Blackshirts and Reds

Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

By: Michael Parenti

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

A bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today.

Blackshirts and Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology. These terms are often bandied about but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti's trademark.

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.

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.

©1997 Michael Parenti (P)2022 Tantor

A must read, must listen.

Everyone should read this to educate themselves on the reality we live in. Go get it.

Excellent reframing of the Cold War

Parenti definitely goes into great detail to explain how the capitalist west consistently defended fascism while communist governments were aiding decolonization around the world.

Excellent

Parenti is at his best with this one. Eminently listenable. Favorite chapter was the ABC theorists (anything but class).

Telling story of modernity

Excellent overview of the insane destructive nature of the globalized free market society and the resolution to this disaster, namely socialism.

Recommended to me, now recommended to you

A fantastic and thorough analysis. Parenti manages to be explicit and thorough without becoming dry, overly complicated, or cumbersome. And of course the source material is crucially relevant.