LIVE, LARP, LENIN

Lenin famously said “go out and teach the masses unless they belong to a different LARP group than us.”

You do it good. As guy born and living in Russia since 1988 and been rise on soviet movies and western movies at the same time - It’s nice to see that on the Internet there are people who were not born in the USSR but understand that Soviet culture is not a drunk man with earflaps, but the way of life of people who wanted to build a new, better society and at the same time preserve the multinational culture of all the peoples living on the territory of the country. Good job, comrade!

Expecting us all to fit a specific mold of "how to be a true communist" is stupid. There are a multiplicity of ways we can all help bring knowledge to others that are not limited to talking about Lenin's arguments that demonstrate Bognadov's revisionism. There is plenty of space and forms of expression for everyone. Marx was precisely talking about how in communism the creative potential of people would be liberated. Why shouldn't we embrace the ideals we aspire to for our communist society? Salud Comrade, always be unapologetically you ✊🏼

Saying "This is not the way of Marx and Engels or Lenin" is incredibly dogmatic. It is our responsibility to understand their messages, but also to interpret them and carry them into the current century. Being able to recite Marx by memory is useless if no critical thought is applied to the content. The same goes with past socialist experiments. Be pragmatic, not dogmatic. The ruling class has evolved, so must we. Love your content @LadyIzdihar . You make history come to life, the best way to learn and appreciate it!

I agree that socialists can and should have fun. The whole point of any socialist project is to liberate people so that they can have fun, be human, and live a good life. It speaks to a level of immaturity and ignorance for those who think otherwise. Castro was animated, and known for humor. Stalin’s writings ooze care and respect for the human soul. Ironically, people who imagine socialists to be dower intellectuals clearly have not read theory.

Sholem Aleichem, from a Jewish Bundist to a Muslim communist. You're doing a wonderful job raising revolutionary awareness

If being a good communist means being in a party, organizing, recruiting and paying dues then I'm a bad communist. I'm a worker under capitalism who's engaging in a Marxist political education. I wear my budenovka to protests sometimes so I guess I'm a cosplayer too. So f'ing what, I love the way it looks on me. Thanks for addressing this subject, I think its important just now.

They hate to see a woman comrade winning. Keep doing the great work that you do!

the important thing is that she makes good content and represents the ideology well and she does that very well also living history is really cool

Amazing video, as usual! If you haven't seen it, I *highly* recommend checking out the 1975 Chinese film "Breaking With Old Ideas". It explores exactly the concerns you shared around the need for performative theory. In one scene, a teacher in drab, grey clothing being questioned by students about why their lessons aren't more practical says, "The harder it is to understand, the profounder the knowledge!" We see peasant students grappling with this mentality and what it means throughout the film.

Amazing criticisms, what you’ve discussed here is an issue I have actually struggled with to some extent and will keep your words in mind in my further action.

I think one problem is that when we read the works of communists, we tend to only see them through the lense of the theory they wrote. Therefore most human qualities get phased out, as they can't pass this metaphorical lense and what is left behind is the image of a theorist, not a human. But being a communist is not being an idea (the idea of being a theorist or a revolutionary), but to be a human with many different qualities. And after all, isn't our multifacisted experience as humans and our diversity something to be joyfull about. Even if what we experience right now is bleak, we should look towards giving it more colour and if we seem reduced to single qualities - like our labour power - then we shouldn't give into this alienation, but make an effort to break free from it. (Btw. I'm writing this as someone diagnosed with depression, so don't accuse me of being overly optimistic of everything.)

I think a lot of your criticism is rooted in misogyny. Which is why you are seen as unserious. Evn if what you are talking about is very deep.

Glad I came across your channel solidarity from Ireland comrade !!! Here is a comment from a working class hero and speaks to this topic "Everyone, Republican or otherwise has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something" -Bobby Sands He said these words envisaging a Unified 32 County Socialist Republic but he was also speaking towards the wider goals of Socialist, Communist movements in the context of the global power plays, and the fledgling movements of the working class starting to gain foothold at the time across the globe.

I love fashion history. Not for aesthetics (though of course, some historical fashion of course will please my aesthetic sensibilities), but because the garments that survive are testaments to the people who made them. I couldn't care less about the rich people that wore them. We might not know the names of the workers that made these garments but their works survive and their craftsmanship, talent and, in my personal opinion at least some of their personality are visible in every seam. It is of course immensely important to also document what the common people were wearing, this is more a description of how I approach this. And, relatedly, a lot of amazing craftsmanship was actually lost. Pre-industrial revolution weaving was on another level. They could actually make fabrics that wouldn't fray. We simply can not replicate this, with all of our advanced technology. Edit: If this makes me a bad communist, then I'll glady be the qorst communist in the world, because I think the unnamed workers deserve to be remembered.

I rarely if ever comment on videos, but I just want to thank you for the content you make and leading with empathy! The world needs more voices like yours! You did a great job articulating thoughts that I've personally been struggling to verbalize. I particularly liked the analogy of the child creating a version of their fathers job in their head, due to lacking context/understanding of the complex reality of the situation

Commie Drip always goes hard AF

I became a communist because I was half-watching/half-listening to the HBO series “Succession” in my sleeper (semi truck) and Pete Seeger’s “Which Side Are You On?” was playing and it sent me down the rabbit hole. Found Utah Phillips and Faith Petric, and Joe Hill and Robeson etc etc

Girl, I need a house tour. Please, I desperately need to see in close details those soviet flags on your bookshelf and I need a vanity tour, your vanity is so pretty it gave me goosebumps. Everything your house is pretty.

