R communism101

https://www.reddit.com/communism101/comments/alecst/i_am_one_of_the_1_what_can_i_do_to_help/?utm_source=reddit-android
Im also part of the 1% (Not me, my family) and i dont know what should i do to try making the world a more fair place. Im studying economics and the fastest way to gain money is going to the finance area, is a fair way to gain money?

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
​
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
​
* Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
​
* 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
​
* 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
​
* Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
​
* Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for communism101
​
Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.
​
Normal subreddit rules apply!

Ok so this post was first posted on communism101 but apparently anything that questions communism, even if in good faith, is sent to gulag, so I'm asking it here. So I'm doing my best to comprehend private property after watching several videos on the subject. I sure don't comprehend how personal property can be separated from the "theft" of private property, and I'd love a deep diving explanation.
Here's the way I don't get it- Lets say I'm a seashell collector. I keep finding nice shiny seashells around. That is my personal property, right? now my collection grows further, and I really don't know what to do with so many seashells. I start selling them for $5 each. Now having run out of time and neighbors who'd take them off my hands, I pay my daughter a dollar for each seashell she sells (by the seashore) for me to her school friends. So did my property change its property (ha) from personal to private by the fact I employed her? or did it change to that as soon as I charged money for seashells? in either case it seems hardly about the property itself but what's being done with it...
Is communism simply against any employment of one person by another? If the state was the one that employs her to sell my seashells (and takes the money for itself so as to keep sustaining all members of society), would that be communism? if not, is then the act of selling itself the moment where personal property turns private? but selling is just a form of barter as far as I can see. Is then any exchange already un-communist? Can anyone help explain?

For some reason, I can't comment on u/One_Simple8401's post in communism101 so I'll post it here.
The question is: I hope to see the end of exotic food, but I wonder if this will happen?
It will when imperialist capitalism and racism ends.
I'm not familiar enough with theory to give my own answer, but I think this is relevant to your question.

In the capitalist economy, for example, production is a dominant moment, while consumption of goods, and distribution of goods and money, are subordinate to it...Capitalist economists, for example, often try to prove that the main features of a capitalist system merely result from things like the preferences of consumers or the available technology. Theories like this pay no attention to the fact that consumer preferences are not merely causes, but are also affected by advertising and other economic activities.

Retrieved from Introduction to Marxist Dialectics
In one aspect, we as consumers are shaped by reification through advertisements (essentially normalized propaganda) and prescribes to the capitalist rhetoric of competing for status through 'tastes' which also serves as a symbol for display that legitimizes class rule. In another aspect it would be monopoly imperialist capitalism, where race-to-the-bottom and chain stores mean that even if you avoid imported food you'll end up funding the imperialist importation anyways.
This taps into capitalism in its superstructure for instance the reinforcement of racial oppression and neocolonisation for maximization of surplus value, by segregation and nutrient deprivation - denying 'local food' access to locals into dependent compradorish exchanges and other races to subservient jobs (confining them to invisible culinary or delivery jobs) under monopoly capitalism which is the inevitable outcome from competition and growth by underdeveloping surrounding region to fill out energy-intensive capitalism's inherent urge to growth.
To address why this cannot end alone without racism, I'll problematize your definition of 'exotic food' from consumption instead of production. I'm drawing from my Asian Studies that Sakai scrutinized so mind my logic.

as we know, many of those foods are procured in ethically and unsustainably in extremes, giving chocolate or avocados for example.

