I can’t see them when looking at “view source” but maybe it’s because I’m on a phone. I’m still suprised by the assertion that mao and stalin were good leaders that did more good than harm. Everything I’ve read says otherwise about those two in particular. I guess both sides must be pretty good at propaganda with the truth being somewhere in the middle.
Some were permanently removed, which is usually reserved for bigotry. No way to know for those. “View source” isn’t how you view removed comments, though, you have to look at comment moderation history.
As for Stalin and Mao, both were leaders of rapidly developing socialist countries that saw mass expansions in literacy, a doubling of life expectancy under both, and much more. Stalin is still widely loved in Russia, as is Mao in China. It’s difficult to know what you are referring to when you say “more bad than good,” no Marxist thinks they were perfect of course but the idea that they played a damaging role is simply not representative of reality.
The Gulag Archipelago, Bloodlands, Mao’s Great Famin, The Great Terror, Wild Swans and Cambodia Year Zero.
Probably a couple others I’m not thinking if at the moment. All are very anti everything you’re saying. Don’t worry I’ve read plenty of anti imperialist/western books too. I am absolutely open to some recommendations that show more of you side of thinking/history though. I can buy it if available online or I do have a really good local library.
Mao did not cause the famine, China was a slave-feudal society where famine was a recurring feature due to underdeveloped agriculture and poor technology to cope with weather disasters. Famine was abolished under socialism during Mao’s time, just not overnight.
Wild Swans is a personal biography and anecdote, not an actual work of historical analysis.
Cambodia wasn’t socialist and the overwhelming majority of socialists condemn Pol Pot, so I don’t care to offer anything here.
All in all, you essentially have some of the worst of liberal academia combined with essentially historical fiction. That’s not a good basis for any historical analysis.
For the Soviet Union, I recommend the following works:
Also, are there any books critical of communism/stalinism/maoism/leninism you’d recommend? Figure I’ll stagger one pro one anti and find the middle. So far I have if any have major issues let me know and I’ll decide if they are worth my time.
Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
Yang Jisheng, Tombstone
Orlando Figes, The Whisperers
Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928
No, because I haven’t read anything critical of Marxism-Leninism that I’d recommend. Further, finding a “middle” between two ideas doesn’t translate into being more correct, or more nuanced. All of the works I listed do bring up real issues that exist within socialist states, so you already are getting a good, critical view.
Everything you’ve listed is heavily biased. None of it is neutral at all when I looked into them. Which is fine, but I’d like to read both. Not to be correct, just for full context. The second list I presented I haven’t read anything of but all are supposed to be more historical and less political.
Everything you listed was both biased and historically inaccurate, though. Every source is biased in some way, what’s important is recognizing what that bias is.
Ok I specifically chose books that based their information on historical documents provided by said governments. All of my current list are supposed to be the most historically driven, again, based on information obtained by the structures of power in question. You can dismiss them as fake or historically inaccurate but nothing supports that claim. Particularly the road to terror, everyday stalinism and history of the gulag.
Timothy Snyder, who holds a prestigious academic post, is famous for writing “Bloodlands”. And as it turns out, “Bloodlands” is full of lies. Not just “lies” in an ideological sense - it’s not an opinion that these are lies. Furr’s book catches Snyder lying about what his sources say. It catches Snyder inventing sources. Snyder omits details from his sources that would contradict his point, he gets page numbers, figures and statistics wrong, and he even uses Nazis and Nazi collaborators as sources without identifying them as such.
Going meticulously through every citation, tracing each claim through Polish, Ukrainian and Russian sources to its faked origin, Furr has proven that one of America’s most famous historians is a fraud. Snyder, who is considered an expert on the Stalin era, wrote a book about the crimes of Stalin, intent on equating Stalin with Hitler. But nearly every citation in his book is bogus. Each citation, noticed on its own in a History 101 term paper by a sharp TA, would get a freshman undergrad flunked, with an accompanying sobering lecture about whether they should be attending university at all. But Snyder sits happily in his tenured post at Yale. If you email him about “Blood Lies” he pretends not to have heard of it.
I can’t see them when looking at “view source” but maybe it’s because I’m on a phone. I’m still suprised by the assertion that mao and stalin were good leaders that did more good than harm. Everything I’ve read says otherwise about those two in particular. I guess both sides must be pretty good at propaganda with the truth being somewhere in the middle.
Some were permanently removed, which is usually reserved for bigotry. No way to know for those. “View source” isn’t how you view removed comments, though, you have to look at comment moderation history.
