Severi Saaristo's Reviews > Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

I'd recommend this book to all people who consider themselves to be leftists; especially to those Fukuyamaist social democrats, who think that capitalism is here to stay and it's the best we've got and we should just fight for social reforms rather than an entire system change, even though the welfare capitalism has systematically been disintegrated everywhere in the West since the overthrow of socialist countries and even though the economic exploitation of the so called Third World is greater than ever (the few rich Western countries extract over 3 trillion dollars a year from the poor countries in the world impoverishing them further and further; that's why over 4,5 billion people live in chronic poverty and it's a growing number of people) and social democracy can do nothing about that, because it's still the profit driven capitalist system that needs to expand and grow infinitely at the same time absolutely destroying the environment.
I would also really recommend this book to anarchist comrades, because denouncing Marxist-Leninists and socialism that actually existed as a "failure" or simply "totalitarian" is just plain false and shooting yourself in the foot as Parenti demonstrates in his book.
As Parenti himself writes: "To say that 'socialism doesn't work' is to overlook the fact that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.
State socialism transformed desperately poor countries into modernized societies in which everyone had enough food, clothing and shelter; where elderly people had secure pensions; and where all children (and many adults) went to school and no one was denied medical attention. Some of us from poor families who carry the hidden injuries of class are much impressed by these achievements and are unwilling to dismiss them as merely 'economistic'."
This book shows very well, backed up by evidence, that capitalism needs fascism to survive and it shows how bad people's lives were before state socialism and how horrible it became after state socialism was overthrown by reactionary and Western capitalist forces (surplus deaths estimated at 7,7 million in Russia alone due to the extreme free market reforms in the 1990's). It also offers the best critique on communism at least what I've read.
I don't consider myself a Marxist-Leninist, however to overlook the accomplishments of ML regimes all through-out the 20th century is like burying your head in the sand and ignoring history. We should learn about these countries, rather than say some weak-ass shit like "communism doesn't work". Because they who control the past control the future.
(I think that's Orwell, but we'll forgive him for his Red bashing).