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readwithbre's reviews
44 reviews
Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism by Frank Chapman
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I will come back and write a full review when I've finished reflecting. I did not necessarily want to dock stars for this but I do wish the conclusion/epilogue of this book had been a bit longer and expounded a lot more on what lessons the modern Black liberation movement should take from the history of linkage between Marxist-Leninism and the Black liberation movement and all other national liberation movements across the world, and how we can apply those lessons. The end left me a little bit wanting. But again, that doesn't deserve less stars; ultimately, Chapman accomplished exactly what he set out to do in this book: "demonstrate that Marxism-Leninism is a tool that we as revolutionaries must bring to the new movement." That's all one can really ask for.
Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Joseph Stalin
challenging
informative
fast-paced
4.0
Great crash course for those vaguely familiar with its namesake but some concepts may elude those who are coming to this subject for the first time. A required, foundational reading for all who call themselves Marxist-Leninists, whether pro-, anti-, or neutral to Stalin.
The history of all human development is a history of class struggle.
The history of all human development is a history of class struggle.
Bitter Root, Vol. 1: Family Business by Chuck Brown, David F. Walker
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Being that comics is primarily a visual medium, 2.5 stars I'm giving this have to do with the incredible feast of artwork that saturates this series. The other .5 comes from an intriguing premise that is not well executed by way of plot and character development. I finished this volume feeling like the characters were more so ideas than well fleshed-out humans who felt lived in. The plot was incoherent at times.
But what really disappoints me about this series is that it takes a powerful amalgamation of ethnogothic horror, rootwork and conjure, with the backdrop of such an important cultural movement as the Harlem Renaissance to make an analysis of the superstructure of race and racism that is entirely disconnected from its material base - capitalism, and is, therefore, insufficient. Such a potentially powerful narrative concept that deploys a Black radical imagination is completely politically stunted.
Fear and hate are immaterial and, though have devastating impacts on those of us who are racialized as Black, are not the roots of racism. Capitalism is. America's capitalist economy was entirely developed on the backs of the antebellum slave south, a system that could not have persisted as it did with the convenient lie and psychological warfare of racial inferiority. Enslaved Africans were America's first capital, commodity, and labor. The history of racist violence on this land - from slave patrols that turned into today's police officers, to lynching, to the terrorism of the KKK and other forms of white vigilante violence -has everything to do with the planter class having to keep Black people in our place so that we would continue to play our role in the making and maintenance of the political economy of capitalism. It is disappointing that a comic series entitled Bitter Root has failed to actually get to the material root of racism. Therefore, the monstrous metaphor deployed throughout the series rings hollow for me and strips the powerful elements - namely the rootwork and Harlem renaissance backdrop - of its true power.
I will continue to read the other volumes of this series, especially since a new storyline set in the civil rights era was just announced. But I had such higher hopes for it that it has been able to deliver thus far.
But what really disappoints me about this series is that it takes a powerful amalgamation of ethnogothic horror, rootwork and conjure, with the backdrop of such an important cultural movement as the Harlem Renaissance to make an analysis of the superstructure of race and racism that is entirely disconnected from its material base - capitalism, and is, therefore, insufficient. Such a potentially powerful narrative concept that deploys a Black radical imagination is completely politically stunted.
Fear and hate are immaterial and, though have devastating impacts on those of us who are racialized as Black, are not the roots of racism. Capitalism is. America's capitalist economy was entirely developed on the backs of the antebellum slave south, a system that could not have persisted as it did with the convenient lie and psychological warfare of racial inferiority. Enslaved Africans were America's first capital, commodity, and labor. The history of racist violence on this land - from slave patrols that turned into today's police officers, to lynching, to the terrorism of the KKK and other forms of white vigilante violence -has everything to do with the planter class having to keep Black people in our place so that we would continue to play our role in the making and maintenance of the political economy of capitalism. It is disappointing that a comic series entitled Bitter Root has failed to actually get to the material root of racism. Therefore, the monstrous metaphor deployed throughout the series rings hollow for me and strips the powerful elements - namely the rootwork and Harlem renaissance backdrop - of its true power.
I will continue to read the other volumes of this series, especially since a new storyline set in the civil rights era was just announced. But I had such higher hopes for it that it has been able to deliver thus far.
The Black Belt Thesis: A Reader by Black Belt Thesis Study Group
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Eugene Puryear and all who contributed to this reader did an excellent job with choosing which primary documents to include. From Lenin's breakdown of the southern slave economy to Claudia Jones' critique of Leninist revisionism, I'm walking away from this book with an infinitely better understanding of the objective conditions of Black people in the Black Belt south post civil war which formed them into a nation with the right to self determination - that is, the right to govern themselves and choose their own destiny.
I more deeply understand what is being presented in this thesis and how it's different from the Garveyist reactionary Black nationalism, but also what made (and makes) Black oppression in the Black Belt have a special character that, while mirroring the colonial, imperialist oppression of other nations (particularly in the global south), is still markedly different. In that, I find this collection to be a great conversation piece with the various theories that characterize Black oppression in the U.S. as that of an internal colony.
More than anything, I really appreciated the "organization" section of this reader for how it busts the myth that the Black Belt Thesis had limited practical field applicability. In fact, it is because of this thesis, rooted in the 1928 and 1930 ComIntern Resolutions, that the Communist Party was at the forefront - dare I (along with Claudia Jones) say even the vanguard - of joint working class struggle and solidarity for full negro liberation in the 30s and 40s. Adopting this political line as a programmatic demand led to the formation of the most revolutionary sharecropper and farmer unions in the south, unemployment councils, and other trainings grounds for real, revolutionary proletariat struggle that served to unite Black and white workers against their common white capitalist enemy, the likes of which had never been seen, not even in the white abolitionist organizing of the pre-Civil war and war years. I would encourage anyone who's skeptical about the Black belt thesis applicability to read through issues of the "The Communist" from the 30s-40s available here: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/communist/index.htm
I will be marinating on this reader for a while as I integrate its lessons with other things I've been chewing on recently regarding the character of Black oppression in the U.S. today.
