What a depressing book. The chapters about life in Eastern Europe after the fall of the USSR were utterly heartbreaking. Even the little things like how free Summer camp for kids was abolished was just ... fuck dude. I don't even know what to say
This book actually made me weep. I honestly don't know why it took me so long to read Parenti. 
Blackshirts and Reds is a MANDATORY reading for any leftist in the core. US nerds especially I don't care if you're a maoist or anarchist or a secret third thing you literally can not form a complete understanding of leftist geopolitics without the information in it.
Parenti doesnt miss. It's a fantastic book. I'm reading his work 'Inventing Reality' now and it's great too.
B&R made a good baseline for my studies going forward. Since he largely used Western corp media sources to make his points some of the further stuff I've learned has been worse, some has been slightly better. But it definitely helped clear out 'the not a lib, but still anti-communist'
out of my skull.I also cried after reading Blackshirts and Reds. I’m not sure if this came from B&R but I saw a statistic about how a few weeks after the illegal dissolution of the USSR there were children as young as 10 selling their bodies on the streets of Moscow and I cried for like a fucking hour while also being angrier than I’ve ever been before. The collapse truly one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in the modern era.
there is a mid-1990s video on youtube where a journalist interviews children about this on the streets of Moscow
CW: discussion of child prostitution, drug use, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jIYuSycl4&t=7m55s
at 7:55
recommend watching the whole video though
Depressing song to go with the depressing book.
https://youtu.be/6VqiMQoMXmw
for the title
for the post
