Comrades are on the same side, and they're not looking at each other - they're looking outward, at the goals they have. So when you think about comradship from the perspective of individuality, what you're thinking about is how you are joining with others to pursue the political goal that you all have. That can be a great individual feeling, but it can also be a crappy individual feeling, in that you often have to put aside what your immediate, individual or emotional ego-need might be, in the interest of the common fight you're engaged in - but that's why you've engaged in the common fight.

Political theorist Jodi Dean explains what it means to call one another 'comrade' - as a bond deeper and more permanent than liberal conceptions of allyship, and as a commitment to a shared fight against the domination of capitalism, and toward winning liberation for all people.

Jodi is author of the book Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging from Verso.