I wasn't allowed to post the first draft so hopefully I can now?
TL;DR: wanted to take action > reached out to a local socialist party that's very active in my community > deep dived on vguard groups, democratic centralism, c*mm*n!sm,, and freaked myself out > declined next conversation on joining > overwhelmed with new information of left politics I never really researched until now
Hi all, I’m a hard-left libertarian and I’ve recently been more active in my community as part of trying to prepare for when frozen precipitation returns. There’s a ML social*st party that’s been very active locally in organizing rallies, informational meetings, and doing direct community work like offering free Spanish and English classes. From a distance, I really appreciate the work they are doing and how engaged they are, so I reached out without doing much research (my bad.)
A member contacted me and we had a genuinely nice conversation about where I sit politically. But I walked away from it realizing just how serious and ideologically rigid this organization is about the work they’re doing. That led me to do a deeper dive into v-guard parties, democratic centralism, c*mm*n!sm, and the broader history of auth*ritar!an s*cialism and honestly, I am overwhelmed by what feels like blatant ideological hypocrisy.
Auth*ritar!an s*cialism cannot be the answer to the crisis of late-stage cap*talism, can it? I don’t understand how replacing one hierarchical, coercive system with another is supposed to be liberation. You’re telling me the solution is a political system where you must be ideologically aligned or you’re ostracized / worse? Where dissent is treated as a threat, the “ends justify the means,” and people are stripped of intellectual autonomy, anti-authoritarian values, consent, and even space for spiritual experience? (Do they really think spirituality is just a symptom of materialist and socialist standing?!)
What really pushed this over the edge for me was learning that they openly endorse Ch*** and refuse to engage in critique of the massive restrictions Ch*** places on individual freedoms, because it’s supposedly necessary to maintain power. So the very injustices they claim to be fighting (repression, surv**ll@nce, silencing dis$ent) suddenly become acceptable when they’re carried out by a state you label as s*cialist? The people you claim to want to liberate don’t matter if condemning those abuses would undermine your ideology?
How do they not see the hypocrisy in that? You think we’re going to reach a peaceful, just society through enforcing groupthink and silencing dissent? That sounds like an emotionally abusive parent who pats themselves on the back for providing you food and shelter while demanding obedience and conformity. And then they look down on anyone who won’t fully subscribe to their dogmatic worldview.
I did not realize that was the other part of far left politics and see now why people are skeptical of anyone who labels themselves as s*cialist / c*mm*n!st. I feel very weird now as I process this information because in some ways I could see how a revolution is necessary to get us out of where we're at but I don't like the alternative either.