My grandma from Belarus dispelled a lot of anti-comm myths for me at a young age. That being said, I was still a lib/democrat for a while bc my parents were. My dad was against the Iraq war since it started and that shaped my politics for sure. The weird book that changed my opinion on modern-day China and got me interested in socialism was Thomas Pikkety’s Capital in the 21st century. I read about how he spoke positively about some of China’s economic policies and how they are generally helpful. I told this to a brother, surprised by the info. He didn’t respond to it well AT ALL. We were mad at each other for a while and he thought I was a Maoist(I was still a lib, just had a few good thoughts about China’s economic policies, I was still dumb about the Taiwan issue and some of their other policies) and I had to confide in my much more liberal brother to let bro 1 understand that China is complex and not just bad. Over time I eventually read Anarchism or Socialism by Stalin and I was beyond impressed and knew I would never be a liberal again by that point. Now, a year and a half since reading Capital in the 21st century, now the roles are reversed and Brother 1 is overall vaguely pro-China and bro 2 is red-baiting China. Moral of the story: Take your wins wherever they may lie. I could go on and on about how Bro 2 red-baits and believes everything about North Korea or Vuvuzela
My grandma from Belarus dispelled a lot of anti-comm myths for me at a young age. That being said, I was still a lib/democrat for a while bc my parents were. My dad was against the Iraq war since it started and that shaped my politics for sure. The weird book that changed my opinion on modern-day China and got me interested in socialism was Thomas Pikkety’s Capital in the 21st century. I read about how he spoke positively about some of China’s economic policies and how they are generally helpful. I told this to a brother, surprised by the info. He didn’t respond to it well AT ALL. We were mad at each other for a while and he thought I was a Maoist(I was still a lib, just had a few good thoughts about China’s economic policies, I was still dumb about the Taiwan issue and some of their other policies) and I had to confide in my much more liberal brother to let bro 1 understand that China is complex and not just bad. Over time I eventually read Anarchism or Socialism by Stalin and I was beyond impressed and knew I would never be a liberal again by that point. Now, a year and a half since reading Capital in the 21st century, now the roles are reversed and Brother 1 is overall vaguely pro-China and bro 2 is red-baiting China. Moral of the story: Take your wins wherever they may lie. I could go on and on about how Bro 2 red-baits and believes everything about North Korea or Vuvuzela