Many self-identified leftists, even people in the MLM orbit, are way too squeamish, way too easily hurt or upset. And not all but most of these people have not spent a lot of time—if any at all—with people in the lower sections of the masses. These self-id’d leftists would find it hard to handle how proletarian people often behave: They are often crude and direct. They do not use PC language. They are often enough angry and raw and intense.

To be frank, I think most of these self-id’d leftists don’t realize what a huge hindrance this helpless surrender to sensitivity is, and actually imagine that it’s a virtue. I honestly think they imagine that as they win working-class people to revolution, they will soften them, “civilize” them, make them gentler and more like Leftbook or radical-liberal Tumblr says people should be: You are valid!

This is exactly the opposite of the truth.

The violence, the rawness, this isn’t a side effect, not just something unfortunate that petit-bourgeois people must reluctantly tolerate. Get it straight: it’s the fuel of everything we’re doing. It is in fact the exact power that makes the toiling people the motive force in the making of history. This fire is exactly what we should be seeking out. This anger is what rebellion is made of. There will not in a million years be a people’s war without it.

If you claim to be a revolutionary, comrade, you are asking for *war*. Mao was being polite when he tried to tell you that revolution is not a tea party. He meant that revolution requires unbelievable emotional and physical pain. It requires us to ultimately accept even people we’re fighting alongside being curt with us. This is not to say that we shouldn’t struggle to be good to each other—we should, but it is rarely the primary aspect. And most important at all times is that our politics are as correct as they possibly can be.