Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

Written by Michael Parenti

Narrated by Timothy Andrés Pabon

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

Blackshirts 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666111026

Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti is an award-winning author, scholar, and lecturer. He is the author of God and His Demons (2010), Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (2007), The Culture Struggle (2006), The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2003), and Democracy for the Few, 9th edition (2010).

Reviews for Blackshirts and Reds

[Adam the Third · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was recommended this book by Hakim. Excellent book. Thanks.

[Paul Himmelman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Good lord this book is so prescient. The infighting amongst leftists while the planet dies, the supporting of fascism over communism/socialism by capitalists of all stripes. Everything brought up in this book has only gotten frighteningly worse. A must-read to understand what happened and what is coming.

[quintus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book will definitely change your life. Whether you become red or not, it forces you to take a position.