David Priestland

Bine documentat și neutru (serios) scris, dar și foarte monoton și plictisitor.
Pe deasupra, un titlu mai corect era „istoria comunismului, 65% cu ruși, 20% chinezi, un enorm 10% cu irelevanții comuniști din Occident și 5% cu tot restul, deși au fost juma de planetă și autorul include pe aici și africanii și sud-americanii, nu doar asiaticii și est-europenii”. Acum pe bune, România are sub 2 pagini în total prin carte (cât RDG sau Iugoslavia și mai bine decât Albania sau Vietnam) și comuniștii britanici sau americani zeci, e penibil de distorsionată...
Nu recomand.… (más)

O comunismo foi um dos mais poderosos movimentos políticos e intelectuais que o mundo alguma vez testemunhou. No auge da sua influência, o comunismo governou um terço da população mundial. Contudo, talvez mais surpreendente do que a rápida implantação do comunismo e o seu extraordinário alcance foi a sua derrocada em Novembro de 1989. Nesta obra, David Priestland relata a história épica de um movimento que se enraizou em dezenas de países ao longo de 200 anos, desde o seu nascimento após a Revolução Francesa até à sua maturidade ideológica na Alemanha do século xix e à sua ascensão ao poder (e subsequente queda) no século xx. Principiando pelos primeiros comunistas modernos, na era de Robespierre, o autor analisa os motivos de pensadores e líderes, incluindo Marx, Engels, Lenine, Estaline, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gorbachev e muitos outros.… (más)

I guess the biggest problem with this book is that the author was trying to cram in a lot of history into a single volume. He starts the book with Rousseau and the Jacobin French revolution and ends with the fall of the Soviet Union and records the progress and the vacillations of the leaders and the parties. He mostly focuses on the Soviet Union and its satellite states with some attention given to China too. The Global South is mostly given a brief summary or simply skimmed over. This also mainly focuses on the “great men” or the top leaders and their individual aspirations.

He draws from a lot of diverse sources and frequently quotes from novels, films, worker’s diaries and personal letters. These for me were the most interesting part of the book as they provide an insight into the people’s views regarding both the hope and optimism that pervaded, and the fear and violence that accompanied it, both during and after the revolution.
He shows that the collapse of the Soviet Union happenned because of a clique in the party and not from any discontentment of the people. He points put that the biggest strength of the party in USSR was that they claimed a moral superiority despite the lower standards of living than the west. So when Gorbachev claimed that the past 60 years since the ascendance of Stalin were a failure, it led to massive disenchantment among the people as they still believed that they were creating a more equal and just society.

He also shows the various forms in which Marxism has manifested itself through the history all over the world, greatly influenced by the local culures. He also categorizes the communist ideology into three main strands of Romantic, Radical and Modernist.

This book does havve many interesting parts but is in no way a complete history of communism. It is also a narrative of some fascinating inside stories but not any kind of an analysis.
… (más)