This video was made in collaboration with Second Thought.
We made an accompanying video over on his channel about why so many young people are
becoming socialists which you’ll find linked in the description box below, so get over
there after this and subscribe for great weekly socialist videos.
Right, I’m gonna level with you.
The world’s fecked.
Completely, utterly fecked.
Young people living through the second major economic crisis of our lifetimes during the
COVID-19 pandemic?
Shite.
Being forced to join the “gig economy” or other precarious jobs with no contracts?
Shite.
Worker productivity increasing steadily for nearly half a century while real wages have
remained stagnant?
Shite.
At the same time, housing, healthcare, education, and all of life’s basic necessities getting
more and more expensive and inaccessible for normal working people?
Shite.
No clear end in sight for this progressively deteriorating situation emerging from the
continuing boom-and-bust cycles of our economy?
Shite.
Skyrocketing rates of mental illness among young people, connected to all this?
Shite.
Impending climate catastrophe ensuring our days are numbered?
Load of shite.
So, you can see why I say the world’s fecked.
But… the good news is that we can pinpoint exactly what’s causing all of these problems.
And – not only that – we’ve also got the solution.
Welcome to Socialism 101: a series designed to help educate people with no prior knowledge
on the basics of socialism and communism from an explicitly Marxist-Leninist and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
perspective with short and easily-digestible videos.
If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and hit subscribe and turn on the notification
bell below.
Do be a star and give this video a little share around on social media, Twitter, Discord,
Facebook, etc. as the YouTube algorithm has been going really hard on this channel lately
for some reason.
I can’t imagine why a capitalist corporation like Google, which owns YouTube, would be
going hard on an openly pro-communist channel like this one.
It’s a real head-scratcher.
But look, it is what it is.
Do you remember all that fecked stuff I mentioned earlier?
Do you wanna know the main culprit behind it all?
The system of capitalism.
And, look, that’s not to say capitalism hasn’t done some good stuff historically
– it was a hugely progressive step forward from feudalism.
But no system lasts forever, and if we want to solve the aforementioned problems then
it’s essential that we recognise that capitalism’s day has come and passed.
Just like we couldn’t reform feudalism to solve its inherent problems, we can’t reform
capitalism for the same reason.
“The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.”
It’s time to move on to the next stage of historical development: socialism.
Now I know what you’re gonna ask next; if we’re trying to achieve socialism, then
why the feck are we talking about “communism”? – the big bad scary c-word we’ve been
taught to hate all our lives.
Well, partly because it’s fun to ruffle the feathers of the right-wing establishment.
But, more importantly, because, while generally well-intentioned, no other progressive movement
has ever actually succeeded in meaningfully challenging global capitalism.
Ever.
We’ve tried the social-democratic route of voting the right progressive candidate
into office – and time and time again it fails and demonstrates itself as being incapable
of solving the problems that capitalism creates.
Why?
Because every state exists to serve the interests of its ruling class: in our case, the capitalist
class.
As long as the capitalist state remains intact, no amount of piecemeal reform, nor elected
“good guys”, will ever be able to overcome the fact that the system is specifically designed
to maintain the very capitalist rule that’s destroying our planet.
The whole thing’s set up for us to fail.
It’s fecked!
Other progressives recognise this, too; to their credit, there have been anarchist uprisings
attempting to overthrow capitalism that have enjoyed limited success.
But the movement we call “communism” (specifically Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
– based on the historical materialist understanding of social-historical development) has progressed
us further along the path to complete liberation than anything else ever has in history.
Not only have we brought about real-life socialism, but we’ve also progressed further beyond
that first step, into fighting back against the revisionist backslide into capitalism
to maintain the socialist road and continue the advance towards a stateless, classless,
moneyless society.
Despite many errors along the way, and the innumerable criticisms we must have of previous
socialist experiments, the communist movement has still advanced the liberation of all working
people further than anything else in history, and for that, in my opinion, it's worth carrying
forward the torch of scientific socialism and the revolutionary communist tradition.
To put it simply; communism works, and we’ve got 150 years’ of proletarian struggle to
prove it.
--- If you’d like to learn more about this movement,
about working-class revolutionary history, and about the scientific socialist path forward
to collective liberation – then this series is for you.
It doesn’t assume any prior knowledge, so if you’re still scratching your head after
this video asking questions like “what is communism?” or “what is socialism?”,
but you’re intrigued and want to learn more, then you’re in the right place.
We’ll start simple with the basics of Marxism, explaining all the terminology and jargon
– including a lot of the terminology used in this video – then gradually ramp things
up through more intermediate and then later advanced-level theory.
We’re gonna analyse the problems of capitalism and class society more broadly – how we’ve
found ourselves neck-deep in this capitalist heap of shite.
But we’re not just going to diagnose the problems, we’re also gonna map out a clear
path forward to overcome them… in line with what’s been uncovered through the concrete
historical experience of working-class liberation struggle.., all the way from the Paris Commune
of 1871, to the ongoing revolutionary people’s wars being waged in places like the Philippines
right now, on this very day.
--- Thank you for watching this video – hopefully
you’ve found it useful.
If you’re able to support this work, please consider donating a euro or dollar per month
on Patreon, or a once-off donation on Ko-Fi.
Links in the description box below.
Thank you to Rare Hero, Cormac Ó Broin, Dan Hunter, Red Corridor Raya, Christian Nipales,
Daniel H., MLMinPractice, Comrade Romano, Jason, Michaela Schmid, Mammarius Hex, Ryan
Hodgson, Donal O Coisdealbha, Gabriel Bailey, lepanneän, Hugh Jass, the rjienrlwey condition,
Jess, Ian McShea, soup, Pontus, Colm Walsh, Hagen Michels, Evan Crossland, “..”, and
Boricua Guerilla.
I wouldn’t be able to make these videos without yous and I certainly wouldn’t be
able to pay my bills.
Cheers, everyone.
Slán go Fóill.