I see that you mean 'exotic food' in the sense of imported food producing emissions and distanced injustice, one of the many externalised non-costs in the chain of capitalist production. This is the production side. Have you ever wondered why 'exotic food' is named so? It'd be strange for the locals to call their food as such; this implies there's a domestic place which intakes 'the other' food but consider it foreign. Why does the consumers then name the product over the producer? Usually it would be the right of producers to name their products, right? This incurs the logic of wage labour who is objectified into a commodity and has his labour alienated into private ownership. Moreover, in close scrutiny it is partially the consumers but also how the food was promoted to them.
From content to the right to name, all of this implies a center of class and a hierarchy of consumption from the settlers' original country (hence 'domestic'), placing adjacent to 'cuisine' particularly of the colonial French type. You see colonization is not just extraction, it needs to maintain its body with local food; but as comprador private-monopoly state capitalism develops, it cannot regard local food as local as it would refer itself as 'foreign' and it needs to legitimize its ruling meanwhile preserving the semi-feudalism for oppression. What this means is that the colonial overlord culturally appropriates from his loci and alienates all production of local food as 'exotic food' of their gatekeeping, meanwhile promoting and importing their food at large costs (intially) to legitimize their and comprador's status and also dominate the local market with bombardment of advertisements and cheap products (tin milk advertised as 'natural' and 'maternal' in Malay for instance) over the traditional wet market to sense food and feel the quality. This is a version of the 'domestic' country's indoctrination that convinces to buy whatever the value is prescribed with science coming to guarantee purity amidst all the adulteration and externalising our senses to authority (vulgarized, more precisely lack institutions in public interest). Through this, the colonizers appropriate the locals as 'the other' or later a commercialized form of orientalism by designating their food as inferior non-cuisines and passive until being tasted by the colonial body which renders it as nothing; claiming the robbed land to be rightfully theirs. The current form serves 'multiculturalism' to disguise imperialist appropriation and commodification of other cultures as well as homogenization of capitalist consumption 'lifestyle' (forced to sell labour to and buy from a monopoly).
This legitimization of hierarchy also occurs with procurement of spices in feudal societies, the 'gold' craze during mercantile capitalism to preserve meat, provide medicine and curiosity for royalties and capitalists, till that of cattle and sheep in imperialist capitalism where ranches for colonisers are treated as 'modernisation' regardless of ecology (also coinciding with the destruction of domestic ecology and for all that the coloniser consume, the cost is transferred, which brings a new dimension of externalising to naming 'the other' that continues in environmental justice discourses), and hence depriving indigenous land for space and energy-demanding mass plantations and ranches. We can summarize meat as a class symbol and manifestation of class relations. If you consider the class oppression in feudal societies, most peasants are lactose-intolerant (little access, with exceptions like Malay on bovine milk) and vegetarian with constant starvation. Eating imported 'exotic' food is like eating meat in this sense but with the spices, like in India where the racial caste system oppresses and confines peasants to hereditary exploitation by vices of their 'pastlife' and harvests the spices for elite consumption and trade. Which the colonizers gratefully takes over and present themselves as simply the new rajah with continuing spice production.
On the other hand, the mass production of spices and the control of the region imply that the spices can be sold dirt cheap along with the market of cookbooks sanitised for colonial wives, a degree of spices also entered the lives of the domestic poor. 'Curry' for instance become symbolic of the poor not only because Indians seek jobs in Britain from devastation of their own country and open 'curry' restaurants, but also that they are 'fashionable' and culturally appropriates into convenient, quick commercial versions for time-strapped wage labour that flooded the market, while offering a platable solution to frugal housewives to cook leftovers. Such as your case.

Now I just focus on repurposing scraps and leftovers

'Exotic food' in another sense means quick, cheap, large sized 'unhealthy' food for curiosity because you can't afford 'French cuisine'. When you think of it, food is food and nothing in particular would make it cheap unless...yes, the exploitation of surplus value from production to processing where they have to be 'tasty' (homogenised colonial and express-cooking taste) and invisible (in price and ironically local presence) lest it deters your appetite. As you hold even the fewest wealth, the locals as the underclass will defer to your preferred version because they had nothing. Such is the case for Chinese Americans after the anti-Chinese act who cannot be employed, only to open restaurants by fetishizing oriental stereotypes and race-to-the-bottom. Their vulnerability makes rife for cultural appropriation once the market consolidated and Panda Express etc appeared with lower cost, cutting the labour for more surplus value and increasing scale of production to rid competitors, and sweep the consumers away with their ignorance of authentic taste. Ask a local Chinese, they might not even know what chop suey is.

To be truthful, I used to be one of those instagrammers, gushing over açaí bowls when I didn’t know what the hell açaí was or where it came from.

