Red Star Over the Third World by Vijay Prashad

Red Star Over the Third World Reviews

• 
  Eren Buğlalılar

  A short essay that outlines the impact of October Revolution on the Third World intellectuals, political leaders and movements. Prashad's prose is very accessible as usual and his examples are useful in painting a general picture on the contributions and shortcomings of the USSR policy in terms of its relations with the international popular movements.
  
  Still, Prashad's use of some rhetorical tools were inconvenient to me. For example, Prashad low-key wants us to think that all those advances and breakthroughs that took place in the USSR were despite Stalin, who was a rigid, Moscow-centric reelpolitik expert. USSR is to be praised, Stalin is to be blamed. And I find it really curious when an author who is as enthusiastic about the popular movements as Prashad, remains silent about the Naxalite movement of India.
• 
  Aine

  “The Russian Revolution tore through the fabric of time. What should never have been became real – a workers’ state, a country whose dynamic was to be controlled by the working class and peasantry.”
  
  In Red Star Over The Third World Vijay Prashad shows how the October Revolution resonated across the colonised world and both the imaginative and material importance of the USSR. He traces the history from the initial shock of the Revolution and its reverberation across the world (particularly helpful was the union of the working class and the peasants) to the balancing acts between the needs of the Commintern’s European members and those members from the countries colonised by Europe as well between supporting the anti-colonial movements that would eventually suppress the communists as soon as the national bourgeoisie came to power. Staying in the inter-war period he explains the difficulties the Commintern faced when confronted with areas of the world that hadn’t developed like Europe and the struggle both the have Moscow recognise the importance of the Eastern women’s issues and then to organise and campaign on those rights (in 1928 270 Uzbek women were murdered for unveiling themselves).
  
  In Europe, Soviet intervention in Hungary and Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalin produced a process that led to Eurocommunism. Amongst the Third World communist parties, a different orientation became clear after 1956, acknowledging the importance of the USSR but seeking some distance from its political orientation. But, frustrated with the pace of change and the violence around them (e.g. the massacre of Indonesian communists), many communist parties took to the gun in the 1960s. This, of course, had its limitations, especially as “violence worked most effectively the other way”.
  
  The importance of the USSR was shown as much in what has happened in world politics since its dissolution. However, Prashad advises “today, in many parts of the world, despite the collapse of the USSR, the red flag remains aloft in our movements. Who carries this red flag? Brave women and men who believe in a cause that is greater than their own self-interest, who believe that whatever the errors made over the course of the past century, the dream of socialism remains alive and well. These brave women and men loo up at the sky and see the red star over their world.”
  
  Yes, it is a short book written in broad strokes. It does not get into the detail of particular countries or their own characteristics or context and sub-Saharan Africa does not feature much. But what it does do is make the reader want to find out more, to learn about these other people and other places that don’t appear in the usual narrative.
  
  There’s also some great quotes throughout the book:
  * “Gradually, word arrived that the Russian people – mostly peasants – had overthrown the most powerful autocracy in the world, the Tsarist Empire. There was disbelief that men and women with dirt under their fingernails and bodies beaten by machines would be able to come together and seize power. How was this even possible?”
  * “The national bourgeoisie of the colonies would instinctively be against colonial rule, but they would not necessarily be against imperialism.”
  * “Anti-colonial nationalism could not easily be denounced. Lenin recognised that it was a ‘difficult task’ to navigate the shoals of anti-colonial nationalism. Such a problem had to be dealt with carefully. There was ‘no communist booklet’ that had the answers for the radicals in the anti-colonial movements. They would have to throw themselves into the struggle and find their answers there.”
  * “In other words, the past is a resource not a destination – it reminds us of what is possible, and its traces show us that elements of that old communitarianism can be harnessed in the fight against colonial private property relations in the present. When Marxism came to the Third World, it had to be supple and precise – learn from its context, understand the way capitalism morphs in a new venue and explore the ways for social transformation to drive history.”
  * “The USSR lasted only seventy years. This is a very small period of time in the scope of world history. Its achievements have been pilloried – its demise being the greatest argument against its achievements. But merely because it disappeared does not mean that it was without merit. It provides us with the assurance that a workers’ and peasants’ state can exist, that it can create policies to benefit the vast masses of the people rather than merely the rich, that it can heal and educate rather than simply starve and kill. This is something to hold on to.”
  
