Why Stalin is important…
So I think about this a lot, because, for me, finding out the truth about Stalin was litterally the moment Marxism Leninism clicked. It wasnt reading Lenin and it wasn’t even Marx, but Losurdo’s Stalin book (iskra books has a free pdf, go read it right now if you haven’t, please and thank you) that led me down the path I currently find myself. It was watershed on a multitude of levels, not the least of which was that Communism worked. We have the proof, and it is undeniable (if you have an intellectual couriosity and materialist understanding). This isnt going to be me rgurgitating all of the things ive learned, but it will be an oppurtunity for me to point you in the direction i went. With the Marxist Leninst travel guides that brought me to my current positions.
My journey thorugh leftism is probably very similar to a lot of you out there, I was wildly disappointed in Obama (for wearing a tan suit, not bombing hospitals (jk it was the hospitals)) and starting to look for voices that didnt make me argue for things i knew i hated (the ACA). Then Bernie started to get run and i thoght to myself “finally” as he spoke with passion about how screwed we had been due to the influence of the 1%. Then he started talking solutions and that old feeling of unease came upon me. I am again defending something I dont believe in (taxing the rich). Then I started to hear Jill Stien (remember 2012) and the greens talk and i thought this is it, a new party in charge, thats the secret sauce.
Little did i know how wrong i really was. So i started reading Chomsky, and wathcing Chomsky lectures, and really thinking (once again) this is it, this is the secret sauce (boy did the future ever kick me in the ass here). I even went so far as to announce to my wifes family that i was an Anacro syndicalist (they didnt care, in fact if you ask them i doubt they even remember, but it still embarrasses me in those moments before sleep where your brain loves to fuck with you cause it can be a huge dick).
So Chomsky starts to tell people in 2019 that they gotta vote for Hilary Clinton and on i marched (again thank goodness with whhat wa to come for Noam). Finally into my lap falls not the manifesto not capital, not even state and revolution, but Stalin History and Critique of a Black Legend, by Domenico Losurdo. Here it is Communisms biggest monster laid out for me, but wait, this doesnt sound anything like the moster i was told about, in fact, this dude sounds fucking rad. So then it was on to Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens (which if i had it to do over again i wish i had read this one first). Then it was on to Douglas Tottle’s Fraud, Famine,and Fascism as my desire o learn counterhistory was fully engaged. Next I went on a Losurdo run Liberalism A CounterHistory, Class Struggle, War and Revolution, then came DR. Gerald Horne and The counter revolution of 1776.
After that it was Indigenous peoples History of the US by Roxxane Dunbar Ortiz, and the Collected works of the Black Liberation Army. Then, and only then, did i start in on what the kids call theory. I dont think I ever get to any of those places if I hadn’t explored the lies told by the West of the Man of Steel himself Joesph Stalin. At some point im going to post a personal reading list of the books i feel are important for anyone callling themselves a Marxist Leninist, but for today I’ll end here.
P.S. Fuck i forgot Grover Furr, his liberary of books pointing out the blatant lies of the west sustain me to this day. I don’t and have never claimed to be “impartial” i go where the truth takes me. Always. Thanks for reading.
