Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

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Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

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Despite this record, most writers have ignored fascism’s close collaboration with big business. Some even argue that business was not a beneficiary but a victim of fascism. Angelo Codevilla, a Hoover Institute conservative scribe, blithely announced: If fascism means anything, it means government ownership and control of business ( Commentary, 8/94). Thus fascism is misrepresented as a mutant form of socialism. In fact, if fascism means anything, it means all-out government support for business and severe repression of antibusiness, prolabor forces. ⁶ In chapter 4, Parenti describes problems of the USSR economy post-WW2 and it sounds like an ultra leftist's dream society In the December 1932 election, three candidates ran for president: the conservative incumbent Field Marshal von Hindenburg, the Nazi candidate Adolph Hitler, and the Communist party candidate Ernst Thaelmann. In his campaign, Thaelmann argued that a vote for Hindenburg amounted to a vote for Hitler and that Hitler would lead Germany into war. The bourgeois press, including the Social Democrats, denounced this view as Moscow inspired. Hindenburg was re-elected while the Nazis dropped approximately two million votes in the Reichstag election as compared to their peak of over 13.7 million. I found myself overwhelmingly agreeing with Parenti's various analyses about fascism, its interrelation with the capitalist ruling class, the horrors of post-soviet privatization, our societies unwillingness to think in class terms, the dangers of climate change, etc. This is like diet-lite-marxism-for-beginners from ~24 years ago, so not only am I not the right audience, but this also feels dated as hell.

Book Genre: Anthologies, Collections, Economics, Essays, Historical, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Political Science, Politics, Theory, Writing The orthodox mythology also would have us believe that the Western democracies (with the United States leading the way) have opposed both totalitarian systems with equal vigor. In fact, U.S. leaders have been dedicated above all to making the world safe for global corporate investment and the private profit system. Pursuant of this goal, they have used fascism to protect capitalism, while claiming to be saving democracy from communism.

Conservative ideologues defend capitalism as the system that preserves culture, traditional values, the family, and community. Marxists would respond that capitalism has done more to undermine such things than any other system in history, given its wars, colonizations, and forced migrations, its enclosures, evictions, poverty wages, child labor, homelessness, underemployment, crime, drug infestation, and urban squalor. State socialism transformed desperately poor countries into modernized societies in which everyone had enough food, clothing and shelter; where elderly people had secure pensions; and where all children (and many adults) went to school and no one was denied medical attention. Some of us from poor families who carry the hidden injuries of class are much impressed by these achievements and are unwilling to dismiss them as merely 'economistic'." All over the world, community in the broader sense-the Gemeinschaft with its organic social relationships and strong reciprocal bonds of commonality and kinship- is forcibly transformed by global capital into commercialized, atomized, mass-market societies. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels referred to capitalism's implacable drive to settle "over the whole surface of the globe;' creating "a world after its own image." No system in history has been more relentless in battering down ancient and fragile cultures, pulverizing centuries-old practices in a matter of years, devouring the resources of whole regions, and standardizing the varieties of human experience.” The result of all this? In Italy during the 1930s the economy was gripped by recession, a staggering public debt, and widespread corruption. But industrial profits rose and the armaments factories busily rolled out weapons in preparation for the war to come. In Germany, unemployment was cut in half with the considerable expansion in armaments jobs, but overall poverty increased because of the drastic wage cuts. And from 1935 to 1943 industrial profits increased substantially while the net income of corporate leaders climbed 46 percent. During the radical 1930s, in the United States, Great Britain, and Scandanavia, upper-income groups experienced a modest decline in their share of the national income; but in Germany the top 5 percent enjoyed a 15 percent gain. ⁵

His mentions of China as "communist only in name" were also proven outstandingly wrong by the years but i can understand why he'd say what he said in 1997 when China, with the reforms of Jiang Zemin, seemed to be taking the road that other socialist countries were taking into their downfall. I think nowadays, especially among younger people, criticisms of capitalism are common, but it's rare for people to provide a historically grounded alternative to it. It's common to hear people say capitalism is fundamentally broken, but it's quite rare to hear anyone (at least in the US) look to history for a solution, and sometimes, I feel as if radical socialists today can be too utopian. Parenti argues that we can't do this, and that in fact, the socialist countries of the 20th century have had their accomplishments ignored and their mistakes magnified, and that despite their faults, they are still valuable historical examples we can use to make a better world. This book invites those immersed in the prevailing orthodoxy of democratic capitalism to entertain iconoclastic views, to question the shibboleths of free-market mythology and the persistence of both right and left anticommunism, and to consider anew, with a receptive but not uncritical mind, the historic efforts of the much maligned Reds and other revolutionaries.

Customer Reviews

Basically I want to know if anything in the book is true. I guess I am a product of the capitalist, anti-communist brainwashing the author talks about, because there are a LOT of things where I just go "that doesn't seem right..." After World War I, Italy had settled into a pattern of parliamentary democracy. The low pay scales were improving, and the trains were already running on time. But the capitalist economy was in a postwar recession. Investments stagnated, heavy industry operated far below capacity, and corporate profits and agribusiness exports were declining. Written with lucid and compelling style, this book goes beyond truncated modes of thought, inviting us to entertain iconoclastic views, and to ask why things are as they are. It is a bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today. Parenti shows how “rational fascism” renders service to capitalism, how corporate power undermines democracy, and how revolutions are a mass empowerment against the forces of exploitative privilege. He also maps out 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. He affirms the relevance of taboo ideologies like Marxism, demonstrating the importance of class analysis in understanding political realities and dealing with the ongoing collision between ecology and global corporatism.



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