  I would definitely recommend it to a friend.
• 
  Vivek Kulanthaivelpandian

  USSR started out as a beacon of socialist success but later only to become a bad example for deviating from its original agenda in a short span of 70 years for several reasons. This book talks about how USSR’s successful proletariat revolution acted as a sounding board for similar experiments around the third world countries.
  The chapters in this book are neither in any chronological order nor assorted by countries. It is all over the place. So I tried to summarize the high level contents of the book below.
  1. How the October revolution’s success reverberated in all directions with Moscow as the epicenter and how the world reacted to it.
  2. As a result, how some of the then third world countries tried to emulate and experiment this newly validated Marx’s hypothesis for themselves (Both successfully and unsuccessfully).
  3. Least talked about Women’s role in the October revolution
  4. Formulation of Comintern and contribution/participation from the third world nations including India, China, Mexico, Iraq, Turkey, Peru to the Comintern in 1920s.
  5. How Soviet Islamic republics were formed amidst the challenge of pan-Islamic sentiments and regional language barriers. How USSR’s regional language policy (Korenizatsiya) helped in increasing the literacy rate from 1/5 of population in 1917 to 86% in 1937.
  6. How the constant pressure from colonialism, Fascism, Imperialism, and capitalism hinders the socialist growth all over the world
  7. And finally how events such as Invasion of Hungary and policies such as Glasnost & Perestroika eventually steered USSR towards its irreversible but expected doom
  In this book I learned so many unknown facts about the working class/peasant uprising effort from all over the world including China, India, Mexico, Indonesia and how some groups always considered USSR as a model but some formulated their own solutions.
  I really wished the book was sectioned by countries and included the stories from Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique , Yemen , Nicaragua to name a missed few.
  If any of the above topic interests you then you will like this book. A very short comprehensive read.
  
• 
  David

  Sweet and short. Discusses the impact of the October revolution on the third world, with specific attention to the woman question, the arts, democracy and development. Prashad's 'line', so to speak, is impeccably nuanced: no sloganistic paeans or tales of glorious heroes and perverse betrayals, but rather a narrative of endless learning and correcting in harsh circumstances. Seldom judgemental, always materialist.
  
  Reminds me how strange the perspective of western historians on various socialist episodes is. No faculty devoted to its examination fails to produce new scar literature: the gulags, famine in Kazakhstan, racist Chinese bosses in Tanzania, endless discussions on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. But all this is viewed through the lens of a lab researcher; no attempt is made to take in context, neither by taking together the difficulties with the undeniable progress made, nor by comparing it to the blatantly antidemocratic colonialist practices of the liberal democracies. The late Domenico Losurdo put it this way: freedom from the Brits for the American slave owners meant the genocide of the Indians and slavery of the Africans. There is seldom a real choice between full despotism and unfettered freedom; in reality, we find choices that are full of contradictions. But in the Third World, the choice between Western-backed compradors in tandem with IMF neocolonialism, or autonomous, developmental socialism, is easily made.
  
  Shame it wasn't longer or more detailed - the breadth of CPs all over the world is stunning - but very suitable as an intro work for beginning socialists.
  
  "The reason why parties such as the PKI held fast to 'Stalin' was not because they defended the purges or collectivization in the USSR. It was because 'Stalin' in the debate around militancy had come to stand in for revolutionary idealism and for the anti-fascist struggle. Aidit had agreed that the Soviets could have any interpretation of Stalin in terms of domestic policy ('criticize him, remove his remains from the mausoleum, rename Stalingrad'), but other Communist Parties had the right to assess his role on the international level. He was a 'lighthouse whose work was still useful to Eastern countries'." (120)
• 
  T S

  Update: Gave this book a quick re-read over the past few days. An enjoyable read to be sure, but it's short and probably serves best as an intro to the impact of October on the Third World.
  
  Hanim was not an idealist. She took life by the throat and demanded more of
  it. ‘True, we may stumble in pathless darkness, we may stand on the brink of
  yawning chasms,’ she closed her comments lyrically, ‘but we are not afraid,
  because we know that in order to see the dawn one has to pass through the dark
  night.’
  ______________________________________________________
  
  A concise, well written, and interesting look at the enduring impact the October Revolution had on the Third World and anti-colonial movements.
  
  This book admittedly made me reconsider some of my preconceptions of the Soviet Union, but I was also glad to see Prashad engage with the critiques and failings of the USSR as well. This book felt like an important contribution to the debate around the USSR's legacy.
  
  "The USSR will be remembered for its breakthrough against monarchy, its emancipation of the peasantry and the working class, its war against fascism and its support for the anti-colonial movements; it cannot be reduced entirely to the purges or the failure to produce a wide range of commodities. But it should also be remembered for having failed to deepen our understanding of socialist democracy and of a socialist culture. These are the challenges before us. We have to develop new ideas to deepen the meaning of socialism, a living tradition not a dead past."
• 
  Lucas Kzau

  Chorei varias vezes. Ficou muito claro para mim o porque aprendemos a historia da burguesia na escola. Se aprendessemos a historia do povo nao teria anticomunismo que segurava.
• 
  Jeff

  I didn't really know what this book was about when I picked it up -- I was looking for a history of communist movements in the Third World, and the title seemed related. But although it touches on this, it's mostly about the *inspiration* that the Soviet Union provided for these movements, rather than the movements themselves. In other words, it talks more about Soviet ideology regarding the Third World than it does any particular Third World communist movement. That being said, it's SUPER good if that's what you're looking for.
• 
  Your Friend Fieldy

  I really appreciate having the connection between so many revolutions and revolutionary movements across the world laid out for me like this. Prashad removes the context of socialist victories and defeats from their individual vacuums, shows how socialist parties across the globe have supported and inspired each other. This was a really beautiful book, like an ode to revolution. There have been many times we were close to creating a better world, and there's a long thread for us to pick up. A better world is possible.
• 
  alexis

  just wish the flow was better. incredibly valuable nonetheless and def recommend reading !!!!
• 
  Robert Maisey

  Vijay Prashad is a leading thinker in this field and a deeply compelling writer of prose. This short book is accessible and enjoyable and contains a lot of exciting historical and political threads for the curious reader to follow up on.
  