As you may already know, capitalism as the dominant ideology speaks through and reproduces in us, for instance maintaining racism to oppress and continue exploiting the labour. This prideful ignorance is in fact racism, in which you get to disrespect and cast the culture as undeserving of serious attention or equal treatment while the 'low' cost is transferred to and comes from oppression of the locals themselves; like global prostitution tourism industry where comprador countries like Thailand 'produce' transpeople to be humiliated with reward, you are doing economic tourism and claiming a masculine conquest of 'exotic food' (which is why the term is just a descendant of orientalism) while maintaining the stereotype and ideology that legislates and pressures them in their place. You're not really interested in the food's meaning persay, but in eating the food your way - it may be innocuous on the individual's part, but insidious when you see it play out structurally. Disgust of food is very actionable i.e. considering the food as an extension of people as filth (diseases to become 'unhealthy', pests) that should be out of place, out of mind and can easily translate to violence, in fact in India caste the connection of systemic violence is explicit; you can have racists eating 'Chinese' food and assaulting them for polluting their eyes, stealing jobs etc. Further more how do you define the domestic? Sugar is still largely linked to slavery and American farms are known to use migrant workers and child labour to harvest around strong pesticides. By focusing on individual morals and co-opted FT labels over the self-destructive system, by prioritizing the alienated foreign without domestic structure in account, the exploitation in capitalist structures remains a constant and continues to steal and infest our society. If Capitalism doesn't end, so will racism never end as public violence to oppress the exploited with fear of revolt and maintain a hereditary exploitation chain. So will our relative lack of choice legitimated by the extremity of those exploited.
So I make my case for the end of capitalism and racism.

So it took me roughly one week to get banned from communism communism101 socialism and socialism101...
I've been passionately engaged in substantive debate (not all debate but still) in anarchism and anarchism for a few months.
We don't all agree. But for the most part (fuck Ancaps) we respect each other's right at the very least to exist and to experiment and to learn.
That is all.
((....you have been permanently banned from anarchy)). 🤣

