Me, So Far

Comrades, this blog has been serving as a way for me to mindlessly scribble out some ideas while I'm learning more and more about all things Left. I think it's time to sum up how I've changed since I joined a couple of weeks ago

When I came on to this site, I was more or less a social democrat - I mean contemporary social democracy (Keynesian, progressive welfare-state capitalism), not social democracy as it was originally conceived (an evolutionary capitalism-to-socialism theory instead of a revolutionary one). I'll write another blog post some other time that goes deeper into the schism in the social democratic community I was quickly feeling that being just a "progressive capitalist", I guess you could call it, wasn't enough. Simply making a few reforms and hoping for the best wasn't going to drastically and fundamentally help the working class in any way .... so I read a bunch of books, debated a few Marxist friends, took some political theory classes, and decided that I was a legitimate democratic socialist (aka original social democracy / evolutionary socialism).

I've changed a bit in the past couple weeks since I've been here on revleft. I used to be vehemently opposed to a revolution and was firmly supportive of a evolutionary approach, but that's changed. The most compelling anti-evolutionary argument I heard is that when the proletariat push forward and use the democratic process to enact reforms, they will become complacent with their momentary victories and stop fighting for socialism - they'll quiet down, stop protesting, and stop rioting after their health benefits become a little more comprehensive, when they get social security, when they are able to live in a more "gentle" form of capitalism.

So, I've been coming around to the idea of the requirement for proletarian revolution to actual push us from capitalism to socialism. When I joined I was 100% committed to reformism, but know its more like two-third revolution and one-third reform. Maybe that ratio will fluctuate a little more as I keep learning

I'm a revolutionary now, but not a complete revolutionary Give me some time and I'll come around!

As I began to awaken to the idea of a revolution, I was thinking about how much I oppose vanguard parties. However, that too is changing. I'm coming around to those too, but I'm still considering how it should be made up and what role it should play during the revolution and after it. I'm all for a one-party system in the short term during the dictatorship of the proletariat, but I'd love that system to be made up of various pro-worker factions that democratically debate how it should be run and how it should function .... I'm not a fan of democratic centralism, because I think that it is a sort of embryo for élite members of the party to become an authoritarian, top-down regime.

Maybe I'm completely wrong. Give me some more time to think and learn and I'll be a bit more enlightened

So right now I'm adhering to the idea of "peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must".

I'm also obsessed with Sartrean existentialism, so a lot of that seeps into my political views. Right now, I would describe myself as a revolutionary democratic socialist and a Sartrean Marxist, and I'm becoming increasingly tinged with pro-vanguardist views and looking at (modern) social democracy with increasing disdain.