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What political book are you reading currently? Are you enjoying it, would you recommend it....and why? Or would you rather have spent a couple of seconds reading the wit and wisdom of Donald Trump/Boris Johnson (choose your own idiot).

Share your thoughts and recommendations with your reading comrades.

I just finished Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy by Kishore Mahbubani! The author clearly isn鈥檛 a socialist so the book isn鈥檛 written from my ideological perspective, but I still found it really enjoyable and valuable.

Sounds interesting, lindsi.

It seems certain that one significant outcome of the pandemic (and Trump's total mismanagement of it) will be China becoming the world leader much sooner than previously anticipated. I think we can already see some changes in the relationships between China and other countries (despite the anti-China rhetoric and stances of America and Britain).

How does the author assess this in the book?

John wrote: "Sounds interesting, lindsi.

It seems certain that one significant outcome of the pandemic (and Trump's total mismanagement of it) will be China becoming the world leader much sooner than previous..."

His premise is that we should be asking not "Has China Won?" but "Has/Will humanity win?" which is corny af but I agree. But strictly speaking, his take is absolutely that China will overtake America as the economic hegemon in the next couple decades, and that America should be focusing on how to deal with that transition. The rest of the world is ahead of the curve in seeing this and adjusting their foreign (esp trade) policy accordingly.

Verso books are currently offering An Army Like No Other: How the Israeli Defense Force Made a Nation by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner.



Highly topical in view of the current Israeli army attacks on Palestinians, you can get the ebook version free at -


I downloaded it without problem a short time ago. Verso suggest that those who wish to can make a donation to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

I am currently reading We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba! A super interesting book, it's a collection of essays on abolition by Kaba. It's also very accessible and not theory-heavy.

Madison wrote: "I am currently reading We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba! A super interesting book, it's a collection of essays on abolition by Kaba. It's also very accessible and not theory-heavy."

Ah i have that book, I need to get around to actually reading it! A couple reading groups in my DSA chapter are studying it rn too

I've just started reading Women and Class by Mary Davis



I hope it'll help me explore a bit further some of the analysis provided by Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

Another free ebook being made available by Verso, although this one is probably only of interest to group members in the UK; its "How the EHRC got it so wrong" from "Jewish Voice for Labour". Untruthful claims of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party were used to attack the left in the party, and used by Zionists to attempt to hinder the left's support of Palestinians.

It can be found at -

Just finished reading Women and Class by Mary Davis.

Its primarily a marxist analysis of the role of women in class society, and as you'd expect it includes a useful discussion and summary of Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Although its only 67 pages long its quite a dense read, but I'd certainly recommend it.

I've now just started reading Marxism and the National Question by Joseph Stalin.

I regard myself as both a Communist and a supporter of Scottish Independence. The Communist Party of Britain is opposed to Scottish Independence, so I feel I ought to become a bit better informed about that opposition.

Sounds really interesting! My partner really enjoys Stalin鈥檚 writings but I haven鈥檛 read him yet myself, let us know how you like it!

Just finished reading Marxism and the National Question by Joseph Stalin


It was a short book - 66 pages - and straight-forward. This is the first work of Stalin's that I've read, and it would encourage me to read more. He likes to spell out his arguments clearly, building them up in small steps. This makes it easy to follow, but at times can be a bit repetitive. Sadly (but as expected) I didn't find any arguments that I could use in support of Scottish independence.

What did you think of it?

It was interesting to see his view of Europe just before the first world war (I think he wrote it in about 1912/1913) - a lot of the examples he used related to the Austrian Empire and to Czarist Russia.

Some of his views reflect Kautsky's ideas (although I don't think he mentions him at all). As you would expect, he's very much against nationalism including "nationalism in a socialist garb".

Trotsky apparently claimed that a lot of the credit for the book belonged to Lenin, but Lenin himself never took that view and it seems to be an unjustified criticism.

Based on this book, I'll definitely read some more by Stalin.

(I was in St Petersburg for a couple of days two years ago, and at the time was surprised to see so many small busts, pictures, coffee mugs etc celebrating Stalin. I wish I'd bought a couple - but I brought back some Lenin memorabilia instead.)

I've just read The War of the Poor by 脡ric Vuillard - a very short book, which was apparently shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021.

The book relates to a 16th century popular revolt, and although the writing was poetically intense at times, it didn't grip me as much as others seem to have been seized by it. However, it impressed me enough that I'll probably do a bit more reading on Thomas Muntzer and the German Peasants War.

In Place of Fear II by Jim Sillars is best described by its sub-title - "A Socialist Programme for an Independent Scotland". Its an excellent short book (95 pages) full of practical ideas.



I don't agree with everything Sillars says, and in many cases I don't think he's radical enough, but its a worthwhile contribution to the debate about what an independent Scotland should look like.

I'm currently reading History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: Volume 1: Formation and early years 1919-1924 by James Klugmann.

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I've just finished Conversations With Stalin by Milovan 膼ilas


I really liked it - it was fascinating to get such personal and first-hand views of not just Stalin, but some of the other senior Soviet leaders.

Having just read Marxism and the National Question by Stalin, it was interesting that in one conversation with Djilas, Stalin noted that it was Lenin who had edited the book.

I'm reading Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics And Political Activism by Barbara Winslow.

It's a political biography of Pankhurst - the suffragette, feminist and socialist.

I've just finished reading - Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics and Political Activism; its an excellent book and I'd highly recommend it. Despite knowing little about Pankhurst (other than her being a member of a famous family), my view of her had been coloured by the fact that she'd been expelled from the CPGB in 1921, and seemed to have some sort of feud with Arthur MacManus, its first president.

