Socialism Books - Page 8

The Naked Communist

W. Cleon Skousen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Don't mistake communism as harmless; READ THIS BOOK! 5 out of 5 stars.
48 of 56 people found this review helpful.

I got this book as a gift from my brother, stemming from a conversation in which I said, `communism isn't really such a horrible thing, it's just not a practical form of government because greed and corruption will never allow people to share things equally'. I was given this book to correct that misunderstanding. And this book did that brilliantly.

Skousen begins with a description of the Marxist mindset, delving even into the lives and times of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marx's colleague and probably his only friend. Such insight lays the groundwork for understanding Communism and its reasons for being, which at best are selfish and demeaning. Using proto-communists' own words, whether from the Communist Manifesto or from correspondence among Marx and others, Skousen shows that the very philosophical foundations of Marxism and Communism are flawed and misleading. For myself, I began to understand that Marx's bitterness about his own station in life and his seeming inability to function in a competitive, capitalist world led him to a philosophy that claimed it could undo all the so-called iniquities of that capitalist world. Thus the myth of Communism as a great equalizer was born.

Many people, myself once included, tend to think that that is all there is to Communism: everyone is equal and all possessions are shared equally. Others claim that the Bible provides support for this way of life and that the communal life described therein is an early example of Communism. Still others might claim that our founding fathers would have approved of Communism because of its purported equality. Skousen aptly debunks these and other misconceptions surrounding Communism and Marxist theory. He then moves on to describe, again using their own words, how Communism calls for violent, subversive acts in order to bring about revolution so that the common workers may seize power.

Following this harrowing exposure of Communism is a blistering tour of late 19th and early 20th century history, detailing in particular the genesis and early activities of the Communist party in Europe and ultimately Russia. Let's just say that, having investigated some of the historical dates myself, I am surprised at how often the history of the Bolshevik revolution is sanitized and portrayed as some sort of liberation of the masses from the Tsars. I'm further surprised to learn that a democratic and limited monarchy was in the works to replace the oppression of the Tsars in the wake of Bloody Sunday when the Bolsheviks hijacked the revolution and drove the country toward Communism instead. How? All I can say is read the book. You might find some disturbing parallels to current events.

Skousen then proceeds through the Depression and WWII years (a major eye-opener for me, and I'm a serious WWII history buff) and follows with a perspective of the early Cold War years that I found informative. All in all, this book is fundamental in understanding the true nature of Communism, its distinction from the more benign forms of socialism, and the hypocritical way many people distinguish the despicable acts of Communists from those equally pernicious acts perpetrated by the Nazis. By the time you finish this book, you will either dismiss it all blithely or you will come to understand that Lenin and Stalin were as evil in many respects as Hitler and his cabal were. But if you think that Communism is just another form of government, or just another political party, or even just a harmless, altruistic philosophy, then you NEED to read this book. I did and I have never looked at history, or current events the same way since.

The Revolution Betrayed

Leon Trotsky

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Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Revolutions revisited 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

In my humble opinion, Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed" is the best analysis of not only the Russian revolution, but revolutions in general. I have studied revolutions in the modern world quite extensively, and re-reading this book at this particular time in history was a true eye-opener - again. To be simplistic, revolutions do not provide lasting success when nothing is to be gained. Those who rise against existing power expect to be rewarded, not with poverty, but with a certain degree of wealth and privilege. If there is nothing to be distributed, then what is the use in fighting? Stalin unfortunately stepped in at the right place, at the right time. Not good for the outcome of that revolution, not good for socialism, but good for Stalin's kind of power.

A few years ago I visited Komsomolsk, Stalin's "Youth" city. It was decaying, a pitiful sight to behold. Buildings on ultra-wide neglected avenues in need of repair, high weeds everywhere, crime uncontrolled. Power gone bad?

Stalin and his compulsive bureaucracy were feared all over Europe. Blessed with clear early childhood memories that include the conversation of adults, I vividly remember my grandmother's fear of Stalin discussed with friends and family members. They witnessed the rise of this awful bureaucracy next door, word of the killings and the horrible brutality didn't just dribble out, it flowed out. I want to say that the Stalinist bureaucracy is unique, but all bureaucracies are designed to increase continuously and feed of themselves, and exist everywhere in the world. And people flock to them for employment, protection, security, in great masses, because bureaucracies deliver security. And if people do not fly into bureaucratic arms directly, they deal with them on a daily basis. There is no getting away from that apparatus of suffocation, nowhere.

Bureaucracy does not have to be bad, and Trotsky dwells on the need for leadership from within the workers, the suppressed, creating a bureaucracy that is just and fair. Is that ever possible? I believe that capitalism and bureaucracy are a contradiction, and unless corruption reigns, they cannot coexist. What comes next?