As an Eastern European, I can tell one big thing that your style of presentation triggers is the fact that a lot of this style has been taken over by social-chauvinists, especially in places that didn't immediately (or openly) build their nationalist mythology around anticommunism. E.g. Russia, Belarus. But that's just an immediate reaction. Keep doing what you're doing please :)

I like your vids. I can read Marx et al on the internet, which I do. Your contribution to socialism is positive, thanks comrade.

I really like how you framed the idea of performing ideology, and yes I agree that there are multiple ways of communicating ideas. I saw some of the discussion on Instagram and I see resonance from the comments supporting you in this video. Makes me think that ideas are also comunitary (sometimes credit only goes to the haters, because it makes us feel bad, but there are multiple voices in the background). Performance and discourse are inherently comunity-based, we need each other. Alfonso Mendiola, a Mexican historian, says that one of the purposes of history is to put in crisis the present. Fashion, performance, makes a statement by showing. The hate and support you receive is also a consequence of the crisis of your historical performance (crisis as a point of change, not necessarily something bad). By showing (performance) the crisis can prompt another crisis, change. Thanks a lot for the thouthful reflections!

whenever somebody trots out 'revisionism' it feels like a giant red flag (no pun intended), it is so often weaponized against people that are personally disliked, marginalized, or to create a really strict in-out group division which smacks of cultism.

I really appreciate everything you said here, particularly the bit about being openly passionate and how we should step into that as society around us becomes more sanitized and withdrawn. As to the general thrust of the video, in my opinion too many Western leftists fall victim to dogmatic Marxism, instead of engaging in creative practice. There is a sense from the criticisms you discussed that those people feel we have already arrived at the destination, and are acting in some kind of protective capacity, when in fact we are still in the very early stages of building socialism and require mass engagement through all possible means. It's a lack of awareness and I would argue that it is those who would accuse you of being performative that are guilty of that themselves! Keep doing what you are doing, it is much appreciated by your fellow comrades.

Thank you for taking a stance against the pointless infighting and sectarian hatred which plagues our current movements. It’s such an impediment to our current ability to create and maintain a genuinely revolutionary movement

Love how the USSR was like ur gonna invade me, try that shit then turns around years later and is like ima take some of Germany. Just a very boss country

Salam sister! So happy i found a new socialist/ communist creator and also a Muslim. I recently had a discourse with someone who thought Islam & socialism couldn't exist even though most of Islamic or quranic beliefs are inherently socialist.

Thank you for concluding with Comrade Che that was a lot of how I felt through this video: We as comrades need to see and respect one another for the revolutionary work we are doing by enriching our world with empathy. Art and craft is the personal expression of Science and Engineering, and beholden to that respect is the face and march of progress!

I love that anecdote about Lenin. A lot of the content you create is sharing what I call “Proletarian Lore.” While these things do not present a picture of the historical totality, nor provide insight on the universal tasks of communists in all countries today, I think they can give us examples to follow. This is why I love memoirs. Cecilia Boborovskaya’s account of her time in the revolutionary underground is an example I particularly look towards. We have to master Marxism-Leninism and be able to understand the world-historical significance of key periods in the history of the International Communist Movement, but to give a little more life to these things it is helpful to also understand just how and where the Bolsheviks would produce thousands of leaflets, the kinds of living quarters they maintained, and a few funny stories of Marx being a total slob. I think there is plenty of room for what you call “humanizing history” and I call “proletarian lore”. I do think communists should be passionate about all of the history of communism because that history is the ground we stand on. We are, only because they were. That is we should be passionate about making revolution today and assessing the history of the world proletarian revolution is central to making revolution. But this only gets me to the critical point, one that, imo, exemplifies the proletarian spirit. We have lost the first round. The communist movement is in crisis. Hence the plurality of organizations, the impotence of communism to influence the social struggles today. This demands we take up the task of thinking the revolution again. That we apply Marxism to Marxism and recover the revolutionary principles and give them a new lease on life so they can materialize in a revolutionary line. That means we have to master dialectics and criticize in order to integrate our successes and mistakes to meet the objective needs of revolution today. This is the duty of every communist. So the ideological struggle must become more open, deep and rigorous. Today we must cast aside illusions and face reality. That is the only way we can unite! As Lenin said (paraphrase), before we can unite, first we must draw lines of demarcation. You said theory is not your strong suit, but I think your historical/cultural work would benefit from a deeper assimilation of communist ideology. The first reason is that it is ideology which is the first condition of class independence. You rely on Judith Butler, and when you talk about unity you do not present unity in a dialectical manner as a unity of opposites. I think the comment was dogmatic and implied revisionism is something external to Marxism as opposed to its internal negative, the fifth column of the bourgeoisie in the labor movement. Rather in this period of disorientation and defeat, revisionism is Marxist common sense, one that takes a lot of work and theoretical training to struggle against. It does no good to simply point to the most obvious manifestations of revisionism if the revolutionary principles you learned from the books do not materialize in a political line. The second reason is if we were to say that it is not necessary for every communist to assimilate the worldview of the revolutionary proletariat - Marxist theory, we would be reproducing the bourgeois division of labor in our own movement, especially as it relates to the contradiction of manual and intellectual labor - characteristic of all class societies. Today it is of crucial importance for every communist to take theory extremely seriously. As Engles said, “since socialism became a science, it demands to be studied.” I think all communists must strive to advance theoretically. That will raise the level of our debates and be working towards a united movement based on the granite principles of communism. “Red cosplayers”, if they are to create a revolutionary culture, must also be dialecticians. We need an independent culture. There has never and can never be a proletarian revolution without theater, without dressing up in costumes, without songs and poetry!

