I think one of the issues with a lot of the ways we understand communist ideology is that we see it as one thing. Like Marxism-Leninism as the “Ideology” but there is a reason it has a dash. Marxism is the ideology. Leninism is the strategy. Marx recognized the issues within capitalism and developed a model to transcend it. The issue is that you can say ‘hey lets do luxury gay space communism’ but how? Well that’s where Lenin came in. He showed us ONE strategy for how it can be done. (Hence the book called What Is To Be Done. On the nose much Lenin?)

Leninism WORKS. We know that. But like with military strategy it evolves based on your situaton. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is old as shit, but still relevant. But it doesnt mean we havent expanded on it since them.

That’s what China did. Marx got the “What do we need to do?” Lenin did the “How we do it” and China is currently doing the “Now what?”

That all works. We know it does. But theres layers to it. Lenin, and Mao were fighting in very different conditions to modern liberal capitalist nations current ones. We know Lenin’s strategies work in the conditions that Lenin, and Mao used them in. We know Mao made some adjustments to it due to his own specific needs. Just like any good tactician does.

So the question becomes. How do we get the conditions where we are now to be more similar to those in pre-USSR russia, and pre-PRC china? OR how do we adjust the strategies of Lenin to work in our current conditions.

We have to do one of them. I think the 2nd is more feasible personally. Maybe a combination of both though. It depends on the country.

We should also look at failures not just successes. Where did different socialist projects fail? Why did they fail? China has teams of people examining this constantly. It’s one of the reason they seem to have such good foresight. They study history.

One thing people in the west need to study is European failures. Because europe had a more similar system to what we have now in the west when those failures happened, and it can tell us what not to do.

The west has adapted over time to have pressure valves to get rid of revolutionary sentiment. Liberal democracies, and their theatrics. Allowing for “peaceful” protests which accomplish nothing. Villifying actual revolutions. Theres a lot.

To break through this you need to get people to build class conciousness. To do that you need a platform. A way to start getting into peoples heads revolutionary ideas. But in a way that isn’t going to get you redacted.

I don’t think we can do things the way Lenin did exactly, but his model can be built off of. Expanded on to meet our current conditions.

The first step, and the thing i think everyone should be working on now is just building a power base outside of the current society. Establish communities on the principals of Juche’s radical self reliance, and Democratic Centralism for decision making. It doesn’t have to be a full on commune. You could just buy a building with 5 or 6 friends, and live there together, and organize from it. Be as self reliant as possible. Keep a physical library with medical handbooks/useful info. Keep supplies and train 1 or 2 people as a medic. Grow food. Have solar. Have water filters, and rain catchment. Keep your networks secure, and basically start operating like a resistance cell in your daily life. Still go to work, but pool resources and start stockpiling material things. NOT money. Dont sit on a bunch of cash. Upgrade your base.

Start networking cells like this together. As conditions worsen offer aid to local community members and make sure your clear about your socialist leanings. Let people start to associate you with it. Instead of the propaganda.

Once the time is right those cells all unite under the banner of a single vanguard party. After they’ve already built the good will, and the infrastucture. Do it in a time when the state is stretched thing, and let them panic. Let them crack down hard on the people who have been giving aid during the hard times. And watch as the people around them are outraged. Then start putting out more aggressive agitprop. “The State is arresting our friends! They must be stopped by any means necessary!” Be prepared to capitalize on the anger. Play the victim. Have more rural, low key, communes ready for the urban groups that dont get grabbed to flee to. Start turning those into actual resistence camps. Let the state be distracted with civil unrest because they just dismantled a massive social safety net without realizing it and people are furious. Call in your allies. Get unions to go on strike. Get the peaceful protest lovers in the street. etc. Then during the chaos you start preparing for the real fight without the states boot crushing you before you get off the ground. Massive recruitment drives. Underground network building. Militias. etc.

That’s how i would do it anyway. I’m not sure it would work, but it’s my attempt to adapt to the current conditions in empire. I simplified my ideas a bit because this is long enough, but the idea is just to find a way to adapt what Lenin and Mao did to our current situation. Just like how generals adapted tactics for bow warfare into musket warfare, and gun warfare.

To maybe put it into simpler words think of it like this. Lenin built his vanguard party in a nation that didnt know his strategies so he was able to get it off the ground. Once created the Bolsheviks were a force to be reckoned with. Modern states put their efforts into preventing the creation of a Bolshevik like force. Because that’s the key thing Lenin never had to deal with. So we struggle to get off the ground. If we could get off the ground we could use the same tactics as Lenin. We just need to build a bridge to get there. New ideas should be directed at how do we bypass the interference from the state, and build something like what Lenin, and Mao built. Because once we can build that we win. It’s why they’re so scared of Leninism in particular. Why do much effort goes into villifying it over something like anarchism. Despite the goals being similar.