Trotsky's book raises more questions than it answers, but I am sure it was written for that purpose as well as enlightening the scholar of his interpretation of a betrayed revolution. And where do we go from here?

Editorial Review:

Written in 1936 and published the following year, this brilliant and profound evaluation of Stalinism from the Marxist standpoint prophesied the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trotsky employs facts, figures, and statistics to show how Stalinist policies rejected the enormous productive potential of the nationalized planned economy engendered by the October Revolution.

Terrorism and communism;: A reply to Karl Kautsky (Ann Arbor paperbacks)

Leon Trotsky

By: University of Michigan Press Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $19.70

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

defense of equality 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

this was Trotsky's bout with one-time Marxist Karl Kautsky, representative of Social-Democracy,revolution,the affinity for parliamentarian incremental change through bourgeois means; ballot-boxes, sitting sovereigns, capital comforted with safety nets, and the context here is Soviet Russia was waiting(isolated) for assistance from the German Revolution to happen which just eroded away with the murder of Rosa Luxemberg, curious that the word "terror" has magnetized itself around it new multi-dimensional meanings,the media has done wonderful work bundling the word "terror" with anything resembling opposition, I doubt if Israeli apparatchiks could speak on TV without utilizing the word a few dozen times, to define, fears fears-of-fears, Unknown-Knowns-Fears,Known-Knowns, the Rumsfeldian epistemology,still there is some marvelous reflections here from Trotsky on the Paris Commune,the balance of power in the shape of the globe circa 1920; the paradigms of power and the next thread in its evolution, Kautsky simply wanted to preserve, the Known-Knowns,without seeking to face those monstrous Un-Knowns, he didn't have a sensibility for such dangers, Trotsky did up to a point,but was blind of his own fate, yet here there is good analysis of the reality of aftermath Soviet situations prior to the Stalin Thermidor was to take root,a vastly involutarily trained endoctrinated marxologist himself I suspect Zizek is looking for cognitive "threads"in shapes resembling Badiou-ian " Truth" nodes, "Events" which can illumine a path perhaps simply to more discussions on youtube within the world un-evolving postpoltical context, with bio-politics, and the neo-liberal order at the helms stirring the ship with their own cognitive maps. Zizek is good at what he does, and leaves out the residue of rhetorical hatreds you still odiously find on the Left,fighting self-defeating battles merely to hear one's own voice, I like to recall the old RCA white putchee dog, staring mindlessly into vinyl playing speaker cone; "What's this?" like the Left does today for things they refuse to explain, Zizek has a Wotan-like spirit in these Verso writings assignments assembling his theoretical "Walkure" to assist him;

Editorial Review:

This work constitutes a rebuttal to charges made against the Bolsheviks by Karl Kautsky in 1919. Trotsky's defense of Bolshevism is devoted to two basic questions. One is the question of the revolutionary seizure of power to establish and maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet form, the kind of party required for this purpose, and the role it must play. The other is the question of the methods to be pursued by a socialist revolution in realizing socialism, that is, in reorganizing the economic foundation of society.

Was Karl Marx A Satanist?

Richard Wurmbrand

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

"MARX BELIEVED IN GOD AND HATED HIM" [Page 84] 3 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

On page 71 of my 1979 edition of WAS KARL MARX A SATANIST?, Richard Wurmbrand writes: Marx did not love mankind. Mazzini, who had known him well, wrote that he had "a destructive spirit. His heart bursts with hatred rather than with love toward men." I know of no testimonies to the contrary from Marx's contemporaries. Marx the loving man is a myth constructed only after his death.

This is a factor that all men and women who lean toward Communism/Socialism as a result of genuine concern for the welfare of all people would be wise to seriously consider before ascribing any noble aspirations to the manifesto Marx gave to the world. If what Marx wrote was true, that he harbored "hatred against all gods" and that he wished to avenge himself "against the One who rules above", should it surprise any of us then that the fruit of his philosophy is responsible for unspeakable torture, terribly unjust acts, and the murder of about 100 million people worldwide? Should any thinking person be mystified by the obvious unfeasibility of Marx's secular Communism/Socialism wherever it has been tried, and by the destruction and unhappiness it inevitably leads to for the people it proposes to benefit?

WAS KARL MARX A SATANIST? By Richard Wurmbrand is just a small, 84 page booklet, but it contains lots of food for thought. If I was part of a jury given the responsibility to officially answer this question, in all honesty, I could not say that Wurmbrand's booklet proves its contention beyond all reasonable doubt. Wurmbrand essentially concedes this point when he writes, "I am conscious that the evidence which I give here is only circumstantial ..... I do not claim to have provided undisputable proof that Marx was a member of a sect of devil-worshippers, but I believe that there are sufficient leads to imply this. There are certainly enough leads to infer satanic influence upon his life and teachings ..... The sins of Marxism, like those of Nazism, surpass the ordinary. They are satanic." With that I wholeheartedly concur.

