"The God That Failed"

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Has anyone ever read this book before? It's a collection of essays written by six ex-communists (published in 1949) who describe how they became disillusioned with communism as they knew it. The contributors were Louis Fischer, Richard Wright, Andre Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, and Stephen Spender. It was edited by Labor MP (and noted Zionist) Richard Crossman.

Apparently, evidence surfaced in the last decade that seems to confirm that Silone was an informant for the Fascist police, as well as an OSS agent.

[Loony Le Fist]

Thank you. I've added this to my list of things to read. I think it's always important to understand one's adversary's arguments.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I am not saying you have to agree with them, but don't you think maybe, just maybe, there might be something to apply from this?

There was a whole generation of communists that became disillusioned, either during the Spanish Civil War or Stalin partitioning up Poland with Hitler or the Soviet occupation of eastern europe after the war or the chinese murdering millions and destroying even more priceless pieces of art.

Perhaps it would be better to try and understand why these believers in socialism became disillusioned with the ideals they believed in and fought for.

[consuming negativity]

I have a feeling the entire book is going to be tl;dr as "Stalin is bad and the West = freedom", especially given the time it was written.

[Gracchus R.]

The title make me think of the first part of a Schumpeter book, where he compare Marx to a prophet and communism to a religion.

Anyway, i just feel not relevant on this post, because I cannot answer to your question, and will probably not read this book, but i feel that it is mostly anti-USSR more than anti-communist. By both failling and calling themself communist, USSR historically do us more retorical harm than any arguments that can find a capitalist.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

All right, so the ideology didn't help them. It simply confirms what I know, that mainstream Marxism and Communism are 'bankrupt' (oh the irony) and need re-theorising and de-fetishising.

What about the process of change called 'communism' (or communisation) which sublates this society, resulting in the immediate construction of a new one within the old?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I am not saying you have to agree with them, but don't you think maybe, just maybe, there might be something to apply from this?

There was a whole generation of communists that became disillusioned, either during the Spanish Civil War or Stalin partitioning up Poland with Hitler or the Soviet occupation of eastern europe after the war or the chinese murdering millions and destroying even more priceless pieces of art.

Perhaps it would be better to try and understand why these believers in socialism became disillusioned with the ideals they believed in and fought for.

Oh, I agree with you completely. I wasn't trying to badmouth the book or its content itself (since I've yet to read it). I'm sure that some of the contributors give very genuine reasons for their disillusionment. Many of the contributors still remained on the political left, if mostly to the left of Capital. One of the contributors, Louis Fischer, was actually a pretty loyal M-L up until his renouncing of Communism.

But yeah, apparently most of it all goes back to the way Stalin and the Party were running the USSR at the time

[cassiane]

Has anyone ever read this book before? It's a collection of essays written by six ex-communists (published in 1949) who describe how they became disillusioned with communism as they knew it. The contributors were Louis Fischer, Richard Wright, Andre Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, and Stephen Spender. It was edited by Labor MP (and noted Zionist) Richard Crossman.

Apparently, evidence surfaced in the last decade that seems to confirm that Silone was an informant for the Fascist police, as well as an OSS agent.

What was the title of that book again? I want to add that in my list.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

What was the title of that book again? I want to add that in my list.

It's called The God That Failed.

[Red Economist]

This is one of those books that I kind of have to work up to as I know it will tell me things I already know and make me seriously question my beliefs; so yeah, would recommend it for that reason even though I have not got round to reading it so far.