But I now have a much higher opinion of her as a result of reading this book. She was far from perfect, but in the words of the book "...she should be remembered as an anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist at a time when very few people shared her ideas.....Pankhurst can be considered an intellectual foremother of today's socialist feminists"

I finished reading The Tragedy of the Worker: Towards the Proletarocene; its a very short - but dense - book.

I like the Salvage Collective - and subscribe to the magazine, and I'm glad I read this book. However, I think they indulged themselves a bit in some intellectual showing-off, resulting in the book being not quite as good as it could have been.

DSA SF is reading Erik Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias

Envisioning Real Utopias

We have several long-running reading groups, one of which focuses on current socialist books. We've been having a good run reading this one. Envisioning Real Utopias is one of the few books I've seen that systematically analyzes what a transformative socialist political effort might look like.

We have meetings by Zoom, usually every two weeks. For our next session, we're reading chapters 6 and 7. The next meeting is October 5th at 6:30pm-8pm.

Zoom link is:

Hope you can make it - don't worry whether you're a DSA member or not, everyone is very welcome!

The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try Envisioning Real Utopias later this month.

John wrote: "The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try [book:Envisioning Real Utopias|705848..."

We'll probably read chapters 8 and 9 in a session on Oct 19th, 2021. Love to see you there!

John wrote: "The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try [book:Envisioning Real Utopias|705848..."


We read How to be an Anti-Capitalist a year ago. I'm ambivalent about that book: it seems to me to be much less substantive than Envisioning Real Utopias. Wright's practical policy suggestions to me do not seem very exciting - and How to be an Anticapitalist is generally much more "practical" than Envisioning Real Utopias. When he's more on his native ground of sociology, his work (again, to me) is much more innovative.

Burritoboy wrote: "John wrote: "The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try [book:Envisioning Real U..."

We actually will be re-reading Chapters 6 and 7 on October 19th.

Burritoboy wrote: "John wrote: "The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try [book:Envisioning Real U..."

We actually will be re-reading Chapters 6 and 7 on October 19th.

Burritoboy wrote: "Burritoboy wrote: "John wrote: "The only book of Wright's which I've read so far is How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, which I loved; so I'll have to try [book..."

I'd be very tempted....but that will be about 2am here in Scotland!

I'm very slowly trying to wrap my head around Capital lol

But also stumbled across an antique book from 1860! A biography of John Brown from not long after his death. I think politically there's a decent amount we can learn from that eras abolitionists.

I'm almost finished reading The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine by Andrew Cockburn.



Its extremely readable - and extremely disturbing. It documents in detail the degree of dishonesty and corruption in the top levels of the American military industrial complex.

I highly recommend this book.

No way, I just bought that lol! what鈥檇 you think?

I've really liked it - there have been times I've had to put it down because I was so angry, and times I've sat in open-mouthed astonishment that they could get away with some of the things they have done (and continue to do). Also, the fact that they are so brazen about their greed and corruption. Its a bit like the Tories here in the UK - they openly say in some cases, "These are the rules - but they don't apply to me". Lenin was right - the system has to be smashed and destroyed.

I'd never heard of Andrew Cockburn but a lot of the chapters came from magazine articles, so you may have read some of them previously.

Just now, I've finished reading Vijay Prashad's Red Star Over the Third World, which was quick, yet covered the globe in a manner that I have become accustomed to expect from Mr. Prashad, whose work, I must share, has boosted my analysis tremendously. The internationalist examples and prospective, which exude from his writing, are refreshing and insightful. Perhaps more than any other writer, whom I have encountered over the last several years, Mr. Prashad seeks to connect the dots of leftist currents and histories and he succeeds to the point that a web is created which helps support, link, and bolster my own burgeoning understanding of the ways in which the global capitalist system operates.

It seems to me, a useful book for rookies of leftist history (myself included) and a good place to start before diving into the more foundational works of theory, for which I am in the process of steeling myself. In a similar vein of preparatory works, I am now rushing through Richard D. Wolff's Understanding Socialism, having just recently finished Understanding Marxism.

I aim to finish Understanding Socialism today or tomorrow, so as to move on to tackle Vladimir Lenin's State And Revolution and then Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by the end of the month.

The 'The Spoils of War' looks good - seeing as it is coming from one of the three Cockburn brothers, how could it not be worth a read. I previously listened to Andrew Cockburn's Kill Chain: Drones and The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins via audiobook and found it to be a devastating examination of U.S. drone policy and U.S. subsidy to the high technology sector. I have added 'The Spoils of War' to my list. Thanks, John.

I've just started reading Lenin by Lars T. Lih



Its part of the "Critical Lives" series, and is excellent so far.

Thanks for the recommendation Nicola. Its not one that I'd come across before, and definitely looks interesting.

I'm just starting The Employees by Olga Ravn, sub-titled as "a workplace novel of the 22nd century".

I don't think I've read any Danish sci-fi before, and I'm really looking forward to this one, described as a "beautiful and moving novel, set in a workplace 鈥� a spaceship some time in the future 鈥� is by turns loving and cold, funny and deliberately prosaic; capable of building a sense of existential horror one minute then quotidian comfort and private grief the next. In deceptively simple prose, threaded on a fully achieved and ambitiously experimental structure, it asks big questions about sentience and the nature of humanity. And about what happiness might be" --2021 International Booker Prize judges

I'm reading Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Pyotr Kroptkin now. I'm definitely enjoying it. We're not a selfish soecies. We're hardwired to work together and help each other. Our current way of doing things is a modern invention and Kroptkin understood that.