The Winner by a very large margin is:

’Blackshirts & Reds’ (2001) - Michael Parenti | tag: Marxism-Leninism

Parenti shows how “rational fascism” renders service to capitalism. How corporate power undermines democracy, and how revolutions are a form of mass empowerment against forces of exploitative privilege. He also maps the external and internal forces that destroyed communism and the disastrous impact of the “free-market” victory on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. source

This is the tentative schedule:

  • May 22nd: Blackshirts and Reds Part 1
  • June 5th: Blackshirts and Reds Part 2
  • June 19: Blackshirts and Reds Part 3
  • Jul 3rd: Blackshirts and Reds Part 4

Want to add these dates to your calendar? Subscribe to peusall calendar using this link:

https://app.perusall.com/courses/socialist-theory-study-group/FeA3o7L2WaB2eFwLr/due_dates.ics

Please refer to the Perusall post for more information but to briefly recap how to join, view, and annotate this book:

  • Go to Perusall.com
  • Create an Account
  • Click on Enroll in a Course
  • Enter this code: HAYACA-PVMCJ
  • Use a throwaway account and do not use identifying information.

I will be seeing you in the margins comrades, as we annotate and discuss this book week to week.

    • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      We don't know what everyone's got going on, I didn't fully finish Hammer and Hoe cause of Grad School end-of-term projects (will be finishing at the same time I read this). If we get some good, healthy discussions in the book by early June, I'll talk to redcloud about adding another short read. I also plan to add a bunch of parenti lectures that fell out of a van and into my Gdrive folder, so you can take a leisurely pace.

      Additionally, with the way Perusall works and actively encourages annotations. Annotating books can make for a richer and more in-depth read of the text, but it can also make it MUCH slower.

    • RedCloud [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      You can get the full book in the 'library' section on Perusall where you can read the whole thing as fast or slow as you like while still being able to make annotations and see everybody else's annotations. We also have around 500 other texts in the Perusall library so if you finish reading Parenti quickly or just want to get stuck into something else, there's plenty to choose from.

    • SomaliNomad2 [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      It seems like the books being discussed in 4 parts with something like a fortnight between discussions comrade. If possible you could read something like 3 pages a day before bed. You can do it!