I'm often wondering about something: how come the production of theoretical, historical, artistic, etc. works of this up and coming generation of revolutionary Marxists in the imperialist countries is so low, if existing at all? I think a big part of the reason is that social media – forum posting like here, Twitter threads, maybe blogs or substack pages – dissipate a lot of intellectual energy into small, unsystematic bursts of more or less simple thoughts. You get some instant gratification from likes, shares, and upvotes and the perspective of working on something deeper and more meaningful that would require sustained study and intellectual effort becomes unappealing or is just completely falling out of sight. The deeper reason for this is obvious enough: there are no genuine vanguard parties, there is no revolutionary mass movement. No organized body exists that would demand study, a certain level of theoretical education, that would further the development of class consciousness. There's only just now an emerging labor movement again without an organized, conscious vanguard. So everyone is working either in small, disconnected groups, from within revisionist parties, or as totally isolated individuals sending their thoughts into the ether.
Naturally neither I nor anyone else here can simply will this to change. But what I want to encourage is people taking up more serious work on their own, taking study seriously – and not as an end in itself but directed towards producing something that can be helpful in advancing the current efforts to reconstitute the real movement. I've written about this before on a number of times, about how a concrete analysis of the concrete situation is a necessity for any revolutionary movement (here and here for example). That includes studying the concrete class structure of our given national context, the given state, its strength, its weaknesses, the tendencies within the class struggle, the international situation and how it affects the internal national situation, etc. This also includes the historical background: where does the current development emerge from, what is its point of origin, its historical trajectory, the transformations it has gone through, what generalization can we make from analyzing this and which conclusions for future developments can be drawn from those? These are the most pressing issues if we want to work towards the reconstitution of an organized revolutionary communist movement, from those analyses we can then draw a political program, a party form, forms of organizing, propaganda, possible mass organizations and movements, etc.
Beyond this we also need more general theoretical investigations into specific questions like the meaning of law, as is currently being discussed here, the conceptualization of socialism, an update of our state theory (Stalin already pointed out the gap in understanding between his time and Lenin's studies, that gap has only widened with little revolutionary work having been done in the meantime), the lessons that can still be drawn from past struggles towards communism, the systematization and advancement of revolutionary theory that is forgotten but still has value and can be developed further with our level of the science (Pashukanis' and Stucka's work on law would be one example, we can also think of the Soviet psychological tradition like Vygotsky, Luruia, Leontev, etc, and we will find more as we investigate the past struggles more), advancing our understanding of fascism (very important right now as it is growing across the entire world), the political economy of imperialism, and so forth. If you are an artist who is for serious about art you can actually revive art as a real social force when you take up the struggles of the masses, get to know them, learn to create for and with them. You can overcome the alienation of art and life that capitalism has created, we can do it together within the revolutionary process. That is the only way we can rescue art from its destruction by capital.
These are all question you, me, we all can contribute to answering. It requires as prerequisite a study of the Marxist method so we can actually live up to the complexity of these problems. I've provided some resources towards at least the study of materialist dialectics before. This study can be done, and it should be done by everyone who actually takes Marxism seriously (I'm not saying you need to read every single text on this list). I have done it myself, which is why I'm writing this post. I'm not proposing something I'm not already doing myself. I think capitalism makes us forget that we actually can alter reality, that we can alter ourselves, become more intelligent, educate ourselves, work towards major goals we set for ourselves, goals that we derive from the insight into objective necessity (the goal of communism if we want to survive as a species, if we want to liberate our class, overcome alienation from one another, what have you). Capitalism creates this contemplative attitude in us where we don't grasp our own agency, where we see ourselves as passive observers of the quasi-natural processes of bourgeois society which we can supposedly only bear witness to, which shove us around, but which we can't affect. But you will feel, and this has been my experience, once you take up these larger tasks, make connections with like-minded people, experience yourself getting a better grasp on the problems you're struggling with and thus start to understand reality better, as you widen your circle of like-minded people and your collective activities, you will feel your power against these deadening forces of capital.
In the coming years the situation will only become worse for the us, the masses. We will be drawn away from our cellphones, gaming consoles, computers and into the real struggle. We will need to raise our understanding of what lies ahead, how we can navigate and guide the coming struggles, what organizational forms we need, where we can find reliable comrades, how the state will react, what the limits of its power are, etc. And we can do it, not as prior to and discrete of these real struggles, but as part of them. We can contribute to the movement, we don't just have to read the classics as eternal wisdom. We can grasp their practical essence, their call to investigate our social reality, sum up, develop, and advance our theory through study and practice. Keep it alive in these struggles. I'm not a person who goes for grandiose speeches, but I want to at least try to encourage some of the people who might read this to try to escape our contemplative attitude, make an effort, and experience that you are not, in fact, condemned to complacency, that we can become agents of history of we learn its laws, combine and organize our forces and affect our reality.
E: Fixed some typos and grammar issues. Glad that some people reacted positively to this.
I want to add some comment on how to study. I've commented before how I go about it, dealing with my bad memory and tendency to veer off. I think most people will have to experiment with what works for them, since we're all a bit different regarding reading comprehension, memory, level of experience, etc.
One think I want to recommend when you want to actually go about working on a specific problem: research the fundamental literature and new literature that brings in new insights, create a bibliography of the topic that can guide your studies. You can enhance this list as you go through your studies as you will find new literature through the things you read. Sounds fairly basic but I'm not sure how many people actually go about it this systematically. It can help you a lot.