I wear my Keffeyah as a socialist symbol

Hey Lady Izdihar, have you talked about how your interest started in communism? Or about your general background story on how you wanted to become a historian, what you studied, first books you read about communism, etc? Love your videos and tiktoks ❤

Great video. And very fun outfits! The presentation makes the video so much more captivating and immersive. I agree with your point of people trying to present themselves as too serious. And this is not just an issue in leftist spaces, as you pointed out. It's a shame that some feel pressured to sacrifice personal joy at the fear of ridicule. Life has tought me to always try to match the passion of the other person and not mock their "immaturity". The first time someone responded with curiousity to my niche "unserious" interest was genuinely surprising and comforting. Ain't no alternative to true genuine human connection. Life is short, have fun

As a commie basically making a party from scratch, I kind of want to start a diary on how we do stuff and put it online.

Damn comrade, thanks for that, I didn't know how much I needed to hear that. I'm just a regular guy with some beliefs that I think are important and when I bring them up with people, often they are pleasantly surprised. Because they think every communist is the same tedious guy from college who cornered them at a party in and talked for hours about post-revolutionary bolshevism or something. And those guys are important, too. But we need people like you, and I really resonated with your joy and willingness to patiently explain what you do and why you do it.

Great video!! Thank you so much for your work, your videos helped me a lot to understand and to study sovietic cultures, religion, daily life and fashion! Before I found your channel, I was lost on those subjects

I just also love history and your channel actually depicting an honest view of the Soviet Union is very relaxing. Content not being anti communist is so rare honestly😫. You bring “anti anti communism” to the next level. Thank you ❤❤❤❤

Whimsy and joy, living history and the way you go about humanizing the Communist era is something really unique and great. I started this channel in part to share the culture of the Hungary (and the Balkans generally) - in part because as you mention the English dehumanization is so common.

I really enjoy the comfy and aesthetically rich texture of your videos. I would be interested in knowing if there are there any other particular aesthetic styles (leftist related or not) that you think that people who watch your videos would enjoy learning about?

She doesn't necessarily do communist history, but when you mentioned the everyday life in history, I could not help but reflect on Ruth Goodman who's very much into domestic history and the lives of everyday people, living those times. There's a few episodes of various times in the UK she's 'lived' through which I always found fascinating. A Tudor farmer vs an Edwardian one vs one in WW2. Putting the human into human history is so important to understanding it

What you do is every bit as important as discussing theory. Humanising the Soviets and challenging the all-pervasive negative stereotypes and propaganda about them is necessary to counter all the shitty "communism only works in theory" arguments. What you do is open another door for people to engage with socialist ideas, one that I think is more approachable for more people than a lot of socialist creators. Not every every socialist has the inclination to learn all the theory, but they still want to know how people lived under socialism and whether they were happy and fulfilled. But even besides all that, just as a source of historical information, your videos and the content you share on your website are invaluable. Keep up the incredible work!

one of the best videos I've seen regarding questions that I've never thought about. Loved it.

Workers all over the world UNITE!

I find it really interesting that person doesn’t seem to consider that people who watch your content are not here having their first dose of communism. We are very likely supplementing our own preferred praxis and theory-based content and our own activism with your videos - which, personally I deeply enjoy. Your content is thoughtful and beautiful and different. You’ve still informed me on other aspects of communism - I’ve even picked up books that you’ve suggested that I hadn’t seen other leftist creators mention.

I quite love your channel. There are many marxist theory Channels and also many channels dealing with marxist history. But your channel has this special niche, where you talk about "ordinary Things" in socialist countries. And showing how the poeple in the soviet Union lived, loved and eat or which hobbies they had is very unique. You show that people in socialism are people doing ordinary stuff which helps more to fight against prejucides against socialism than a talk about "das Kapital". Thank you for that

First time I comment here... and I think you're doing a great job and you're doing an superb work for the movement... I also absolutely agree that the divisions among our communist/socialist circles must be addressed by trying to find agreement of some sort because without unity on our ideas we're going nowhere... Also don't be too bothered by the haters, I doubt many if any of them are just sitting at home doing nothing but wag their finger at creators like you when you're actually doing your part (which again is great work)