I more deeply understand what is being presented in this thesis and how it's different from the Garveyist reactionary Black nationalism, but also what made (and makes) Black oppression in the Black Belt have a special character that, while mirroring the colonial, imperialist oppression of other nations (particularly in the global south), is still markedly different. In that, I find this collection to be a great conversation piece with the various theories that characterize Black oppression in the U.S. as that of an internal colony.
More than anything, I really appreciated the "organization" section of this reader for how it busts the myth that the Black Belt Thesis had limited practical field applicability. In fact, it is because of this thesis, rooted in the 1928 and 1930 ComIntern Resolutions, that the Communist Party was at the forefront - dare I (along with Claudia Jones) say even the vanguard - of joint working class struggle and solidarity for full negro liberation in the 30s and 40s. Adopting this political line as a programmatic demand led to the formation of the most revolutionary sharecropper and farmer unions in the south, unemployment councils, and other trainings grounds for real, revolutionary proletariat struggle that served to unite Black and white workers against their common white capitalist enemy, the likes of which had never been seen, not even in the white abolitionist organizing of the pre-Civil war and war years. I would encourage anyone who's skeptical about the Black belt thesis applicability to read through issues of the "The Communist" from the 30s-40s available here: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/communist/index.htm
I will be marinating on this reader for a while as I integrate its lessons with other things I've been chewing on recently regarding the character of Black oppression in the U.S. today.
The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
"To attain its emancipation, the proletariat must overthrow the bourgeoisie, conquer political power, and establish its own revolutionary dictatorship. The transition from capitalist society, developing towards communism, towards a communist society, is impossible without a 'political transition period,' and the state in this period can only be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."
Herein lies the main thesis of this classic, foundational text of Marxism-Leninism. This treatise of the relationship of the proletariat to the bourgeois state machinery in order to carry out a successful communist revolution should be required reading for all who call ourselves revolutionary.
In it, Lenin spends a considerable amount of time elucidating the key differences between a bourgeois democracy - only a democracy for the rich, and violent repression of the poor and working class - and a socialist democracy - true democracy for the majority, violent suppression of bourgeois activity and ideals by the armed proletariat masses as a transition into a classless, and therefore stateless society. This is necessary to understand how anarchists and opportunists, or "social-chauvinists" have severely distorted the ideas of Marx and Engels on the subject of the state. Lenin makes a convincing case for why this question cannot be left to the future; it must be concretely, scientifically worked out now in order to create the conditions for revolutionary activity.
As good and necessary as I find this text, 2 things were a bit off-putting for me:
1. Lenin repeats himself quite often in some very unhelpful ways. There are several places where I was hoping he would expand on and deepen his previous thought but it just ended up being the kind of repetition that sounds like desperately trying to reach the word count of an essay assignment.
2. I don't think Lenin had an accurate analysis of the U.S. as offering a model of how the dictatorship of the proletariat should be formed through a democratic republic at the time of writing this book. Not least for the fact that in 1917, Jim Crow was in full force which completely barred a large contingency of the U.S. working class - Black people - from participating at all in its "democratic" processes. While his treatise on the imperialist stage of monopoly capitalism is one of one, the history of Black people in relation to the formation U.S. bourgeois democracy is a huge blind spot of Lenin's IMO.
Nevertheless, I still consider this text required reading of all revolutionaries. I am now adding it to my list of yearly study materials.
Herein lies the main thesis of this classic, foundational text of Marxism-Leninism. This treatise of the relationship of the proletariat to the bourgeois state machinery in order to carry out a successful communist revolution should be required reading for all who call ourselves revolutionary.
In it, Lenin spends a considerable amount of time elucidating the key differences between a bourgeois democracy - only a democracy for the rich, and violent repression of the poor and working class - and a socialist democracy - true democracy for the majority, violent suppression of bourgeois activity and ideals by the armed proletariat masses as a transition into a classless, and therefore stateless society. This is necessary to understand how anarchists and opportunists, or "social-chauvinists" have severely distorted the ideas of Marx and Engels on the subject of the state. Lenin makes a convincing case for why this question cannot be left to the future; it must be concretely, scientifically worked out now in order to create the conditions for revolutionary activity.
As good and necessary as I find this text, 2 things were a bit off-putting for me:
1. Lenin repeats himself quite often in some very unhelpful ways. There are several places where I was hoping he would expand on and deepen his previous thought but it just ended up being the kind of repetition that sounds like desperately trying to reach the word count of an essay assignment.
2. I don't think Lenin had an accurate analysis of the U.S. as offering a model of how the dictatorship of the proletariat should be formed through a democratic republic at the time of writing this book. Not least for the fact that in 1917, Jim Crow was in full force which completely barred a large contingency of the U.S. working class - Black people - from participating at all in its "democratic" processes. While his treatise on the imperialist stage of monopoly capitalism is one of one, the history of Black people in relation to the formation U.S. bourgeois democracy is a huge blind spot of Lenin's IMO.
Nevertheless, I still consider this text required reading of all revolutionaries. I am now adding it to my list of yearly study materials.
Revolution And Evolution In The Twentieth Century by Grace Lee Boggs, James Boggs
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.5
No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane F. McAlevey
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5