My circles tend to be very anti Lenin or anti Stalin, most of them are anarchists or left leaning people who have a pretty strong opposition to MLs. I would like to have a dialogue with them or least give them some tools so that they can have a good background with which to critique ML even if they don’t change their mind and become MLs.
Bonus if it includes info about the Bund in relation to Lenin & the Bolsheviks or information about Jews in the Soviet Union or ML Jews in general - most of us are Jewish, and a lot of strong opposition is rooted in the Jewish experience of those eras and strong emotional and ideological affinity to the legacy of the Bund.
These don’t quite cover the Jewish experience as much but, some books or articles top of my mind for at least countering anticommunism are:
- Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution
- Blackshirts and Reds
Would love to hear yalls thoughts.
Parenti would probably be my go-to pick. If you want I could forward your question to some Jewish comrades of mine who’s more well-read in that sphere of history.
Thank you, I would love that!
I got recommended the following
Hyman Lumer in the introduction in this book is all you need for Lenin and the Bund.
Follow-up he also suggests the following
https://ujpfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The_BIG_LIE_MOSES_MILLER.pdf
Personally I’d suggest giving them all a once-over to gaugue how well your audience may receive them since you know them the best.
That said if nothing else it’s a treasure trove for you to enrich your noggin with some good theoretical slop
I appreciate you reaching out to your friend, and your friend too for living me some recs. Thank you! I will give these a read.
Thirding. I identify as an anarchist. I recently read Black shirts and Red. It had a lot of criticisms of Soviet Russia that were based in history. The criticisms were done in a way that it was easy to see the faults, but you can also see ways to avoid. It was a great work that’s valuable to all leftists
seconding Parenti, as an anarchist
Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo
the rev left podcast did an episode about this book with the translator. it’s very specifically not a biography of stalin, it’s about stalin’s reputation & mythology and how that mythology has been shaped by the needs of bourgeoisie/capitalist ideology. it sounds like it would be good for the purpose you have in mind.
free pdf: https://www.iskrabooks.org/_files/ugd/ec1faf_2d8a8a045ef442a4bc367697d9231c01.pdf
this book also includes a chapter specifically about construction of stalin as an antisemite and how that ties into the double genocide theory, which starts about page 200 in the pdf linked above
I think Losurdo is a bit much to jump into if they’re still at the “Lenin is bad” stage. Losurdo is pretty dense and reads like a historiography. I doubt OP’s friends know basic Soviet history, so they should probably start by learning about the Russian Revolution.
yeah fair enough. I started reading the bit I highlighted about antisemitism and it’s pretty dense. you really have to give a shit to get into it
Sounds like they need to understand history more. China Mieville’s October is a good overview of the Russian Revolution and gets into a reasonable amount of detail on all the factions. By the end of it they should be rooting for Lenin.
It’s only unfortunate that it ends with the author going on a diatribe against Stalin as a sort of weird epilogue. But I think that’s worth it if you can get them to see Lenin’s place in the world. Or like others said, pick Lenin’s writings.
Lenin’s state and revolution is also pretty good. Stalin also wrote on the national question.
Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed could be viable, it portrays the heroism of kronstadt sailors while still focusing on the revolution. Also I was surprised do find out that the very first law that got ratified took a strong anti-antisemitic stance but only the law gets cited and I dont remember anything else about jews unfortunately
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The more condescending it is towards anarchists, the better.
This is the worst advice possible.
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It is indeed
I got bitted
Can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not since it is hard to read tone via text, but my intent is not to be condescending. Most of my friends are anarchists and I was one myself until extremely recently, and it is still a position that I respect.
I would like to approach this by having readings that open up dialogue so that I don’t get kneejerk “fuck Stalin/Lenin” reactions when communism is mentioned.
Lenin’s “The State and Revolution” should be a good entry point for them. He pulls a lot from anarchist ideas and analyzes how they worked in pre-Soviet Russia to form a conclusion which should be digestible to your friends.
I was being sarcastic because i have been through this debate a million times from the anarchist side and most of the time no dialogue developed on it because of the condescension from the other side and the fact that they weren’t trying to inform me about Marxism but wanted to CONVERT me. So if you’re really just looking into getting them to know it even if they don’t agree with it i say it doesn’t even matter that much what you show (but yeah, State and Rev is an obvious starter).
Just be prepared that they might not like it. I don’t know how well versed in anarchist theory they are, but there’s ample “debunking” (putting it in quotation marks cause the quality of these is umm, varied) so it’s not at all given that they will accept the leninist conclusion. I have read through about half of the works suggested in this thread and am still thoroughly anarchist and have my beef with Lenin and (especially) Stalin.
You’re getting reported for Bad faith trolling and sectarianism.
I’m taking the l
You’re getting an
I mean this in the most goodest of faith possible: why not focus on a book tackling current problems, rather than rehashing ML stuff.
Because if they don’t have a solid grasp of leftist ideas and fundamentals, what good is focusing on current issues? ML theory deals with capitalism and the issues it causes, while the specific nature of the issues today aren’t the exact same as they were a century ago, they are still issues whose root cause is the same. Trying to deal with current issues without understanding the underlying cause properly would be like treating the symptoms of a disease and refusing to ever look for a permanent cure.
If you pick the right book, you can introduce ML principles and ideas, in a way that doesn’t rehash whether Stalin or Lenin were good – you and I know they were. But, if we are talking entry level/baby marxists, getting them acquainted with current challenges and organizing in ways that are effective feels more important at this time.
I suppose I’m looking at it differently to you, in my opinion, if they refuse to actually learn about past socialist leaders and projects, they’ll also never learn about the mistakes of past socialist movements, and in turn will most likely make those same mistakes. And learning about Lenin and Stalin doesn’t “just” teach them about these historical figures, it also helps teach them how to categorise and understand information and how a lot of information about socialism is heavily manipulated by capitalists. I just don’t think you should coddle baby leftists and let them keep their brainworms, it won’t make them into good communists, it will only make them into shitty impotent socdems.
ML theory deals with capitalism and the issues it causes
You’ll never find out what anarchist theory is about.
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