Blackshirts & Reds is a bold and insightful exploration of 20th-century political struggles, focusing on the big issues – fascism, capitalism and communism, revolution and democracy – in a way that has huge relevance to the times we are living through right now.
Acclaimed author and public intellectual Michael Parenti argues that fascism is not an aberration, but rather is an integral part of capitalism, used as a weapon to crush popular resistance and preserve privilege. Parenti shows how "rational fascism" serves capitalism and how corporate power undermines democracy.
Parenti goes on to analyse the external and internal factors behind the collapse of communism, and explores the disastrous impact of the "free-market" victory on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Arguing for the importance of a class-focused perspective, this is a classic book which invites readers to look beyond conventional narratives and challenge orthodox views on modern history.
"By portraying the struggle between fascism and Communism as a single conflict, and not a series of discrete encounters, Parenti defines fascism as the weapon of capitalism, not simply an extreme form of it. Fascism is not an aberration, but a 'rational' and integral component of the system"— Stan Goff, author of Full Spectrum Disorder
Michael Parenti is a leading political analyst and the author of twenty books.