I am planning to do posts on Marxism-Leninism (ML) on this forum. In order to engage with this topic and not dismiss it as dogmatic Marxist ramblings, I need you to enter the state of not knowing and be open to radical claims that will shatter your current worldview if you accept them. Forget everything you think you know about communism. (most of it is likely wrong anyway) I currently identify more with Actualized.org teachings than with Marxist teachings. I would say that I spent about 20-30 times more time on Actualized.org and adjacent teachings than on Marxist teachings. Therefore, don't have much of an egoic motive to propagate Marxism. But this also means I'm not an expert. I encourage you to seek resources from Marxists who are more educated on the topic.   ## What is Marxism-Leninism? In Very short, ML are people who (not uncritically) defend, want to tie on and draw inspiration from earlier historic and current implementations of ML to lead revolutions in Their respective countries.   Before going into any more detail, I want to address those concerns I predict to be put forward in this community and construct a very brief defense for each of them here. Ideally, I will go into more detail in future posts/replies. ## "ML neither promotes spirituality nor life purpose" Wrong. ML provides a practical and actionable approach for enabling the conditions for large scale development with historical data to learn from and a methodology for historical analysis.   ## "ML is dogmatic, ML is stage blue" Wrong. Real ML intellectuals are high-level, low-bias thinkers. Marxism is inherently self-critical. Nationalism, conformity and pseudo-religious iconography are deliberately used to enhance mass scale effectiveness in order to replace existing oppressive structures.   ## "ML has never worked in practice! Socialism is a skunk! Also, dictators and authoritarianism and totalitarianism!" Wrong. The reason you think this is because of western propaganda. Extreme actions and poverty in communist led states are and were pretty much always a direct reaction/result of the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the century old American war against communism, and not a result of inherent flaws in communist thought or practice.   ## "ML does not take human nature and survival into account!" Wrong. Human survival and the material conditions are the main focus of all Marxist thought and the starting point of all its implementations.   ## "But free speech and democracy and protesting!" Wrong. The reason you think you need those (rather than free housing, free healthcare, job security, etc.) is because in a free market democracy, the state acts primarily in the interest of the capital and the profits, not in that of the people, no matter who is voted to rule. If the will of the people is raised above the will of the capital, the only people who complain are the rich and their allies. This results in communist led countries actually often being more democratic than capitalist democracies. Did you know that China is holding votes on representatives? Why not? Has someone perhaps withheld this information from you?   ## "ML is materialism and scientism and atheism and stage orange" Correct. However, Marxism does not claim it or its implementations are free of contradictions. The claim is that a state of societal development which is free of class struggle has to be entered first, in order to sustainably move humanity to stages with even less contradictions (like stage green societies).   In my opinion, ideally, ML is implemented by tier 2 thinkers, which is why it is so important to me to talk about this on this forum. The idea that conscious politics can effectively be implemented (through reform) without forcefully ending the class struggle first might be the biggest delusion regarding politics present in this community and in the western world. All progress is always eventually reversed by the bourgeoisie. This is historical fact and is exemplified by the rise of the right all over the world. Capitalism will soon hit a brick wall. When that time comes, will you side with the revolution, or will you be too paralyzed by fear of your skewed fabricated view of communism? Will you allow the current corrupt system to be perpetuated, or in the worst case allow fascism to rise again?