Having to get a job after dropping out of college; was introduced through Unions (local PetsMart actually got unionized at the time). From there, it was summary education and living examples in regards to the contradictions of Capitalism, class struggle, class antagonists, etc. Finally read the Communist Manifesto, and it made sense- and now continuing to read (though slowly, ADHD).

I started seeing r/ShitLiberalsSay recommended to me, and it made me realize I needed to do some reflection. I used to be a “vote blue, no matter who” liberal, but it took others point out that no matter who you voted for, the bombs dropped on the same targets. I think the most liberal thing I’ve ever said was in reaction to someone saying “eat the rich” with “they are people, too.” The subreddit made me start question what liberalism even is, and a recommendation that kept being thrown around was Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo. I lost a lot of sleep due to how unbelievably angry I was reading the history of liberalism and realizing that it hasn’t really changed.

So I started spending most of my time lurking in online left circles. The thing that finally made me want to start learning about the USSR was seeing the images of people visiting Stalin’s grave during the anniversary of his death. I was having a conversation with my wife and her Navy, Poli Sci / History major brother and brought that up. “How can people want to visit the grave of someone described as a monster?” He responded with Stalin caused the 1950 famine by introducing communism to plant growth. I didn’t know much about it, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to dive deeper.

There were a lot of small things I learned here and there. I noticed that no matter how progressive the USSR was, the reaction was always “they were worse than the Nazis”. Which led me to Blackshirts and Reds. It was the best explanation to the vitriol coming from the western “left.” It was the explanation for my liberal brother in law that had a Poli Sci class that talked about the media being the fourth wing of the government, all while repeating the “Biden was the most progressive president since FDR” line spatted by the media… I tried to give him the book, but pretty much just called me a tankie and blew me off. That made the line, “scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds” really ring in my ear.

But that wasn’t everything that helped push through the propaganda. Listened to Proles Pod, The Deprogram, lurked here and Hexbear, joined my local DSA and CPUSA, and of course read.

i had tankies slowly explain things to me over time.

then i had a blatantly fascist president and feared it, which made me go into a learning spree about fascism and who usually defeats it.

USian ex-liberal here. It would be hard to go back and trace all the steps, I don’t have the best memory for that kind of thing to begin with and stress has probably done a number on me as well.

But in broad strokes, I know Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016 was a catalyst (though I’m pretty sure I was already discontented with capitalism to an extent, which was why I readily agreed with him). His positions alone, in retrospect, were pretty mild, but he wasn’t the only one involved in it. There were others who seized on the energy involved to educate beyond him and that was more what made a difference. For some time, I lingered in a state of “baby leftist” who probably sounded like one of those “leftists” who wants healthcare but also is scared of AES states and still believes in the empire. Eventually, best way I can think to put it without having all of the transformative details to rattle off, is quantitative transformed into qualitative. And when I read State and Revolution, I think I was already ready to hear it, you know? It wasn’t like a shock, like it might have been if I’d read it when knee deep in Red Scare views.

It was eye-opening to read. I don’t think it immediately made me supportive of AES states, partly because of the stigma surrounding doing that, but eventually I came to reason that if I was going to believe in ML as a solution to anything, it only made sense to be supportive of projects that were trying to do it. Back then, I knew almost nothing about the projects in the particulars and so I would default to more of an “I don’t know” mindset; rather than saying they’re bad or saying they’re amazing, I’d say I don’t know enough about them and I’m not going to pretend that I do. After being here a while, discussing, reading, reflecting, and discussing more (sometimes rather vigorously), it has become a little bit easier to defend AES states in the particulars and confidently say what they are for and what they are doing. There is still a lot that I just don’t know about the weeds of it, but now I can confidently say a thing like, “The US lets a guy like Jeff Bezos reign, whereas China would depose him of power” (which is putting is nicely, I don’t think it’s out of the question they might execute someone like him). Being able to say this to a person who is dissatisfied with the world as run by billionaires is nice to be able to do. I’m not sure how much it moves the needle on sympathy for AES states, but maybe it gets a foot in the door. It sure beats being like, “Well AES states might have done horrible things, I’m not really sure” or the so-called ‘leftist’ thing of being like “no, no, you see I’m proposing the good communism that has only ever existed in the abstract, not the bad version that they tried and had to test against actual reality, I’m a ‘safe’ commie who will never challenge your power with anything real.”

Long live the actual people’s democracies of the world.

Learning about WWII and the Great Patriotic War. Reading history and communist literature. And just seeing what China is doing and comparing it to what is happening in the West.

