Book Recommendations 6: How Did The USSR Work? 

Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/ComradeHakim Twitter: @YaBoiHakim Hey there! This time I'm trying chapter-headers in the video, so hopefully that'll help your time-stamping purposes. If you like this then I'll do it for future videos (and probably a select few previous ones as well). I'd love your feedback. There's a lot of talk about the USSR, its economy, form of elections and workers' power amongst other things. Sadly, a lot is said without the necessary information backing it up so, this is a video hoping to fill that gap with some book recommendations. All of these books can be found for free on libgen or a quick google search. I hope you like it! *Timestamps:* 00:35 Alec Nove: An Economic History of the USSR 01:36 Albert Szymanski: Human Rights In The Soviet Union 02:49 Albert Szymanski: Is The Red Flag Flying? 03:44 Pat Sloan: Soviet Democracy 04:24 The Industrialization Of Soviet Russia 05:00 Webb: Soviet Communism, A New Civilization? 06:00 Jonathan Aurthur: Socialism In The Soviet Union 06:39 The Soviet Form of Popular Government 07:38 Mick Costello: Workers' Participation In The Soviet Union 08:22 Sayers and Kahn: The Great Consipracy Against Russia, Holme: The Soviets and Ourselves, Two Commonwealths

Hakim, please don’t think people aren’t going out and reading your recommendations because trust me, people really do! Appreciate your work.

We definitely need one of these for the People's Republic of China.

anarchists: "MLs are so dogmatic. they never criticize their beloved regimes, they just idolize Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Tito and..." MLs: literally writing books on the successes and mistakes of past socialist experiments in order to improve and build up on their experiences

I have cited information from Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan so many times. I love that book.

Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan: for me that showed the dictatorship by the proletariat in action. And thus it explained the very important relationship between democracy and dictatorship in a socialist society. A must read to clear up confusion on this fundamental matter.

We do read these books. Because of your book recommendations videos I have read Blackshirts and Reds; Is the red flag flying; Problems of economic socialism in USSR; Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism; The socialist Republic of Walmart; Wage, price and profit and I plan on reading many more.

even though i was familiar with a lot of these titles thanks for the push to actually read them! excellent choices + keep up the good stuff, i always love your lists

Soviet democracy is an amazing work that dispels so much propaganda of the USSR being a dictatorship and how people have no say in the government. It was the work that got me into defending the history of socialism and turned me into an ML.

THE MAN HIMSELF IS BACK

Thank you, I'm gonna start with Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

Thanks for the recommendations! Really appreciate it.

Thank's! I'll definitely check some of these out.

Thanks! This is exactly what we comrades need: sources for information, school and arguments.

Finally, I have watched all 6 of these.... I can't WAIT to get my hands on as many of these as possible.

Mashallah Daddy Hakim has uploaded.

Awesome recommendations comrade!

I love your channel Hakim!

Hakim has uploaded. Yay!

Every time you said you didn’t think someone would read a specific book, that just made me want to pick it up.

Definitely gonna check some of these out.

Hakim:*brings out a new vid* Me: Yeah

Just picked up Soviet Democracy, excited to read it

Support from Lebanon. I really like your videos.

yes! i love these videos, book recommendations as often as you can please! any chance the next one can talk about maos china? also any recs on where to start with lenin for an absolute beginner on his philosophies?

6:00 I like seeing black and yellow on a marxist-leninist book. It reminds me of the ancap stalin meme.

I watched this about a week ago and this is exactly what I was looking for. I'm intensely curious about exactly the Soviet Union worked but wasn't sure what would be good resources on the subject. I've already gotten a copy of Soviet Democracy and plan to get a few more from this list. I'm especially interested in Soviet housing policies as that particular issue is one that I'm very passionate about.

This is all well and good, but what Young Adult literature can you recommend to people in their 20s and 30s that can make politics as real to them as Harry Potter or The Hunger Games does? For real these lists are great, thanks for taking the time.

Hello! I've found your channel recently by looking for a clip with Gorbachev advertising Pizza Hut. It seems that the advertisement has actually worked in some sense, and now I'm here :)

Thanks for the recommendations, i have finally found good books now about what socialism looks like in practice!

I'm gonna start calling my ideology Marxism-Leninism-Hakimism!✊ Interesting reading material, I'll give it a go! Thanks, comrade!

Do you have recommendations that specifically deal with the Fall of the USSR? So far I've read Blackshirts and Reds by Parenti and The End of the Beginning by Martinez and both of those are unfortunately extremely light on quotations, especially Parenti. Are there any available works that actually go into and show you primary sources?

Excellent bibliography! For those who cannot afford to buy the books online and/or cannot find them in their local library; I have found both Szysmanski's "Is the red flag still flying?" and Sloan's "Soviet Democracy" in free PDF on b-ok.org ; just write the title in the search bar and download the PDF! Thank you Hakim for your continued work, it's always excellent and I appreciate it very much.

Great video

Q: "How did the USSR work?" A: Wonderfully.

I would recommend "The Restauration of Capitalism in the USSR" by Willi Dickhut. It is absolutely critical that we understand how socialism was betrayed after Stalin's death so that the bourgeois mode of thinking cannot infiltrate and destroy future socialist states. Mao of course also wrote a lot about the emergence of a new political elite, bureaucratic tendencies, and state capitalism, which sadly is the same fate China itself later suffered.

Currently reading soviet democracy by pat sloan

This video is so necessary. I was gonna begin the slog through J. Arch Getty, knowing how biased it was going to be just for the actual information sourced from the Soviet archives. Glad to see there are better starting points.

thank you

Love these Book recommendations. If you haven't checked it out already you should read The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire.

