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kleinbl00  ·  4313 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Mind-blowing literature?

On your recommendation I started his Communism: A History. Gotta tell ya - it reads a lot like a history of MoveOn.org as written by BIll O'Reilly... Pipes is mentioned in The Dead Hand as one of the ideologues who helped sustain the cold war an extra ten years.

He pretty much starts off with the basis that Communism in all forms is stupid and will never ever work, and then proceeds to highlight things about Marxism/Leninism that are even stupider. Which is fine - the dude knows a hell of a lot more political philosophy than I ever will and Reagan never asked me to Tiger-Team CIA intelligence estimates. But it's far more of a polemic than an analysis.