  However, the book is almost too short, too accessible and, despite being deliberately written for curious novices, would have benefitted from some extra detail and texture regardless. One of the most exciting aspects of revolutionary third world politics is its pluralism, dynamism and richness - and this all-to-brief text doesn't convey that as well as it could have.
  
  I would recommend this text to anyone looking for a very short and simple introduction to Bolshevism, Soviet Asia and the roots of Third World Revolution. However, anyone with even a basic background in this area would be better served skipping this and going straight to some of Prashad's more in-depth writing.
• 
  a.

  really really good, comprehensive introductory account of global communist movements. this is at least in part because i am bad at absorbing dense prose in nonfiction works but i really love prashad's style -- he is so so easy to follow without being patronising. anyway vvv good book. wld recommend.
• 
  Tobias Fausko-Johansen

  Veldig interessant lesning om hvordan oktober revolusjonen påvirka de ulike bevegelsene verden rundt. Anbefales virkelig !
• 
  Happy Dwi Wardhana

  Cara menulisnya melompat-lompat dan terlalu banyak name dropping.
• 
  Ben Spill

  "The USSR will be remembered for its breakthrough against monarchy, its emancipation of the peasantry and the working class, its war against fascism and its support for the anti-colonial movement; it cannot be reduced entirely to the purges or the failure to produce a wide range of commodities. But it should also be remembered for having failed to deepen our understanding of socialist democracy and of a socialist culture. These are the challenges before us. We have to develop new ideas to deepen the meaning of socialism, a living tradition not a dead past."
• 
  Oscar

  Boka gikk i detaljer om kommunisme og sosialisme i den tredje verden og hvor viktig den sosialistiske utviklinga var for dem. Vijay forklarte godt men generelt om de diverse sosialistiske bevegelsene og hva slags farer de støtte på i sine kamper. Boka var lettlest og enkel å forstå. Anbefaler boka om du har lyst til å bli introdusert til sosialistisk historie i den tredje verden.
• 
  Kahfi

  Revolusi Oktober mungkin beberapa generasi kemudian akan menjadi suatu epos dengan tingkatan suprarasional. Revolusi Oktober mewujudkan apa yang sebelumnya hanya angan-angan kemudian menjadi mungkin. Revolusi Oktober dengan kisahnya menjadikan pemerintahan komunis bukan sekadar olok-olok kaum borjuis.
  
  Buku ini menjelaskan bagaimana Revolusi Oktober berdampak begitu hebat kepada situasi politik internasional khususnya negara Dunia Ketiga, selain itu Revolusi Oktober memberikan sinar-sinar pendukung kekuatan anti-kolonialisme untuk berbalik menggebuk lawan tradisional nya.
  
  Buku ini mengambil sikap netral dengan menyajikkan peranan Revolusi Oktober dalam menginspirasi negara-negara baru yang ingin merdeka sekaligus mencemooh glorifikasi komunis garis keras yang selalu mengganggap suksesi kepemimpinan mereka jauh dari kata cacat.
• 
  Joe G

  Engaging, short and sweet little intro on the impact of the October revolution on the oppressed world. Inspirational and valuable in its focus on the spirit of socialism, the culture, consciousness and truth of the communist project.
• 
  João Vítor

  Ótimo, sucinto, com grande riqueza de materiais para refletir o papel da URSS nas relações internacionais do século XX, sobretudo na solidariedade entre os povos e a construção de movimentos insurgentes.
• 
  Timóteo

  Um livro incrível e inspirador que todo mundo que habita o sul global deveria ler.
• 
  Kaden

  Vijay Prashad never fails to write the most comprehensive yet succinct pieces of literature that prove infinitely useful tools in our fight towards a better society. This book is a page-turner that flies through the ups and downs of Soviet influence on the ‘Third World’ - from poetry to military and material support. Vijay outlines not only the great achievements of the USSR but also it’s shortcomings and the mantle that has been left for us to take up in our fight for the liberation of all people. In his words “whatever the errors made over the course of the past century, the dream of socialism remains alive and well.”
• 
  Paula

  Great introduction into communist/socialist history in NAM-countries which offers a view on in western society lesser known pioneers of these theories. It also highlights positive developments under USSR, facts often glanced over the focus on typical horror stories such as gulags and waiting queues.
• 
  Ria

  Brilliant short read looking at the example the October Revolution set for oppressed peoples around the world; and still sets today in showing the possibilities and challenges under a socialist society
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  Nathana Tila

  "gerações construtivas pensam no passado como uma origem, nunca como um programa"
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  Pavan Dharanipragada

  It's boring. Amorphous. An account of how USSR shaped the communist movements across the third world. The colonies. Has a brief account of the causes for the breakup of the USSR. The first I've read on the subject.
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  Nhi

  A great and inspiring introduction to the impact of the October Revolution. I look forward to delving deeper into the subject matters of each chapter.