The issue is as above (broad, shifting Marxism).
(Edited: my bad for the mess before) But! I'm asking several very different questions below:
▪︎What is the canon?
When I'm compiling my reading lists, I observed intellectual developments of Marx with his dialectical method. While Capital is the epitome of his work, modern readers like me rely on his previous works to establish definition and context. So far on reddit I've read how some of Marx’s early works may mislead people on concepts (like alienation) and that Marx has amended Capital to a softer tone on historical materialism in his French Edition. How do beginners follow through his method and changing subject matteevents he's addressing and stances? What is the unspoken consensus of definitions? I also downloaded Hans G. Ehrbar's Annotations to Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’ with German aside to avoid lost to translation and minimize inaccuracies in definition. Any suggestion on how to grasp the relative 'canon' in the flow of debates?
E (10/3/23): see comments below.
▪︎How to read academic book/alternate frames on current issues (through the jargon/bias)?
When we reference books, there's often an unspoken canon as the standard basis in the acadmic's head. This 'authenticity' is often constantly revised by academia industry, which is rather difficult to follow for outsiders. Engels is said to 'vulgarize' Marx’s manuscripts and obscures an authentic reading. With this shifting Marxism, if we want to consult Marx’s interpretation on current issues, how do we get through the 'revisionism' and inconsistency in academic stuff? How critical should we be when reading journals and like? Any favourite academics?
▪︎How to read Marx under late stage capitalism with imperialist propaganda?
When I read Marx I'm never sure I'm reading Marx or an interpretation from myself or others. Under neoliberal propaganda and age of information overload, I fill the lines of Marx with my knowledge of context, but the mental dissonance and my indoctrination can always get better of me with my inability to assess theory. For instance in another case, how do I know if I think in chauvinistic ways when inspecting postcolonial literature as a citizen of a previously colonized country (brought aware by J. Sakai)? Recommending readings on biases would help a lot.
E (11/3/23): Marxism as science https://reddit.com/communism101/comments/txsdkp/is_marxism_a_method_of_analysis_or_a_theory_that/i3tai80/?context=999 supplementing the MLM list
Begin by debunking science from idealism and racism in https://www.reddit.com/communism/comments/acy4p2/can_anyone_explain_to_me_althussers_distinction/ and https://reddit.com/communism101/comments/bfrvdb/how_is_marxism_a_science/eli7xd7/?context=999 alongside readmarxeveryday.org's recs to clarify misunderstandings of issues
▪︎How to track the development of legit Marxism and evaluate theory?
Marxism is a broad term. Marx arguably says that he is no Marxist, yet beginners rely on Marxists and communists to understand the context of Marx and Marxism's revolutionary significance. Hence the confusion with conflicting premises. From the books I used as crutches to reddit threads in here and askphilosophy, I gleaned that there's various valid 'revisionist' contributions to Marxism from Trotskyists like Ernest Mandel (whose preface of Capital is in the version I am reading), Postmodernists like Althusser, Foucault and Judith Butler, Neo-Marxists and many of us reflecting on the current era or after the rigorous application of Marx’s theory in Soviet Union etc. Marx and Engels did explicitly say that their work is not for utopianism and for practical implementation and contemporary adaptation. So how do we know the above experiences (easier to research on tho no less controversial) and extensions of Marx’s arguments are valid enough adaptations of Marxism?
In a post, smokeuptheweed9 referred bourgeosie science as a degraded form of Marxism and 'philosophy' as poor dialectical materialism. Can someone explain that for me? How is it so?
▪︎Last question on dogmatism and self-study
As beginners we stick to trusty interpretations like Lenin, Althusser etc, but things don't work like on paper so we'll definitely look into events around us and try praxis (which is really our motivation). But before that when we begin we take words at face value, possibly leading to dogmatism. How do we differentiate fundamentals/anti-revisionism from dogmatism? How to learn to organize people or any small things to do to achieve praxis?
I'm also reading Krupskaya's On Education alongside for more insights on self-study, any comments?
I don't expect too much, answering any one section is fine. By commenting, you make my day! Thanks for reading!

Also, 'Marxist' board game pt 2
pt 1: https://www.reddit.com/communism101/comments/11fr328/marxist_board_game_any_opinions/
How can a student organize without local support (community party etc)?
Fron what I see on reddit, many of us share agitation over idleness and inability to do activism without support structure. For novices like me, reddit clarifies a lot, but we still lack local support structure in a neoliberal world. In my case, there's only a 'left' party and basically invisible ISA sect around with white worshipping, 'meritocracy' rhetoric and a 'common sense' of political apathy.
There's no way around it. We need to start from scratch. How can we bridge the gap and organise?
My conclusion is four things.