Combination of the failure of Democrats to live up to expectations, Bernie and other SocDems becoming non-viable options because the game was rigged, direct personal experience with poverty and wage labor, love of history and historical accuracy, agitprop from leftists, and the triumph of Trumpian Fascism before my very eyes as the liberal order floundered before him.

Learning about Fred Hampton and Salvador Allende, who they were, what they accomplished, and what they were trying to achieve, was the watershed moment for me. Learning how the USA crushed them with such unrepentant enthusiasm shattered a lot of the narratives I’d internalized and allowed me to confront my biases and assumptions and move beyond them.

I came from a red area so my initial programming was right libertarian. I was still young amid the US right’s ascendancy in the mid 2010s, and I was beginning to get plugged in to libertarian echo chambers when I first encountered the term ‘antifa’. Since I, you know, engage in politics in good faith, I investigated a bit and followed up to the libertarians with “But aren’t fascists bad? Aren’t we antifascist even if we disagree with others who are also antifascist?” to which I received the customary “antifa are the real fascists”. I knew then and there that I was dealing with unserious people and began drifting left from there. I then had a left anarchist phase but grew out of it lol

I was gonna give a longer explanation that goes into detail but it was a combination of a large amount of things

1. I was raised with a general distrust of the government so when I eventually found things that they were actually lying about instead of random shit i was ready to believe it especially since there was actual evidence to go with instead of just because its th gubmet

2. I happened to fall into slightly more left wing circles who were willing to actually answer my stupid ass loaded questions that at the time I didnt know were loaded

3. And this is a really big one, I realized that crippling gender dysphoria is not a normal state for every cis dude and that I am in fact trans more importantly related to that is that the conservative people I know overwhelmingly hate trans people

4. related to 3 but the fact that people on the left let me question my identity and beliefs without judgement for the absolutely stupid shit I believed at the time

I was very lucky and despite growing up in the middle of nowhere, with conservative homophobic parents and going to church 3ish times a week. I just didn’t buy into it, I wasn’t really engaged in politics till I was older but I always carried the golden rule and I thought it was dumb how queer people were treated over something that doesn’t matter. Then I spotted tons of contradictions in the bible that I never talked to people about because I didn’t trust them. I constantly touched onto communism even as like a 10 year old but was constantly shooting myself down with typical rhetoric; “Too bad it doesn’t work” “shame it always leads to dictatorships” etc. Even was harassed by our police chief when he though he was being funny many times and arrested for carrying wooden sword on the side of the road as I was walking over an hour to the park.

The final thing that tipped me though, one of my friends said they were communist and I finally had someone to talk with about it who was actually educated and was able to get me past the self policing stage. it was just a landslide from there, constantly questioning what I thought I knew about everything. Researched Che guevera and Cuba’s revolution got me revolutionary, turned this into a life path for me.

All I needed was someone educated on this stuff to exist. But I got very very lucky by being empathetic and not trusting adults around me early on.

This might sound corny, but honestly the films of the USSR. They are so beautiful and humanistic. It’s what got me interested in that time period and country.

My first job treating me like shit. Seriously.

For me it started with watching as China stomped out Covid despite the costs while western countries kept obsessing about “the economy.” Then when the SMO started and everyone started cheering for nazis and calling people “Ork” it really showed me what liberals are.

So I joined r/genzedong and they quarantined it a few days later and then I ended up here and hexbear where I was pointed to better media and books.

Saw screwy fraud type things when I was in the military, shrugged it off. Watched Iraq for Sale and it kinda broke my brain, became anti war. Learn about fundamental attribution error on the western world while in college, that started to crack the foundation of my conservative religiosity. Trump got elected first time and it further broke the facade for me.

Then just doom scrolling on Reddit I came across anti-capitalist memes. Read Parenti shortly after, the rest is history.

First I saw the blatant lies in the coverage of the Gaza genocide. It was especially bad in Germany like our supposed neutral public news repeated literal IDF propaganda. An unholy rage I never felt before send me down a rabbit hole. I know “Manufacturing Consent” is not liked anymore but that burst my bubble on our propaganda being anything different than a tool to control the masses. In the meanwhile I spend more and more time on Breadtube watching overzealots, revolutionarythot etc. Somewhere along I joined here to find out what being a “tankie” is about. As a side quest I also started transitioning while I struggle through “Das Kapital”.

So to put it short: Huge flaws in liberal propaganda and decent red propaganda have brought me here.