As a neurodivergent fella, I genuinely think that there is an ableist root to the ideal of what a communist "should" look like or do. Not everyone has the same skillsets or capcity, and well... something I am absolutely passionate about is hybridising my passions! The passion for understading my neurology and understanding how that relates to class struggle! And its quite nice because its mostly new territory and fun and exciting. Sure my ideas aren't purely original, but the way I formulate and articulate it is, and I hope to give heart to it all. I am not actively working on a video project but I have for a long time wanted to make a video on how a liberal views fuedal society, and how this can help teach liberals how we view capitalist society. How? Using video games which are obsessed with historical authenticity! Using video games as agitprop? How bourgeois of me! Clearly I am lazy unemployed commie! Case of misnomr idenity, my lack of employment is a byproduct of disability in an unaccomidating world, and well while I will seek to get a job soon, its not a requirement for me to make content to engage similarly young neurodivergent or yougner leftists. It doesn't mean I am incapable of understanding or analyising society. The neurodivergent perspective is one of coming to terms with not fitting the perfectionist mold we have internalised inspired by the inhuman whims of highly productivist capitalist society. Fighting alienation is a daily exercise and well, young underemployed neurodivergents are far more vulnerable to being captured by reactionaries. I truely seek to do the community a favour by being a positive reovlutionary optimist voice! I think cognitive accessability is more than just a tiny subfield, if I can devise a way to make theory accessable to fellow Autistic ADHDers with fried attention spans... alienated as frick neurotypicals can also consume such information in such an accessable way! KZfaq channels like this do so much already but I think my specific clique still remains underrepresented for reasons which make total sense considering our material conditions. Also to clarify, there are certainly neurodivergent creators here and there, but I wanna get my own flavour out there! :D

One thing I found in my adult and working life is people both crave and fear anything genuine or true honesty. We are all afraid to be criticized, judged, or shunned. It takes maturity and true character to understand that you owe to yourself to be the best version of you. Others may not like or agree with what you like to do, and that’s OK. As long as you are not hurting anyone and trying to be better than your previous self every day, the rest does not matter. As another commentor said, be unapologetically you. All the other BS does not matter. ❤

We should also give proper attention to the fact that the expected performance is extremely ableist and white-centered, mainly because it creates demands not everyone can fill in due to communication, social or mobility issues and diversity and it doesn't consider decolonial past and current experiences, nor do they invest in those. We should beware that the discourse revolving an expected communist performance is partially chronically online and reduced to the US-UK-Australia bubble

I've been watching your videos for about 6 months, and your approach to complex topics such as the Soviet Union, feminism, and aesthetics has been very interesting. Greetings, comrades from Brazil.

I found your channel yesterday and have been watching a ton of your content. As an American who grew up under the crushing oppression of poverty while surrounded by the opioid epidemic (thanks capitalism) learning about Soviet history and daily life has always been an interest of mine. And you are such a great presenter! I’ll definitely be a long time subscriber.

I think this video has inspired me to give a little more attention updating the way I speak about certain things, like contradictions, to help more people understand, rather than sticking to a style guide. Even if I expect some negative reactions.

I don't see a problem with the outfits. What is a more pressing issue is the problem of people only being active online and not being active in organizations. That's not a problem with content creators though, that's just a problem with our extremely online and often anti-social generation. People expect there to be a ready made party in their country with large membership and no problems or disagreements within it, rather than accepting that it's their job to build it because no one else will.

When at uni I remember getting extremely excited about a fashion history class I was forced to take. I’m not a fashionable person but what I realised in this class is that fashion history is the history of normal people and reflects the politics of different eras in a way that’s interesting and personal to real people. Modern fast fashion has kind of undermined this to an extent by mass producing garments that at some point had some kind of political or societal meaning

Honestly i follow u just for the aesthetic. Also i'd argue that worker's fashion SHOULD be glamourized over getting the next gucci or bugatti. One is mindless copium and the other is a dedicated approach to looking pretty while doing the least amount of damage possible.

I got some people in my life who don’t believe there was democracy in the Soviet union, do you have any good book recommendations for them?

Lenin built a great part of his theory by reacting to "content" produced by others. He didn't teach at the university, nor did he study in a formal, academic, way. See the 1933 article by Nadezhda Krupskaya on how Lenin studied Marx. Love your "not-tankie" content, full of love and empathy. keep it up!

Dear comrade, thank you so much for your work, words and voice. I was particularly enamoured by the concept of revolutionary empathy. Video when? 😭😭

I adore you Izdihar, but despite having also come from a place where I valued unity as the ultimate goal, after study and experience with the parties, I vehemently disagree that upholding unity within the communist movement is a good thing. First, to call the disagreements between communists frivolous is wrong, but again, I also viewed things this way at one time. To give an example of a disagreement that is not frivolous: the national question is of tantamount importance, particularly in the USA because of the so-called "guardian-ward" relationship the settler state uses to maintain control of the 574 federally recognized Indigenous nations, all of which had their land stolen and are still relegated to reserves where our government continues a 400 year campaign of genocide, exploitation and extraction. The reactionary and white supremacist "National Bolsheviks"/"Patriotic Socialists" ("Nazbols" as we used to call them) who desire to withhold sovereignty and land from the Natives during and after the process of socialist transformation are and always have been corrosive and incorrigible. On a deeply related note, there are racists, misogynists, bigots, abusers etc who identify as communist and maintain membership and even leadership within the parties. I am not and will never be in community with them, I am not safe around these people. I urge you to reconsider and make careful observation of the contradictions in our movement between decolonial socialists and patsocs, if nothing else.