As for Stalin and Mao, both were leaders of rapidly developing socialist countries that saw mass expansions in literacy, a doubling of life expectancy under both, and much more. Stalin is still widely loved in Russia, as is Mao in China. It’s difficult to know what you are referring to when you say “more bad than good,” no Marxist thinks they were perfect of course but the idea that they played a damaging role is simply not representative of reality.
I hear ya. I appreciate the conversation bud.
Books I’ve read about this subject are
The Gulag Archipelago, Bloodlands, Mao’s Great Famin, The Great Terror, Wild Swans and Cambodia Year Zero.
Probably a couple others I’m not thinking if at the moment. All are very anti everything you’re saying. Don’t worry I’ve read plenty of anti imperialist/western books too. I am absolutely open to some recommendations that show more of you side of thinking/history though. I can buy it if available online or I do have a really good local library.
The Gulag Archipelago is a work of fiction from a Nazi sympathizer, so that makes sense.
Even Wikipedia can’t hide that Timothy Snyder is a hack:
Omer Bartov wrote that “the book presents no new evidence and makes no new arguments”,[28] and in a highly critical review Richard Evans wrote that, because of its lack of causal argument, “Snyder’s book is of no use”, and that Snyder “hasn’t really mastered the voluminous literature on Hitler’s Germany”, which “leads him into error in a number of places” regarding the politics of Nazi Germany
Mao did not cause the famine, China was a slave-feudal society where famine was a recurring feature due to underdeveloped agriculture and poor technology to cope with weather disasters. Famine was abolished under socialism during Mao’s time, just not overnight.
As for Robert Conquest, he’s a hack who includes Nazis killed as “victims of communism,” as well as non-births as deaths.
Wild Swans is a personal biography and anecdote, not an actual work of historical analysis.
Cambodia wasn’t socialist and the overwhelming majority of socialists condemn Pol Pot, so I don’t care to offer anything here.
All in all, you essentially have some of the worst of liberal academia combined with essentially historical fiction. That’s not a good basis for any historical analysis.
For the Soviet Union, I recommend the following works:
This Soviet World (1936)
Human Rights in the Soviet Union (1984)
Blackshirts and Reds (1997)
Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend (Published in English in 2023)
And for China, the following:
China’s Millions (1965)
The East is Still Red (2023)
People’s Republic of China
Also, are there any books critical of communism/stalinism/maoism/leninism you’d recommend? Figure I’ll stagger one pro one anti and find the middle. So far I have if any have major issues let me know and I’ll decide if they are worth my time.
Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History
Yang Jisheng, Tombstone
Orlando Figes, The Whisperers
Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism
Oleg Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag
Arch Getty & Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror
No, because I haven’t read anything critical of Marxism-Leninism that I’d recommend. Further, finding a “middle” between two ideas doesn’t translate into being more correct, or more nuanced. All of the works I listed do bring up real issues that exist within socialist states, so you already are getting a good, critical view.
Everything you’ve listed is heavily biased. None of it is neutral at all when I looked into them. Which is fine, but I’d like to read both. Not to be correct, just for full context. The second list I presented I haven’t read anything of but all are supposed to be more historical and less political.
All works are biased, learn some academic literacy. Especially after you posted a list of the most single minded anti communist propaganda imaginable
Yes, that’s why I want to read both… You don’t have to speak so aggressively. I didn’t say anything I listed wasn’t biased.
Everything you listed was both biased and historically inaccurate, though. Every source is biased in some way, what’s important is recognizing what that bias is.
Ok I specifically chose books that based their information on historical documents provided by said governments. All of my current list are supposed to be the most historically driven, again, based on information obtained by the structures of power in question. You can dismiss them as fake or historically inaccurate but nothing supports that claim. Particularly the road to terror, everyday stalinism and history of the gulag.
Thank you! In a few months hopefully I’ll have a nicely balanced perspective.
Even Solzhenitsyn’s wife has come out to say that this is more a work of fantasy and folklore than meaningful historical record.
Haven’t read this but I don’t have high hopes seeing as it appears to be a “double genocide” theory advocacy work.
This book is garbage. It is an extended tabloid piece not a meaningful piece of academic work.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141009093707/http://chinastudygroup.net/2011/03/o-grada-review-of-dikotter/
I’d recommend looking into Robert Conquest and his bias (putting it lightly).
To add to Cowbee’s list of recommendations, this book in particular is so bad that this exists:
Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands Is False
deleted by creator