ADHD and my own shame pile of half finished books so I empathize with how hard it can be to just sit down and read the damn theory. I definitely think you have a good basis with the idea of compiling short and impactful tiktok/insta/youtube content as a jumping board for delving deeper. In fact, the thing that pushed me to make the effort and start reading in my very own political journey was watching youtube videos in my lunch break that had a bibliography in the description and directly cited the works during the clip. These are significantly longer than what you are going for and I know he is guilty of his own fair share of cringe, but I give a lot of credit to Bad Empanada’s videos on the historical link between the USian concept of Manifest Destiny and the Nazis’ Lebensraum and the one on the invention of the modern concept of the white race on this. I distinctly remember watching him lay it out straight from the books and thinking to myself “damn this is crazy stuff I really need to read more”.
In a way, the strategy I pursued above is simply emulating that experience with my friends when the opportunity arises, except that I play the part of the youtube video in real life and hope my analysis is good enough to prompt them to want to learn more for themselves.
Good luck in your endeavors, hopefully we both get some extra comrades out of this. I’m actually quite hopeful myself after hearing my friends independently question the narrative on Iran, it really feels like the world is slowly changing. Right now, as communists, we need to do our best to reach people who are willing to listen and help them get started on the path of liberating political education.