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

'Parenti seems to spend a disproportionate amount of energy shitting on leftists who don't stan the USSR' That is literally the main point of the book. Do you have any objections to what he actually said relating to that point, specifically relating to the idea of 'pure socialists'?

OK, long answer time. I think the notion of "pure socialists" that Parenti erects is, at the end of the day, a strawman. What I would say about what are sometimes called "currently existing socialist" regimes (and I'm guessing Chomsky would as well) is that if a certain set of first principles aren't obeyed, there's no need for me to respect the institution. This doesn't mean that we throw our hands up if not all the libertarian-socialist boxes are ticked (I certainly have my objections to Cuba, for example, but I do respect their achievements especially given the hand they've been dealt), it's just that a lot of ideologies defended as "currently existing socialism," whether that's Juche or Baathism or whatever, are just heterodox batshit masquerading as anti-imperialism. Let me give you a more specific example. No matter how much China calls itself socialist, if they're not providing universal healthcare in a society that also has the world's largest luxury goods retail market, I have real trouble calling that socialism. And I would argue that many of Parenti's followers -- although I'll refrain from accusing Parenti himself -- are at the end of the day LARPy edgelords. My preferred leftism is ecumenical and pragmatic.

Evan wrote: "'Parenti seems to spend a disproportionate amount of energy shitting on leftists who don't stan the USSR' That is literally the main point of the book. Do you have any objections to what he actuall..."

I think the whole point of pure socialists is that they are anti-pragmatic, as in they are idealist and don't properly take into account the various factors that might have harmed attempts to implement socialism in a country. They hold these countries to an ideal that is not easily reachable given the geo-political realites of the time they were founded.

As Parenti writes: "But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundamentals as to leave little room for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution."

You can say Parenti is just throwing around excuses, but what is he saying here that is actually wrong? I would suggest reading the bigger excerpt from the work again if you just look up 'Connoly Youth Movement Michael Parenti'. It is, in my opinion, extremely compelling.

(I would not call China socialist by the way, as wouldn't most Marxists. It is a widely spread and largely dishonest smear that we simply believe any state that calls itself socialist is actually socialist.)

Again, I think Parenti is attacking a strawman in that long quote you provided. I couldn't think of a single thinker or theorist who thinks that direct worker control would be instantly attainable after revolution (other than maybe a few pre-Marx utopian socialists, but hey, no one reads them anymore, and there's a good reason for that).

But that's just a disagreement in terms of rhetorical tactic. I would say it gets worse. I would argue that if you follow Parenti's logic there, literally anything can be post-hoc justified in terms of serving a larger socialist project, whether or not that larger socialist project comes even close to being realized. Then, when criticisms are made of that project, these can be dismissed as a purity test. And that's pretty fuckin' scummy, as it completely shuts down any good-faith discussion on policy and praxis.

To round it out, as a Marxist, I wouldn't call China Marxist either. But what's kinda fucked is that Xi Jinping absolutely would and does. And, indeed, Chinese state media routinely points out the ways in which baizuo Western leftists "fail to understand" the complexities of China's situation. This falls exactly in line with Parenti's reasoning.

Evan wrote: "I think the whole point of pure socialists is that they are anti-pragmatic, as in they are idealist and don't properly take into account the various factors that might have harmed attempts to imple..."

'But that's just a disagreement in terms of rhetorical tactic. I would say it gets worse. I would argue that if you follow Parenti's logic there, literally anything can be post-hoc justified in terms of serving a larger socialist project, whether or not that larger socialist project comes even close to being realized. Then, when criticisms are made of that project, these can be dismissed as a purity test. And that's pretty fuckin' scummy, as it completely shuts down any good-faith discussion on policy and praxis.'

But the thing is that you don't *have* to follow Parenti's logic that far, and I don't think that's his intention to imply you should. You can have a good-faith discussion on policy in the USSR without either lionizing it as a socialist paradise or demonizing it as a dystopia. Parenti is simply asking the reader to take into consideration the historical reality of what it means to have a revolution and then try to make that revolution survive when everyone around you wants to destroy it. And yes, literally everyone did want to destroy it. Just as an example, WW2 happened in part because the Allies would rather negotiate with Nazi Germany than sign a pact with the USSR because of how much their prime ministers despised the USSR and feared such a pact would give it more influence. Yet the USSR is the one that has been relentlessly demonized ever since for signing a pact that helped ensure its own survival. This is a side-tangent but my point is that these states are relentlessly demonized without most people ever giving the slightest historical analysis as to the reasons these states might have made the choices they did.

I don't think your disagreements here are with me, per se. My dude, your tangent there, you seemed to be engaging in a bit of shadow-boxing with an imagined anticommunist. Having a dualistic view of either the USSR or US during the Cold War is absolutely infantile, and you can make the claim -- as I do -- that while I do believe that the Soviet Union does at the end of the day represent a failed application of Marxist ideas, the transformation of a semi-feudal peasant society to a nuclear superpower in less than half a century is indeed a feat. Because two things can be right at the same time.

If Parenti sought to -- and I think this is what you're claiming -- act as a gadfly and promote a more nuanced and subtle view of 20th Century history, I would say he failed to do so. Rather, he replaces Soviet diabolism with American diabolism, and while one may claim that to be a necessary ideological antidote, I disagree, because at the end of the day it just comes off as somewhere between trolling and retconning, and it's very hard to take seriously, especially given some of the half-truths Parenti tries to pass off as historical fact.

Evan wrote: "'But that's just a disagreement in terms of rhetorical tactic. I would say it gets worse. I would argue that if you follow Parenti's logic there, literally anything can be post-hoc justified in ter..."

'while I do believe that the Soviet Union does at the end of the day represent a failed application of Marxist ideas, the transformation of a semi-feudal peasant society to a nuclear superpower in less than half a century is indeed a feat. Because two things can be right at the same time.'

Agree with all of this.

'If Parenti sought to -- and I think this is what you're claiming -- act as a gadfly and promote a more nuanced and subtle view of 20th Century history, I would say he failed to do so.'

Agree to disagree then. So many people not just in the center and the right but those who consider themselves on the left mostly or totally demonize these states. Parenti is simply pushing back at these people who refuse to provide more nuanced analyses.