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What would you recommend as a "social democrats first taste of socialism" book? (hexbear.net)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A social democrat friend who knows basically nothing about socialism and was a berniecrat is looking for book recommendations, what is a good book to recommend to him?

I sort of dived in the deep end when I first started (perhaps unproductively ) and I they're the type of person who would probably benefit a lot from nice prose and nothing SUPER heavy, but I also know a lot of intro books are full of BS that needs to be deprogrammed later(especially stuff that includes left-anticommunism) so I'm being cautious.

What would you recommend?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Blackshirts And Reds by Parenti is a good one.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

chapter 3 has a fair chunk of anti-communism in it, and while the book is a really good polemic I feel like it isn't a really good FAQ for new socialists

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I havent read the whole book in a little bit, but im looking at chapter 3 and it's mostly a critique of American "leftists" and them being anti-communist especially when it came to the USSR or Cuba. Chapter 4 talks about some inefficiencies in the USSR but it's far from bashing it. I only skimmed the chapters just now though, so i could have missed something.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah isn’t chapter 3 largely the Left anti-communism: The Unkindest Cut chapter?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

it is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

operating off of memory so I had to skim, here was the first major thing I found

from chapter 3, page 45-46

Those of us who refuse to join the the Soviet Bashing were branded by left-anticommunists as "Soviet Apologists" and "Stalinists," even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society

Smh Parenti was a lib

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Against Empire is another good one, succinctly goes over how and why America has fucked over any socialist/communist country.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

This is the book that radicalized me