If you're really just feeling doomer-y, I can't recommend China Mieville's article "On Social Sadism" enough. It's a really short read, and the final passage is an amazing antidote to doomerism.
You have to do actual praxis in an org. Dont care which you join, but you really need to be doing things irl. Just reading theory wont develop you politically or keep you engaged.
Okay, no worries then! Didn't realize you were actually doing stuff already, lol.
Being a Marxist isn't about belief, it's about analysis. If you're hoping to read something to gain some sense of certainty on the order of the world you're looking in the wrong place. If you want to figure out how the world works, then you can, but it's a process of discovery. Read capital. If you've been a Marxist for that long you can begin it, or just read more theory in general. Try to start forming your own analysis and ideas. Idk. I think we need everyone to be looking at the material conditions and trying to figure out what is to be done, not just reading old texts and repeating old strategies.
I found 'Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture from the Ground Up' by Carey Clouse really up lifting. It's about the grassroots urban agriculture projects that were started by normal Cubans during the special economic period and then encouraged and formalised by the Cuban state. The book is very easy to read and also left me feeling very hopeful. Reading it was like realising that another world isn't just possible, it's already here - just localised and somewhere else. But the general lessons felt extremely prescient for the challenges that are going to face us because of climate change and definitely helped reinforce my bloomer side against my doomer one.
Idk if this helpful to say, but don't feel like you have to be constantly 'on' politically. You mention in some of your posts in this thread that you do a lot of activism. Make sure that you take care of yourself and that you let yourself have a life outside of politics.
Despite being under siege from Western imperialism, 20th century socialist projects still generally achieved superior results in measures of physical quality of life compared to capitalist countries when adjusting for levels of economic development:
In 30 of 36 comparisons between countries at similar levels of economic development, socialist countries showed more favorable PQL outcomes ( p < .05 by two-tailed t-test). This work with the World Bank's raw data included cross-tabulations, analysis of variance, and regression techniques, which all confirmed the same conclusions. The data indicated that the socialist countries generally have achieved better PQL outcomes than the capitalist countries at equivalent levels of economic development.
You really ought to read up on the history of the communist movement. If you don't have that foundation on the particular and concrete ways the class struggles manifest, then you can struggle to contextualize the theory. For me, studying the October revolution was critical for understanding how theoretical differences do cause real problems in organizing. It was through that that I realized my org would have been the Mensheviks in the situation and that I ought to really take up the study of socialism on a rigorous and scientific basis. Not saying you have to study the Soviet experience first, you could always study the history of the communist movement in your country or somewhere you are interested in.
So, I read October by China Melville. I found it really good until about the last chapter where he kind of just reiterates the Trot point-of-view that Stalin ruined everything and the USSR basically stopped being socialist immediately after winning. However, the way it frames the struggle was enough for me to understand that this Lenin guy was onto something and so I began studying. I've been meaning to read a few books that I heard are better, like:
- 10 Days that Shook the World by John Reed
- The October Days 1917 by I. Mintz
- History of the CPSU by the Central Committee of the CPSU
Yeah, people say it's very novel like. If I can just put in one comment, be skeptical of what Melville has to say about Stalin. If you ever want to read an opposing view on Stalin, read Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens.
I haven't read Furr outside of excerpts, but Martens was the leader of the Worker's Party of Belgium and his biography of Stalin seemed pretty sober to me.
That's the vibe I get from the Martens biography as well, although he is a Marxist Leninist in a worker's party so he does not hide the fact that he also admires Stalin, I just don't think the admiration gets in the way of a solid concrete analysis.
Not really what you're looking for about ML governments, but Graeber often leaves me feeling very optimistic. Try this one and keep in mind he's not an ML; there are a lot of good nuggets but you might have to translate them for yourself.
You can find a book that strikes your interest on my party's book publishing site I'm reading through This Monstrous War By Wilfred G Burchett, and it's on the Korean War as told from an American reporter on the northern side of the conflict. Warning for those who might find the topic interesting, there's details massacres in there perpetrated by the Japanese, their southern Korean lapdogs, and American monsters.
They're one of the newer commissions, but mostly stuff around anti-Semitism and tying the struggle against that to the class struggle through things like that book you see on the store.
The G.S, who's old enough to have been able to know and speak to veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (spanish civil war U.S communist volunteers), said something a few months back when the commission was being put together that the greatest members of the international communist movement were Jewish thinkers and movers, and not having a Jewish commission is a disgrace to any Marxist-Leninist party.
It's good. There's some turbulence rn, but what party doesn't? I'd just say let your own experience with the party (or any party for that matter) be your judgement and not other people's opinions. And I say that since there's a lot of well-poisoning going on among the parties.
Seems like a lot of folks who scrounge up the courage to take the leap onto the actual federal watchlist instead of larping like you're on it by posting edgy memes tend to be a bit more contemplative since they're moving from screaming into the internet void to attempting to make an actual impact of our material reality with all the possible consequences of being a public RevLeft figure entails (usually depends on what events you participate in with your district/club. )
There was this thingy that was released recently: https://www.bookdepository.com/Fundamental-Principles-Communist-Production-Distribution-Group-International-Communists/9798615430794 It is a really interesting little book with "the road not taken" kind of approach to communism. And some criticism of the ML approach.
Chip away to manufacture some conditions by spreading the word is all we can do for now. Its a slow battle remember we didn't switch from feudal society to capitalist society over night and those kings fought the bourgeois with all they could.