This was exactly what I was looking for yesterday. The revolution is in the air.

thanks homie

This is a great help. Thank you as always, Comrade. ☭

Hi Hakim (or whoever else who feels like responding), if you would have to recommend one or two works on Mao and China what would you recommend? Looking for some stuff to recommend and use in discussions with history enthusiasts/historians studying other subjects as the topic often comes up but good English language works are hard to find.

I cant find The Soviet Form of Popular Government on a pdf form only a transcripted version of it. Is there a pdf form available?? I would love to read the book

Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick is a fantastic work.

I was just looking for new books to checkout

It’s so hard to find these books! Is there an archive ?

hi hakim, i want to read mick costello but not in library and $70 on amazon! can you do a talk on his examples? thanks

Can you also upload a book recommendation of the history of China?

Good video comrade, I will definately be reading these, also where is charles :'(

I can also wholeheartedly recommend The Stalin Era by Anna Louise Strong.

The recommendations are great, until you try to find the book and its invariably unavailable or out of print. :(

Do you just read PDFs of all these older books, or did you manage to find them second-hand anywhere?

It's been time I should read the Webbs from start to end instead of scratching excerpts here and there ... Do you have any opinion on modern ( i.e. after archives opened and all ) historiography on Soviet Union ? Esp the stuff from Prof Furr

What do you think of Losurdo, comrade? Greetings from Brazil!

What's your opinion on Paul Cockshott and cybernetic socialism?

Does anyone know if the soviet communism a new civlization can be bought anywehere. I cant seem to find any hard copies

Anywhere I can find a cheap version of The Industrialisation of soviet union?

Been Here 💚.

When there's "sz" in a polish name it's more like "Schymanski"

Thank you so much for this. While ive been a leftist for a long time i still have quite a lot of theory and books to read! Especially USSR centered ones. I have a lot to learn LOL. This video is such a good find!

I love your vids, comrade! One tiny thing I wanted to point out for a long, long time. The word "Soviet" is an Americanism. I have no idea, where they got the "i" in the "Sovet" from, but in Russian the word "Sovet" is spelled just like that - "Sovet", as in "saw-VET", as in "got to see a veterinarian".

anyone got any tastey PDFs of these books and links to them ?

Where can i find this book? The Soviet Form of Popular Government

لو سمحت ممكن تقترح كم كتاب عربي؟ انا مهتم جديد بالشيوعية والتوجهات بشكل عام. وشكرا على كل هالمعلومات 🙏

A follow-up to this: Would recommend the Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin, The Red Flag books by Ronald Suny, and Dominco Losurdo's book on Stalin if you can find them. Oh and an honorable mention for my Black and non white leftists out there: Walter Rodney's The Russian Revolution: A View from the Third World and anything by Vijay Prashad.

Two books I think you missed "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet economy" by Philip Hanson and "Russia's Path from Gorbachev to Putin" by David Kotz and Fred Weir.

Solidarity!

Can someone recommend websites where I can buy this type of literature in reasonable price and with international shipping?

Many of these are available on the Archive website.

Does anybody have the source for the music in the background? Lol Damn you hakim for not listing it.

I should have these in a list that I can keep until I feel safer to actually read them-

Just out of curiosity, could it be possible for you to make a video discussing/critiquing modern Chinese "Communism"? (If China could even be considered Communist at this day and age)

I keep trying to get my hands on Is The Red Flag Flying by Syzmanski but I can only find it on amazon for over a hundred dollars lol :(

Any recommendations for the People’s Republic of China?

Cannot find these books anywhere sadly. At least physically. Amazon sells them for like hundreds of dollars. What a shame.

Hakim you are demonstrating what a good Marxist should be doing on the online

Do you have anything on the Soviet reaction to Global warming?

How is Bernard Pares' work Moscow admits a critic? Is it a good work?

Can you make a video on Belarus?

The Return of the King

HE DON'T MISS

Are you planning on making a video debunking China's Uighurs propaganda? If so I'll be waiting patiently. Excellent videos man! You're my favourite communist RU-vidr

Can you do something about Islamism as it relates to communism or something like that? Im one of your practicing Muslim followers and love when you talk about faith and communism. I would love to hear your take on this important social movement!

Comment for algorithm

Hey Hakim 🖤.

Can you do an intro to theory booklist for baby socialists?

Can you do a video on the undemocratic dissolution of the USSR

Time to bust out the libgen

And also good book of szymanski is the class struggle in socialist Poland

Pls help me I argueming with my capitalistic friend for few days and I dont know what to say to : "Theres no inovation in socialisam, only in capitalisam,because in capitaliam theres competition and in socialism theres just the state" I mean, I could use"inovations in capitalism is just for competition, then monopoly and just profit, while in socialism inovations are for peoples good",but he is like no way

6:49 NOOOOOO! bro really?

Davies is great.

Comment for Al Gore's rhythm.

If you want to know how USSR really functioned just listen Andrey Fursov lectures.

U sure read a lot, I barely do 1500 pages a year.

I hate to be this guy, but my family is Lithuanian. I spent many a year with my grandfather and grandmother, and have been repeatedly reminded throughout my life that, while the Soviets slightly improved life, any idea that the Soviets turned eastern Europe into a "workers state" is completely disprovable based on the simple fact that, after WW2, nearly all men who were given the choice (including my grandfather) chose to move to the west. How do you challenge the fact that the Soviets were required to seal their borders to limit "brain drain" while the west never suffered an equivalent reaction?

AxA

Comrade Hakim. Sorry to be bold, but Pat Sloan was no American. He was an English economist from Cambridge University. Source: Russia without illusions his own work