1. gain sympathy and allies (for study groups, organizations)
   
2. clarify class consciousness (to the working class)
   
3. learn how to organise togther
   
4. (ideally when we do matter) learn decision-making
   

I think board games can be a way for praxis though it is at large an ideological superstructure. By chance I joined an 'educational game design' session in uni and realize that board game is a good materialization of concepts to cross-check, a safe, seemingly apolitical environment to discuss and a good way to bond over.
I clearly overestimated myself in my Marxist board game project (it will take a long time), but I figured I can at least throw a stone to the water for those more qualified and less isolated than me.
Here are some (common sense) ways to organise on board game medium and beyond:
▪︎Sympathy: debunking liberal biases with satirical game mechanisms ('democracy'), dissection of capitalist superstructure, easier on genuine misguided people (avoid capitalist game mechanisms)
Also: by running news columns, blogs etc
▪︎Class consciousness: guided inquiry from Marxist axioms to the entire system to clarify (though most already know intuitively), unite interest and achieve solidarity
▪︎Organization: case study/historize/contextualize, simulation to achieve consensus (social games like Mafia for convincing and understanding revisionist etc issues), costs/funding, raise awareness on security issues etc
Also: visiting & doing local surveys, attend (or org) community forums w your group, find genuine local ngos etc
▪︎Decision-making: role-playing, crises from structural models within context, spotaneous discussion to resolve issues
Thanks for reading guys, hope this helps. Though I'm still largely ignorant of history of revolutions and labour movements, this can be a place to start. It's cool if there can be readings suggested on activism too.
Any opinions? (unfortunately got locked ha)

Hi, so as the title says I grew up in a Soviet Republic. An Eastern European one to be exact. My family has suffered quite a bit at the hands of the Communist Party. No we were not kulaks/counter revolutionaries, our biggest sin was the fact that my brother defected. Even then, I still hold quite a bit of beliefs I think we have in common with many socialists such as strong support for worker unions, progressive taxation, universal welfare, UBI and more so I do frequent some socialists subs, and I always try to keep my responses civil and in good faith.
HOWEVER, occasionally I'll see someone trying to paint life in the Socialist Republics as all sunshine and rainbows and every time I've shared my experiences as a counter example on any socialist sub I have been permabanned, usually with no explanation or after being called LARP-er. And every time that happens I get turned more and more away from any sympathy I have towards any modern socialists, as I believe any other person would be for getting silenced for sharing the truth. I assume this will be the faith on my post in this sub too, but I'll still like to say that I come here in geniune effort to understand your point of view.
Here's my chilhoods copy of Stanislav Lem's Solaris and my dad's "Hero Of Socialist Labor" medal as some kind proof I'm not talking out of my ass https://i.imgur.com/DA2hgJt.jpg
As of now I have posted this exact thread to all the subs that are supposed to be educational and fostering discussion with socialists. As a result I am now also permabanned from /Socialism_101 /communism101 /AskSocialists /socialism /communism /lostgeneration

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
​
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
​
* Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
​
* 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
​
* 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
​
* Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
​
* Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for communism101
​
Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.
​
Normal subreddit rules apply!

I'm watching Last of Us episode 6 and it never came to me that the words "commune" and "communism" could be related. However, there's a 10 year old post in communism101 by u/criticalnegation that also asked this with a few replies. u/StarTrackFan says that both words aren't quite related to each other. (Note: This isn't about politics, but language. As stated, I'm here because of a TV show based on a video game that gave me a realization.)
I just find it interesting how so many English words are so similar in their spelling and easily assumed similar definitions have nothing to do with each other. I'd like to see a list of words that aren't related but seem like they are. None come to my mind, however.

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
​
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
​
* Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
​
* 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
​
* 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
​
* Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
​
* Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for communism101
​
Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.
​
Normal subreddit rules apply!

Hi comrades! related to my other post here- https://www.reddit.com/communism101/comments/11475ty/propaganda_about_the_ussr_in_schools/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
As someone without detailed knowledge about the general history of the USSR(just started reading about marxism a while ago), how can i quickly gain an understanding of these figures without subjecting myself to western views?
Id like to flip through a textbook about them, but it’ll ultimately be very unhelpful, as it’s probably just full of propaganda.
Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks :D