Many comrades know that one of my side projects, is recording audiobooks and putting them on youtube and torrents for all to listen.
Many times when I record a book, its the first-reading, so if it turns out to be a bad book, I can always stop recording, and move on to the next one. Usually this happens early on in the book, as its fairly easy to tell if an author has anything of value to add.
Based on ComradeHakim’s recent book recommendation video, I decided to read something from an author I hadn’t before, Torkil Lauesen’s - The long transition towards socialism and the end of capitalism. PDF here
There were a few red flags early on in the book, that made me suspect that Lauesen was either a Trot or ultra-left (an idealist definition of socialism, a claim that the USSR wasn’t socialist), but it was difficult to discern, because the early part of the book was about early socialist history (the internationals), and didn’t make too many firm judgements.
It took until about 40% of the book was done, probably 7+ hours of recording wasted, until Lauesen shows his ultraleft politics. Chapter 12 is where it really comes out (you can read it in the pdf linked above). Some of his points:
- He denounces the USSR as not socialist, and abandoning Marxism in favor of building a “state bureacracy”.
- Denounces socialism in one country as abandoning internationalism.
- Citing trotskyist writers like Deutscher to claim that Stalin was “authoritarian”, and a “schemer”, and ruthlessly eliminating/purging opponents.
- Stalin is painted in the standard western caricature as a ruthless self-serving bureacrat who subverted socialism to build his own power.
- Groups Lenin and Stalin as the “right-wing” of the bolsheviks while Trotsky represented the “left”.
- Claims the majority of peasants were allied to kulaks in opposing the USSR, industrialization, and collectivization.
- Claims that a priviledged “class” of party leaders lived above the people and lost legitimacy. (Why does a socialist writer not know what class means?)
- Has a weird interpretation of Lenin’s state and revolution, where he thinks a critical point of the book is about abolishing standing armies in favor of a “people in arms”, and the USSR not doing this was a “retreat” from socialism.
- Worst of all, rather than defending the socialist character of the USSR, he repeats the claim of every purity-loving ultra-left, that defending the history of the USSR as a socialist state, damages the “brand” of socialism.
ComradeHakim clearly did not read this book, which is unfortunate since its explicitly in his recommendations.
TL;DR Don’t always trust a comrade’s book recommendations, and always check their views on the USSR and Stalin before diving in.
Ventpost aside, I think as leftists we need to be comfortable reading people with bad takes. Check Lenin’s or Stalin’s or Mao’s libraries, they both read voraciously and critically-- liberals, anarchists, ultras, fascists, idealists. Analytical development comes from analytical practice, not a study of perfect truths.
That being said, the labor to record an audiobook is something else so I understand that frustration. I’ve gotten a lot of value from listening to and sharing your other recordings, and your criticism in this post is also educational.
In this case I’ll take your word for it, from your description it sounds like there isn’t much to be gained by reading a book that rife with disinformation. Your post just reminded me of something that’s been on my mind recently. There’s got to be a balance between not wasting time on nonsense books versus critically investigating things for ourselves to hone our own critical thinking skills.
My comment itself is probably a ventpost from my time trying to get by in a Trot org lol, some of the most anti-intellectual dogmatists I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with. Refused to read anything that wasn’t published by their
cultorg, talked like Lenin and Trotsky were divine besties. Some of them bragged about having not read Capital lmao.The problem is that Hakim recommended the book. Like I believe everyone should read opposing side’s work, even b*rdiga, but this is not a book socialists should read to learn about socialism. Its a book people should read to criticize.
The last paragraph about trot cults only telling people to read specific books is too real lmao. I heard it from like 10 people at this point though havent been in a trot cult myself.