You're a good channel and an important piece of culture in your own right, thanks for helping to educate us on the generally overlooked but critically important aspects of day-to-day life that you tend to focus on!

I absolutely agree on your comments on unity as well as the importance of humanizing soviet history (and the history of other socialist projects), but what is your stance on unity of those who refuse to see socialist history as a positive development yet call themselves socialists? I agree on unity in a broad sense, at least for movement building, but there are so many socialists who refuse to look at places like the Soviet Union as a place with people, a place with wide varieties of cultures, just like most other societies, and just see a bland hellhole authoritarian nightmare, going as far to claim that it was never socialist. How can a movement learn from socialist projects if there is a large sect of people who refuse to believe socialism ever existed in reality? I'm aware that, in a call for unity, these things are more important after actually seizing power, and the focus should be on dismantling the system at hand, but these sects also seem to lack strategy for when that time comes. I'm tired of arguing with trotskyists over a feud between two individuals 100 years ago, and I wish we could actually unify because of the disorganization of the communist movement, especially in the US, we're incredibly weak, but it's nearly impossible to have unity on a basic theoretical or historical basis here, something of which a correct analysis is supposed to be the basis of a revolutionary party. We all want the same end goal, but so many are dis/uninformed on history, leading to misconceptions or blatant ignorance that prevents creating an actual line. How do you unify with someone who outright rejects the history and practice of the struggle?

Yep... Those who were in cold war era part of SKDL (short from "Suomen Kansandemokraattinen Liitto", often translated as "People's Democratic League of Finland") often says, that fight inside of the political party between so called "stalinists" ("Taistolaiset" - word could be understood as "those who fight" but it came from name of "Taisto Sinisalo", who's first name means "fight" or "struggle") and so called "eurocommunists" was the main reason why popularity of the party slowly shrinked, and while the party once was most popular party in Finland in 1958 elections, it lost more than half of it's support slowly till 1991 it was replaced by Left Alliance party. That the infight took so much energy and attention, that lot of people who wanted build socialism or communism, stopped to be active in the party, and stopped to support it. USSR pressured SKDL to "come along" with the split inside of the party, but that didn't really helped at all. Some people see, that it even worsened the thing. That because of that pressure, fighting inside the party never stopped, there was never real debate about things, but "who is in who's side" instead. In UK I've seen new Revolutionary Communist Party been created, and I am very happy about it, and lot of what they say. But I cannot understand why they focus also to blame Stalin about...well everything, like Stalin would be big thing in today's UK... I mean, so much passion to hate "wrong communists". (I may prefer Trotsky over Stalin in many questions, but I can criticize both of them, and also recognise lot of good from both of them). It does not help anything... I admire professor Richard Wolff's ability to avoid all infighting and focus on main questions. He can say lot of good things about China, USSR - and also recognise, that mistakes been made, although never as much as in capitalist nations. No one can challenge capitalism in body count, if you want such competition to have.

Your channel is great and educational. It does humanize community and communism away from the pervasive propaganda that demonize them. I agree about the divisiveness which is often instilled by some on purpose, including those who are outside communism. Keep up your methodology. It's great.

Really love your content and feel like you’re bringing a much needed perspective to a community that is often male centred and hyper intellectual. About the experience of people in the soviet union; do you have any resources for what people ate especially what more fine dining looked like.

I think I speak for the majority of us when I say that I take all of this for granted. Also, bourgeois propaganda tells people that communism means wearing a potato sack and living on gruel. We have to combat this just as we have to combat other bourgeois lies about how the atomic bomb ended WW2, etc. And I look to people for their expertise, or I take their content as conversational. I treat Hakim as a fellow learner, not a Head of Marxism. When I want to know about political economy, I look to Radhika Desai. When I want a journalist, I tune in to Rania Khalek. LI is making a necessary contribution firmly within her area of expertise.

I just found your channel for the first time and really love it. Keeping doing what your doing its really great.

Curious, i bought a North Korean leader badge, what do you think about it and should i wear it publicly

I so appreciate and resonate with your analysis here and your ability to embrace the complexity and richness that makes life more human. I'm an aspiring culture worker, and I've had comrades (who are close friends of mine) rather than support my vision (and my small but particular role) tell me art isnt important during a revolution, clothing isnt important during a revolution. They act like a revolution is one singular act. It's a process! Beyond an armed struggle is a whole new world that needs to be built, it includes many things, it requires many things! We need to be lifting each other. That is precisely why I make art, not just because I love it or am good at it, but because I want others to see art that empowers them and "helps them greater understand their world and their role in it." Additionally, like you, I want to humanize, I want to honor heroes that dont get to be honored in western culture, bring names back that the West has tried to bury, I want those to be teaching opportunities. I've had a comrade close to me tell me I was taking on my political views as too much of my personality because I got interested in marxist culture. Cmon! We should be celebrating this legacy, just like you do. It's the most inspiring thing in the world! Your work is appreciated, you are an inspiration to others! Thank you Izdihar

This video was a balm to my bitter little overly-online soul. Revolutionary optimism, indeed-that’s something worth maintaining.

Your content is powerful and important, and I'm convinced that's why you get so much hate. You don't deserve the hate, but I think it's oddly a good sign! I love your content, it constantly impacts me in fantastic ways. Thank you 💕

Just found this channel. Wonderful content. Thank you.

