This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/thedeprogram by /u/InternalSensitive853 on 2025-02-08 12:18:20+00:00.

I need to get this off of my chest.

I was a member of 2 different communist parties, a youth organization, and a student union in 2 different countries (I don't want to dox myself so I won't name them). I interacted with a ton of comrades, some who I agreed with, some who I didn't agree with (it never made a real difference to me until recently) but one thing put all of them in common. The feeling of hopelessness, powerlessness, and no real answer to how to change things internally. By internally I mean, how do we structure a party that can build dual power structures, have concrete communication networks with workers, minorities, and other oppressed peoples, and eventually take power?

Both communist parties (one more than the other) I was a member of were led by boomers who pretend to care, but at the end of the day, don't really care what is going to happen in 5 or 10 years because they will be dead, which is why they subconsciously want to keep the parties as simple reading groups or debate clubs where we can talk about current events. Yeah, we can join protests from time to time, yeah we can give out leaflets, we can give speeches, we can make videos to post online, but none of these actions are influential at the end of the day.

On the other hand, the youth organizations were always entangled in personal strife that had nothing to do with communism or worker's power.

These were all concerns that were unfortunately shared by many young members. I became a communist because I wanted not only answers, but I wanted the truth to win. But now I sort of feel like we can't win in this part of the world.

I am sort of hibernating politically for the moment. I am stuck 12 hours a day at a chud job I hate and in the weekend I have no strength to pursue anything. I want to change the communist parties I was a part of, so I have been reading and reading and reading to prepare myself to become a better comrade. I wasn't ready the first couples of times, because I didn't want to better myself, become a higher ranking member, and lead by example, I was content with just going to protests once in a while and be a common "foot soldier".

The issue is we don't need foot soldiers, we need generals. We need Lenins, Maos, Castros, Stalins. The soldiers will inevitably come later.