For the student such as myself, interested in the study of secret occult societies, there are a number of little "dots" provided in Wurmbrand's booklet that aid in seeing "the big picture" when one is connecting those dots. For instance, there's Karl's association with Moses Hess, whose family name appears in any detailed study of the Illuminati, and Karl's own Son-In-Law, Edward Aveling, friend of luciferian Annie Besant, and a leading personality in her luciferian Theosophy organization.

On page 67, Wurmbrand makes the extremely intriguing supposition: "Communists have the habit of creating front-organizations. [The above text] suggests the probability that Communist movements are themselves front-organizations for occult satanism. This would also explain why all the political, economical, cultural, and military weapons used against Communism have proved so inefficient. The means to fight satanism are spiritual, not carnal..."

I've given this book 3 stars only because of its cursory examination of a topic worthy of rigorous, scholarly study, and because it is not ultimately able to conclusively prove what it proposes. But anyone interested in this idea will find WAS KARL MARX A SATANIST? well worth reading and considering.

On February 27, 1852, Karl Marx wrote to his comrade in evil, Friedrich Engels, about an inheritance he would come into if his wife's ill uncle passed away: "If the dog dies, I would be out of mischief." On March 2nd, Engels replied, "I congratulate you for the sickness of the hinderer of an inheritance, and I hope that the catastrophe will happen now." As bad luck for Marx would have it, the old man recovered and did not depart for a better world until 1855. But on March 8th of that year, Marx wrote again to Engels, expressing his glee: "A very happy event. Yesterday we were told about the death of the 90-year-old uncle of my wife. My wife will receive some 100 Lst; even more if the old dog has not left a part of his money to the lady who administered his house."

These are the two great "humanitarians" who gave this world the joys of Communism/Socialism. I'll say this much: If Karl Marx was NOT a satanist, he certainly missed his second calling. (God called him first - as God calls to each of us first - but we KNOW Marx wasn't listening to THAT Voice!)

Eastern Europe Since 1945

Geoff Swain, Nigel Swain

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Editorial Review:

Fully updated to take account of new material and events since the publication of the second edition, this new edition of Geoffrey and Nigel Swain's textbook traces the different patterns emerging in Central Europe and the Balkans. The authors draw a distinction between those countries where democracy and pluralism appear firmly established since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and those where they do not. In order to have contemporary relevance, the history of modern Europe must now include the rise and subsequent demise of the east/west division of the continent.

Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First

Mona Charen

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Total reviews: 179 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Spreading 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Useful to who?: our enemies. Charen has a unique way of making her point, and she does it with an intellectual wit. The book contains a litany of names: people who never seem to admit when they are wrong!; and with willing ignorance, are set out to rewrite history. And I think you all know who they might be. This is the phenomenon of liberal thought after W.W.II. Of course it does depend on who is in the white house..... doesn't it.

"I liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel"--------------Robert Frost

This mind-set (blaming America for the worlds ills) really started during the cold war, and so it continues, at an almost exponential rate. Charen begins with a brief history before the cold war. These men and woman have trivialized the Cold War and Russian communism; they utterly neglected the killings in Cambodia after Vietnam and sympathized for the enemy; they underestimated and looked the other way concerning Russian intervention........until Reagan. Reagan's (Bush parallel?) strength trumped Carter's passivity, ending the cold war. Vietnam brought in media bias, thus turning a blind eye to Russia. This is the rise of liberalism we know today.

How many times do we have to keep exposing the fiction and myth-making by the media, hollywood, and the liberal leaders on the same subject?

Did not Bill Clinton take our military into more conflicts than any other President? Wasn't this all but ignored? Mussolini made the trains run on time, right?

History has proved the liberals wrong, why should it be any different now? People desperately trying to escape oppressive countries understand the goodness the U.S. stands for, even more than our own people.

Wish you well
Scott

Editorial Review:

This book is a perfect example of how today's liberals have completley rewritten history to cover up their own role on the wrong side of the Cold War.

A Dictionary of Marxist Thought

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent Resource 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This text is essential to any serious Marxist's home library. It covers all the major areas of Marxist scholarship, as well as lesser known areas (but not less important) like Hilferding's Finance Capital and a very interesting section on British Marxist Historians. Capitalism will always make us compromise the dignity of others for our own selfish gain. This book will give readers an excellent grasp of the material used in Marxist thought. If you truly care about people who are less fortunate than you, don't give them a hand-out at a soup kitchen; give them a revolution instead.