What's the song in the very beginning

"Do what you can, when you can, for as long as you can." - Beau or the Fifth Column For any movement to survive, we need a diversity of tactics and contributions. The only thing anyone can ever ask of you, is for you to be the best you. ❤

nothing makes one a bad communist except for failing to bring forth the oncoming revolution or slowing its approach we must as good communist strive towards the liberation of all people as best we can as much as we can and no in not sure how exactly to do that

The job analogy is such a great way to explanation !

I like play a game called how many hammer and sickle pins can I wear on my work uniform before my boss notices.

Your passion is contagious. Thank you for all that you do!

First time watching digging your content. Very informative and like that you are trying to break down communism simpl language for the working man woman

That comment by MLMEnjoyer screamed projection

Educate, Agitate, Organise. While they are all important, without education that involves theory, historical context, that should lead to a stronger class consciousness. (Something that is badly missing amongst the masses)... Our movement will be doomed to fascist take over. I love your approach to it. It is a great way to appeal to an audience that other educators can't. To the people that don't get much value from this. That is OK. There are other educators that have different approaches. But please, having a go at any particular creator for their approach is a bit daft and counterproductive. There will be thousands of new comrades due to Lady Izdihar's efforts. وَعَلَيْكُم ٱلسَّلَامُ

This is the first time the KZfaq algorithm has directed me to a creator I haven’t seen before whose mind is so grounded in something I’ve been thinking about so intently. And while this was AMAZING and I’m so glad to see it, it’s also a bit creepy to have that feeling of being “known” by the algorithm. The only thing I’ll add is that these norms and expectations all feel extremely…White, colonial, and masculine-coded? Which like, sure, if you want your whole movement to be made up of boring White dudes, I guess that’s fine. But if people actually want global communism, we need to start trying to understand other ways of being instead of judging them, and start recognizing that joy, self-expression, and play are critical parts of life. We need to bring in and celebrate the ways folks from different cultures make spaces for those things, and we need to uplift them in our movements. Do we actually want a better world, or do we just want to feel like we’re “right”? Because if we want to former, we need to uplift, embrace, and celebrate different ways of being (and build in-person movements that do exactly that). If it’s the latter, then our internet leftism is doing a phenomenal job, and we should keep it up.

I need the link to where you get your scarves 😭🙏🏾💕

Your work is fantastic and brings the past to life in a way that sparks inspiration in the brain. Thank you comrade, may you continue to make your content.

Comrade, love the content you're putting out. Quick tip to improve audio quality, as I do see a mic pin, but there seems to be some static coming through as well. Not sure how tech-savvy you are, but consider using a decibel filter to filter out noise which is less than 4-8 db (really depends on the input) but it should improve the quality of the sound dramatically! It'll be a great help for headphone users too ! :)

Great job! Love the long form content.

Right on point! Love your content!

Thank you for posting all the content you have so far, as someone who's described himself as a Titoist and yet not well versed in the theory aspect as well, yet is attempting too. Your content and understanding you provide have been a large help in getting me motivated into learning more, understanding more theory in part. And I fear the left's lack of unity even today is going to be a challenge for us, it's silly in my opinion regarding some people wanting us to larp, living the "communist" lifestyle while we continue to exist and remain trapped in a capitalist system. Yes, we can always do more such as with our own consumerist waste and ext, and yes we should be doing more to educate and teach those curious about our movement. But we are all individuals in the end, and we shouldn't judge each other on our supposed contribution to the movement. Not all of us can be superstars and not all can be experts, and regarding the nuanced differences in our doctrines I really like this quote from Tito "None of our republics would be anything if we weren't all together, but we have to create our history - our Yugoslavian socialist history, that is unique, in the future - that is our path; not touching the national rights of the some republics to preserve their own traditions, not at the expense of, but in the interest of the whole community, to mutually complete each other. That is what we want, and not the destruction of our unity." In the context I'm using this quote here, this idea of unity also applies for modern socialist and communist movements today, divided we are weak, and united we are strong. Our differences are smaller than we like to think, as in the end, we all want the freedom and liberation of the worker, taking the means of production into the people's hands, and no longer having to sell our skills and labour to those who control the means of production. We are so much more together, so much more when we learn to accept each other.

17:07 ironically, by promoting the human aspect of it all, you show a more dialectical view of things, rather than perfection or hell on earth, thus making YOU truest follower of Lenin all along!!!!!! EDIT: typo

In the spirit of openness, playfulness, and diversity of thought, I would appreciate a video delving into why the revolution should be communist, rather than the larger category of socialist, or more specifically anarchist, autonomist (thinking here of thinkers like Cornelius Castoriadis), or ecological socialist. Communist seems not only far too narrow if one is advocating experimentation, but potentially insufficient or inadequate considering social complexity and the polycrisis with its accelerating AI playing a harmful role in the acceleration of a myriad of existential crises.

Thank you for uploading, this video was informative and I definitely resonate with what was said.

Marxist, manual laborer, and first time viewer. Good to see a unapologetically marxist historian there is a great need for that. Have you had any thoughts on Vivek Chibbers comments on the current political left?

Is there a historical record of early communism having a plurality approach that would be a good tool to follow to bridge the differences between groups now?

