It’s probably more worth my time to take a leaf out of Roderic’s book and not post on here but the idea that he coordinates a network of alts being a more reasonable explanation to you than that he has friends is just too ridiculous. Here’s some contrary evidence for you to grapple with:

You can listen to a podcast I’ve done here: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/8d546709-2b54-498a-a29d-a0bde330a940/id/27767583

You can also watch Roderic on a panel about Losurdo and his book in Stalin here: https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1724514720374301034?s=19

Do you really think we are the same person?

I agree with another poster that more recent writers can be easier entry points into theory because the authors translate it in ways that highlight ML theory’s relevance to today and recent history. As the other poster mentioned, Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds is good on breaking through cold war nonsense about the USSR, there’s a couple chapters online here. Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter history dissects the dominant ideology of our time. There’s a short summary of that book by the author here.

No one here has yet tackled the question on how important it is to read Capital: I think it’s crucial. There are so many concepts it lays out and arguments it refutes that it makes reading other theory much easier. I think of Lenin’s Imperialism as a sequel to Capital, so it makes sense to me you find it challenging to read. That said, Capital is also challenging to read and it might help to familiarize yourself with some of the concepts it covers before you tackle it. Here are some (mostly short) essays for that purpose.

• Labour & Labour Power
• Commodity Fetishism
• Communist Self-confidence (history of capitalism from feudal era to now and why the working class is revolutionary)
• Social Classes: Necessary and Superfluous by Engels, why were classes historically necessary and why are capitalists obsolete.
• A Fair Day’s Wages for a Fair Day’s Work by Engels, on how political economy has traditionally treated wages and why communists must focus beyond wage increases.

I’ve posted a lot of links from RedSails because it was started for this purpose: to make theory accessible and demystified and relevant for today. If there’s a topic or author you want to read more on, it has curated articles for those ends.

I’ll end with my favourite Lenin, which I think highlights why we can’t “go back” to some better time before capitalism but must go through capitalism to socialism.

Accusing someone of being “brainwashed” isn’t, as far as I have seen, so rhetorically effective that I think we need a drop-in replacement like “hate-passed.” If “you’re super licensed” sounds silly it’s because “you’re super brainwashed” is also silly.

What about:

“Do you actually believe that nonsense or does it just give you license to discount the incredible social progress China has made?”

I think the post earlier in this thread used it well. They’re not defining the term, they’re explaining the phenomenon. Because it uses a familiar term, it is easy to understand and doesn’t read jargony:

I think this is better understood as licensing American settlers to unleash their preexisting white supremacist worldview onto a politically acceptable target.

Rejecting the term “brainwashing” means not only improving our understanding of how propaganda works but also improving our rhetoric.

What do you think is lacking from the term used in the essay, “licensing”?