Editorial Review:

This book, part dictionary and part encyclopedia, has become the standard reference work on the concepts of Marxism and the individuals and schools of thought that have subsequently contributed to the body of Marxist ideas. The Dictionary has been fully revised and updated, with over fifty new entries on major texts, on topics that have become relevant since the first edition appeared, and in areas where the state of knowledge and understanding has moved significantly. All entries have been revised where needed, all reading lists updated, and the bibliography has been completely revised and expanded.

Marxism: for and Against

Robert L. Heilbroner

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Marxism 101 3 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Heilbroner clearly and lucidly explains what Marxism is - and isn't - in what I believe to be the best introductory book on the subject. Far from presenting arguments "for" and "against" Marxism (in spite of the title), the book defines what Marxism is as an economic and social philosophy as well as what it is not. (Note that politics is is absent in his exploration - this is no accident, as Heilbroner explains.) Often misunderstood (and still more frequently mis-applied), the essence of Marx's theories are deconstructed - from the theory of surplus value of labor, to dialectical materialism, to Marx's belief in the enevitability of socialism's triumph over capitalism, Heilbroner takes the reader through an easily understandable and readable summary of Marxism.

Regardless of your political or social stripe, Karl Marx and his view of the world have had (and continue to have) a dramatic impact on the way things are seen and thought about, its influence reaching far beyond economics. Heilbroner does an excellent job in de-mystifying a very dense subject.

My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography

Leon Trotsky

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Making of a Revolutionary 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Today we expect political memoir writers to take part in a game of show and tell about the most intimate details of their private personal lives on their road to celebrity. Refreshingly, you will find no such tantalizing details in Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky's memoir written in 1930 just after Stalin had exiled him to Turkey. Instead you will find a thoughtful political self-examination by a man trying to draw the lessons of his fall from power in order to set his future political agenda. This task is in accord with his stated conception of his role as an individual agent at service in the historical struggle toward a socialist future. Thus, underlying the selection of events highlighted in the memoir such as the rise of the revolutionary wave in Russia in 1905 and 1917, the devastation to the socialist program of World War I and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution especially after Lenin's death and the failure of the German Revolution of 1923 is a sense of urgency about the need for continued struggle for a socialist future. It also provides a platform as well for polemics against those foes and former supporters who have either abandoned or betrayed that struggle.

At the beginning of the 21st century when socialist political programs are in decline it is hard to imagine the spirit that drove Trotsky to dedicate his whole life to the fight for a socialist society. However, at the beginning of the 20th century he represented only the most consistent and audacious of a revolutionary generation of Eastern Europeans and Russians who set out to change the history of the 20th century. It was as if the best and brightest of that generation were afraid, for better or worse, not to take part in the political struggles that would shape the modern world. As Trotsky notes this element was lacking, with the exceptions of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and precious few others, in the Western labor movement. Trotsky using his own experiences tells the story of the creation of this revolutionary cadre with care and generally proper proportions.

Many of the events such as the disputes within the Russian revolutionary movement, the attempts by the Western Powers to overthrow the Bolsheviks in the Civil War after their seizure of power and the struggle of the various tendencies inside the Russian Communist Party and in the Communist International discussed in the book may not be familiar to today's audience. Nevertheless one can still learn something from the strength of Trotsky's commitment to his cause and the fight to preserve his personal and political integrity against overwhelming odds. As the organizer of the October Revolution, creator of the Red Army in the Civil War, orator, writer and fighter Trotsky he was one of the most feared men of the early 20th century to friend and foe alike. Nevertheless, I do not believe that he took his personal fall from power as a world historic tragedy. Moreover, he does not gloss over his political mistakes. Nor does he generally do personal injustice to his various political opponents although I would not want to have been subject to his rapier wit and pen. Politicians, revolutionary or otherwise, in our times should take note.

Editorial Review:

This priceless historical document by the Bolshevik leader features firsthand accounts from the top levels of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Trotsky chronicles the struggle to consolidate a government run by workers and peasants, along with the rift between Lenin and Stalin and its political consequences.

Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Take me by the hand and let's go strolling in wonderland 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 21 people found this review helpful.

Hollander puts the selective moral outrage and selective acceptance of evidence of the Left on parade as he follows these blinkered one's through the various Potemkin Villages of the Totalitarians, from the October revolution forward into most of the 20th century. Smug arrogance knows no political party or religious faith, no gender, race or sexual preference, it seems to be evenly spread among us. In this instance the highly developed capacity for self-deception of the Left is on trial and an amusing trial at that. Their tortured explanations of the intellectually unexplainable are a fictive of mankind's marvelous ability "to transform things to the liking of his desires".

Like all those who are "blowin' in the wind", these intellectual hard heads do not seek truth, but instead to validate their worldview. This book is a study of intellectuals, estrangement and its consequences.

Editorial Review:

In this major study, Paul Hollander seeks to understand why so many distinguished Western intellectuals of the 20th century admired the various communist systems, o ften in their most repressive historical phases. '