I struggled with this for a bit on the difference between a Larp and taking real action. I've come to this conclusion: if you demean somebody for acting out of your expectations, you are doing nothing to help the movement. We're not at a point where socialism is a reality. We're getting there, but we still have a lot of work to do. "You propagandists aren't doing enough. You're just putting posters up!" How will people know if there's nothing to read? How will people know if there's no source that's going to introduce the idea? The only time we heard about communism in the 90s-Early 2000s is through establishment filters. Right now, we have a ripe opportunity to normalize the idea. The establishment is losing credibility, but people are confused as to why this is so. So they say "Well I'll vote for the Red Tie this time. The Blue Tie didn't do shit." Then get disllusioned when the Red Tie doesn't provide material relief. They vote for the Blue Tie, rinse and repeat. By introducing these ideas, however you do it, you're introducing people to an alterantive paradigm. They no longer are enslaved to the Red/Blue Dynamic of Politics. They exercise other means of running society. They begin to question why certain conventions have the foundations they do. They begin to ask what's enforcing the status quo. They seek the contradictions in their desire to find answers and it starts with normalizing these ideas into concrete reality. What does Socialism mean for gun ownership? What does it mean for your job? What does it mean for how your healthcare? What does Capitalism do in relation to these things? Let us not forget that the Republican Party is about Gun Control when certain people try to exercise their Second Amendment Rights. (See the Mulford Act.) Let us not forget that Right-to-Work Laws give an employer permission to fire you without being held accountable as to why. Remember that Insurance Companies can deny your claims for any reason. Need a heart surgery? Under capitalism, it isn't profitable to let you get that necessary heart surgery. Yet Capitalism is argued to be the greater good? As long as we're not trying to interject our own contradictions and biases into the ideology, we should be constructive of one another instead of infighting in the public. Develop real solidarity and connect to each other through organizations. If you can organize hate campaigns against content creators that agitate you, why can't you do so against Capitalist agitators? What stops you from developing such a will to act?

I'm glad the younger generation has rediscovered socialism. Because just after the fall of the USSR we hit a dry spell. I know, I lived it, as a child of the Cold War. Shows you socialism will always come back, no matter how they try to kill it!

Mais um novo fã brasileiro aqui! I meet u at tiktok, but thanks to algorithm, I found u at my YT page!

The only way to avoid infighting is to concretely talk about the building of a party which would obviously involve getting past the “isms”. But that is unavoidable, we want a united party, there will be trots , maoist forms of thinking- they will reproduce themselves. Whats more important is to analyse the material conditions that will make it likely for a strong communist movement- trade union / class consciousness, mass movements, political turmoil. Otherwise every communist becomes a nostalgia act or a “content creator” having Kardashian level strife and no productive conversations. There is already a communist party, in fact theres hundreds of them, and just like 100 years ago it took tremendous work to unite them.

I have thought the same, your video was great, you are a great educator and historian. Feel very humanized!

The reason I, as an anarchist, tend not to understand the celebration of these specific times, is because I don’t really understand the romanticization of famine and like mass suffering and death

I discovered your channel a couple days ago and am finding it really inspiring. On an emotional level, the iron hope of Marxism-Leninism is preferable to the sentimental brutality of the religious conservatives and neocons and the sneering contempt of the libertarians. I don’t trust anticommunists one jot. But self-criticism is important for everyone, regardless of their place on the political compass. I want to believe a better world is possible, but just as it is human to imagine an improved future, it is also human to be skeptical.

