He truly was one of the greats. Parenti managed to explain Marxism in a very accessible way, and he delivered a impassioned critique of capitalism and imperialism. It’s impossible to listen to his lectures and not be moved by them. You will be missed comrade.
RIP to one of the greatest.
He fearlessly taught audiences and readers, during the fiercely anti-communist Reagan era, that class struggle is very much alive.
His critiques on western media, revolutionary history and the events of his era, are invaluable.
He articulated Marxism in a clear and understandable way not for other professors, but for the general public, to awaken our class conciousness, and become fighters for a better world.
We’ll miss you comrade.
What a terrible news to wake up to. RIP Parenti. He was a great teacher for plenty of us.
He didn’t always have the right takes, but he was a great orator. Brought up a whole generation of communists.
And most of all, he showed us if there can be one Parenti, there can be many more. Our only limit is the one we put on ourselves.
He was unable to obtain a stable teaching job because of his unwavering criticism of capitalism and imperialism. Thank you for being so principled and a glowing example for us younger generations of Marxist–Leninists o7.
Rest in power Mr. Parenti!
Blackshirts and Reds was pivotal in helping me see AES states more realistically. Rest now, Parenti. Our struggle goes on and you can lay down your weary head. I wish you could have been here to see it through, but we will do what we can to carry it through to the end.
I remember that for much of the 2010s I was one of those snotty anarchists who thought that state-socialists supported the U.S.S.R. and whatnot out of sheer principle rather than because they benefitted the working masses. I still have comments on Fedbook where I said ‘tankies’ unjokingly, and I even disparaged one state-socialist who was trying to respectfully contribute to a conversation.
I believe that it was ‘On Russia, Today’s Liberal Luminaries Take Their Cues From Fascists’ that lead me to Parenti’s work Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media, and that was when my understanding of the people’s republics started maturing. It was clear reading the first several chapters that Parenti knew what he was bespeaking; his perception of the people’s republics was not based on ‘wishful thinking’ at all.
From pages 140–141 of the first edition:
Far from lacking in benefits and rights, Soviet workers have a guaranteed right to a job; relatively generous disability, maternity, retirement, and vacation benefits; an earlier retirement age than American workers (60 for men, 55 for women); free medical care; free education and job training; and subsidized housing and transportation.
If measured by the availability of durable-use consumer goods such as cars, telephones, lawnmowers, and dishwashers, the Soviet worker’s standard of living is lower than the American worker’s. If measured by the benefits and guarantees mentioned above, Soviet workers enjoy more humane and secure working and living conditions than their American counterparts. “In relation to national income,” notes the American Sovietologist Alex Nove, “the Soviet Union spends far more on health, education and so on, than highly industrialized Western countries do.”³²
[…]
In fact, while it cannot be claimed that Soviet citizens live under conditions of perfect equality, most of the millions of dachas are fairly modest abodes (except for a few of the more elaborate ones used to entertain foreign guests of state); and the living conditions and consumption levels of the Soviet political and managerial strata are not dramatically different from those of other Russians.
Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, as Time magazine reported, lived in a simple five-room apartment in the same housing project near the Kremlin that once accommodated Leonid Brezhnev. Soviet political leaders, managers, and intelligentsia cannot amass great wealth from the labor of others. They cannot own the means of production nor pass ownership on to their progeny. When they retire, it is to modest living quarters on modest pensions. This hardly constitutes a “new class.”
Other works such as Albert Szymański’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union (which Parenti cited) also contributed to my reevaluation of the people’s republics, but I have Inventing Reality to thank for getting it started. I might have disagreed with Parenti on certain subjects, but I would not have given him up for anything either. I only wish that I could have conversed with him before he gave up the ghost.
Rest in power, Michael Parenti. We’ll miss you.
Millions of proletarians will repeat our words: “Long live the memory of Comrade Parenti. At his graveside we solemnly vow to fight still harder for the overthrow of capital and for the complete emancipation of the working people… .”
RIP
Rest in power, our great comrade Parenti…
Also this is my favorite Parenti’s quote:
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be wary it’s a very pro-serbia book, as many non-serb yugoslavs have let me know.
It’s an anti-imperialist book.
what is an “anti-imperialist book”?
from what i have heard, anti-nato
That is quite unfortunate to hear. Could I ask for a detailed critique on the whitewashing done in the book?
I think most of us here are interested in the truth and don’t view Parenti as a demigod, rather a flawed human being just like all of us and I think he would love to be corrected on any mistakes that are present in his works.
That’s the problem, I’m not sure I could do it justice. But Parenti did make claims in the book such as:
What is still not widely understood in the West is that most of the ethnic cleansing throughout the former Yugoslavia was perpetrated not by the Serbs but against them.
Which understandably is not well-received by the other nationalities/ethnicities involved in the war. I don’t think even the claim of most holds up.
These types of claim repeat all over in the book, basically presenting a very one-sided view that is pro-Serbia/pro-Bosnian Serbs and the book seems to talk about little else. It’s not necessarily bad in a vacuum (provided the info is accurate which was not among the issues brought up to me about the book), but many people use this book as a basis for understanding the Yugoslav/Bosnian wars and on that it can’t be a good source due to only talking about Bosnian Serbs and how it presents them in relation to the conflict.
Is it true that:
“the much heavier and “nearly incessant bombardment of Mostar” by Croatian forces, causing “far greater human and physical damage than Sarajevo,” according to Susan Woodward, received almost no world attention, and demonstrated how thoroughly the media could be managed”?
And that:
“Bosnian Muslim forces at Sarajevo, UN observers noted, were often the first to begin the daily artillery barrages, firing on Serb targets and Serb neighborhoods in order to provoke a response and trigger Western military intervention”?
Yes, probably. Yet what Parenti has to say about the siege is:
Bosnian Serb forces had offered safe passage to all civilians. With noncombatants out of the way, especially women and children, the Serbs would be able to treat Sarajevo as a purely military target.
And recently we found out about how the Bosnian Serb army organized “human safaris” for foreigners during the siege of Sarajevo. Purely military target indeed.
He probably couldn’t have known about that crime back when he wrote the book as the allegations only recently came to light, but you can see how it skews the picture, basically taking the Bosnian Serb claims at face value and not offering the same treatment to the other participants. It’s very one-sided and for that reason can’t be a history lesson, it should be read very critically, more as an analysis of media manipulation.
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Rest in peace, comrade. It cannot be overstated what tremendous value you gave to the left in the west, in creating comrades out of liberals. May we carry on the torch!
“Yellow Parenti” Speech and Blackshirts and Reds | Audiobook
RIP Comrade Parenti, my life changed forever when I accidental came across your lecture all those years ago. Now that I read your books I forever continue to learn from you.
Literally picked up Blackshirts and Reds last week. RIP
