I recently decided to pick up Blackshirts & Reds and haven't been able to put it down. Throughout the book though, I notice Parenti can be quite scathing (for an ML) in his critiques about Stalin, he even throws a little shade at Lenin a few times. As someone who's not the most well versed in the weeds of Soviet history (Fitzpatrick's book is on my list), this caught me a bit off guard. B&R is unapologetically pro-Socialism but some of these critiques seem to be alternative to what I have heard about the the USSR. Forgive me for any historical ignorance, but Parenti's critique of 'war communism' and description of Stalin's USSR being under a "commandist, autocratic party leadership" are confusing to me to say the least. I was under the impression that the Soviet Union was actually quite democratic, even in Stalin's time. He also presents Lenin's desire to remove opposition from the party as a somewhat dramatic shift due to "[Bolshevik] siege psychology," going as far as to juxtapose it with when Lenin argued against Trotsky to give unions more autonomy. To me, this feels more like a criticism, or an attack on Lenin's methods. In returning to Stalin, he is presented as having to make a decision between autocracy or liberalization, the latter of the two, in his view, "would have produced a more comfortable, more humane and serviceable society" which may in fact be true, to me however this can almost read as a slight to the Soviet society of the future, but I digress from that topic as perhaps I truly am looking at Soviet society through rose tinted glasses. He continues to describe Stalin as a "supreme leader [with a personality cult] who claimed every revolutionary gain as his own achievement" and who "[suppressed the] party political life through terror."
Now I am certainly not saying these two are beyond criticism, far from it. Stalin and, yes, even Lenin should be ruthlessly criticized for their failings in order to maintain the ideological purity of Marxism-Leninism and to avoid deifying these two men. They are no doubt heroic comrades who fathered and grandfathered the ideology of Marxism-Leninism respectively, and played massive roles in the establishment of the first real Socialist experiment in the USSR. However, they are not some 'great men' who pushed forward history and thus can do no wrong.
With that aside, though, Parenti's perspective on Stalin in particular seems to be at odds with what I have heard. To my current knowledge, Stalin had times were he could be heavy handed, and no doubt he did make mistakes, sometimes quite egregious ones, but at the end of the day the material conditions surrounding the then one-of-a-kind society that was the USSR, and the nature of its constant besiegement by capitalist powers, justified the majority of his actions in the end. The man was a great leader, comrade, and pragmatist, but at the end of the day he was human, and imperfect. I was (and still am, until I am presented with valid alternative evidence) under the impression Stalin himself wasn't the power hungry, autocratic dictator he is often made out to be, and Parenti's interpretations to me read as though he believes Stalin was more of an autocrat than I once believed he was. If anyone could give me some more insight please let me know if I am missing something about Parenti's perspective, if he was truly more of an 'anti-Stalinist' type of socialist, or if I am simply mistaken on my interpretation of Parenti's words.
my 2 cents is that older communists in general will have different opinions than us on the USSR and other socialist states because they lived through these world events, saw things in a way we cant, were exposed to the propaganda of that time, have nationalistic reasoning etc.
a week or two ago a chinese comrade made a post on how some ML in china have a more negative opinion on russia and iran and used a very old influencer as an example, but this was someone who lived through the sino soviet split personally and was impacted by it and had a reason to be biased.
parenti was 12 when WW2 ended and spent his life in the US during the cold war. he experienced the red scare and state narratives of the US and nuclear drills and that affected his perception on things. the book was released in 1997 and he didnt glaze stalin because that was not the historical context back then and it was not how people approached it.
for a bit of context: im from a post socialist state and came across a 1966 edition of ”lust for life”. in the introduction, it frames irving stone as being part of the very suppressed american socialist scene, that he spent his time with workers movements and that he was dedicated to the radicals of america. this is not true and irving stone was a liberal.
This is probably the more accurate way to look at the situation. Older communists—especially those who lived through the red scare—will, unfortunately always be marred by the material conditions of their time, in some way shape or form, in the formulation of many of their opinions. In more extreme examples of it than Parenti, Marx and Stalin were products of their time in many ways, it will likely happen to many of us in the future (the most obvious thing I see being a 'Stalin was homophobic' or a 'Marx was antisemetic' of the future will be 'FinnTheComrade ate factory farmed meat' lol).
Side not: how do you figure that Irving Stone thing even happened? Was it not historical context of the time for Communists and Liberals to be mortal enemies like they are now? Interesting.
my theory about the irving stone was that they had to lie a bit to get the book released so they framed its contents and author in a wayyy more revolutionary manner