"How do we start a party" is a valid question...but I highly doubt the person asking knew the answer according to the people they cited: Marx, Engels and Lenin. The way to start a party is not to create a central group that directs everything, but to build a democratic movement, meaning a movement in which all of the people of the movement participate in democracy, where "democracy" is the decision-making process rather than "voting for who will make the decisions." If you look at the arguments of Marx/Engels/Lenin about what the future of communism should generally be, nowhere do you see "our leaders gave us permission" or "our leaders told us where to go and what to do." Rather you see "we decided for ourselves." Lenin fleshed that out more with various "democracy from below" lines, like "in their own way, for themselves, on the principles of their own Soviet" ("The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government", 1918). The role of the socialists and communists is to teach the people how to create democracy so that the people can make the decisions for themselves. So how does that equate to "how do we start a party"? Starting a party is not the right way to think about it. Political parties end up being autonomous of the people they nominally represent, becoming beasts controlled by a select few rather than the whole mass. To the right wing thinker, the person who believes that we need "the right people" in charge to make the "right" decisions, the person who believes that "the wrong people" shouldn't be allowed to participate at all, that is reasonable. In fact, it's the way of the Stalinist and the Maoist and even others probably including Trotsky and some Marxists. The problem is that that sort of thinking leads to a new class system and the alienation of people who could otherwise have been won over. Democracy isn't "whoever I agree with gets to make the decisions," but "all of us get to make the decisions," so limiting it to only the "right" people undermines the very concept of democracy, and rejects the basis of communism itself. Instead of starting a party, think of building the movement. Without a movement no party, however "good," would be anything more than a representation of a minority. You build the movement by first de-atomizing society; you can't do that by talking theory at people, calling for communism, etc. You push people away from the movement, into the arms of the reaction, by trying to talk AT everyone like they "know" communism is the best and just don't want to admit it, or like they're the devil because they're not communists. You need to start by building relationships, and as the community you create through that process grows you introduce the concept of democracy. Democracy not for control of this or that resource, but democracy for nothing more than discussing local issues so that you all get different views. You know it, you may admit to it, but unless you show that you understand that most people do not have any real experience with democracy, you will only hamstring your own efforts. People need to practice democracy so that they can normalize it, and as it becomes normal it should be expanded to decision-making. We can't think of "solidarity" like they used to. We're closer to peasants than to proletarians because of how socially isolated we are as a product of neoliberalism. The thing that makes you a proletarian isn't THAT you work, but the SOCIALIZED aspect of your work; the power dynamics under feudalism vs capitalism (and republics when you stop to think about it) are not significantly different, only the social aspect of labor and the proximity of so many people are. The proletarian movement must therefore be a social movement first so that it can build solidarity by building a social community of working peoples. You don't just do that by saying "workers of the world unite" and other catch phrases, or by saying "start a worker cooperative/union" and other empty platitudes, but by building relationships, building networks of communities that are socially connected. Being part of the same class doesn't make us automatically comrades, because as any Marxist will tell you plenty of proletarians reject the movement entirely. So build social solidarity first, and use that as a "foot in the door" to help them learn about their class relative to the capitalist class. Also what we can't do is focus on "the way of Marx et al." Marx was not a deity, nor was he a prophet. Marx looked at conditions and critiqued them. So did Engels. So did Lenin. And with their critiques they looked at how to use that information moving forward. Marx/Engels were less focused on moving forward and more focused on critiquing the existing conditions, but the activism aspect of their ideas was democratization, not "build the vanguard to create communism." In other words, the only "way of Marx et al" that we should concern ourselves with is the way of democratization according to existing conditions. If we aren't building a democratic movement then we aren't doing anything meaningful in pursuit of communism. "Democratic" for all of the people, not a select few as always becomes the case using various excuses (like "but imperialism and interventionism, and we have to keep the spies and counter-revolutionaries out") and actually prevents any movement towards communism. My blog is linked to my profile. I go into it more there. Rather than focusing on theory I focus on "what can we do now in these conditions." Consider it "creative commons" for purposes of IP; I don't need citation or credit, just don't put it behind a paywall. 2:45 That's got some validity, but...! People who claim association don't always have the same end goal, nor even a rough alignment in methodology (top-down vs bottom-up control). It's like communists aligning with social democrats simply because there's a shared interest of decreasing the harm done by capitalism during the existence of capitalism, but the SDs don't want to get rid of it at all while the commies do. Maoists, Stalinists and others of the "statist" variety aren't trying to democratize, they're trying to replace the existing top-down capitalist and republican systems with top-down statist systems with communist aesthetics. We are not working towards even a similar goal, which is why I don't place them anywhere in the "tree" of socialism/communism. Social welfare in a top-down organization is no more socialist in capitalism, so calling it socialist in Maoism is likewise nonsensical. Work with them on decreasing the harm done by capitalism, but *unless they commit to democratization* as the primary method (you can't "wither away" the state without it) rather than a "when people are ready some time in the future, maybe, if we're not threatened by interventionism" (because that means "never") they can't be trusted to not replace capitalism with another exploitative, oppressive hierarchy. 12:15 Said in a few short words what I would take paragraphs. Exclusionary is the key word, and exclusionist/supremacist behaviors and thinking are...anti-communist. "But the bourgeoisie should be excluded." From what? Life? Alienate people and expect to see attacks from them AND their friends. It works both ways, not just against the little people. With democratization they lose their outsized influence and with taxes they lose their outsized wealth, turning your exclusion into nothing more than revenge. We don't need more of that. We need less. 12:45 Again, great points. Serious communists aren't trying to prove their superiority with aesthetics and posturing and lording over your education, but are trying to bring people together by connecting with them as people. Being an elitist with communist aesthetics is still being an elitist. 16:33 Raymond Robins. Wasn't expecting to hear THAT name referenced. For anyone who hasn't heard of him, read "Raymond Robins' Own Story" by William Hard. There's a lot in there which helps understand why things turned out the way they did. There's also "America's Secret War Against Bolshevism" by David Foglesong. That tells part of the story that Americans DO NOT get told, from the American perspective of US leadership (via memoirs, interviews, official communications, etc). 20:05 Lenin even said as much about how society should develop and govern itself. It's my experience that the people who claim the loudest to be Leninists (especially "Marxist-Leninists") are the least educated about Lenin. I've had too many quote wars where they use cherry-picked lines to support bogus arguments only for me to laugh as I show them the context disproving their interpretations...often in the sentences immediately before/after those quotes. 21:00 One of the things that too many communists/socialists refuse to learn is that Lenin, just like Marx and Engels, was against top-down control and advocated constantly for democratization. Conditions (a civil war, a world war, famine etc) kept getting in the way, but doubling down on the thing they all rejected is ludicrous. Movements like the Zapatistas and Rojava show that democratization is viable, that it's NECESSARY, but there are always excuses given for why we should centralize power within a party like every other experiment that resulted in rejecting democratization demands that were actually promised by the rhetoric and ideology. Overall good video.