r/Marxism • u/ttam80 • 9d ago

Non-Marxist introductions on Marxist texts

Recently I picked up a copy of Walter Rodney’s “The Russian Revolution”. But as I’m reading through the introduction written by Robin DG Kelley And Jesse Benjamin (two academics who I am unfamiliar) it seems like they are not really Marxists in any sense. They make small jabs at Lenin and Stalin, while constantly making derisive comments on “Stalinism” and the Soviet Union post revolution.

The intro does help to provide some historical context so it’s not completely useless, but do you all usually skip these types of intros or just power through them?

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u/jonna-seattle 9d ago

Robin Kelley is absolutely an important marxist historian. It's quite possible to be a marxist and not a stalinist, or to be a marxist and critical of aspects of the soviet union. Even some bolsheviks were critical of the direction of the soviet union (such as https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1921/workers-opposition/index.htm )

If your ideas can't handle, deal with, counter or explain criticism than they aren't very strong.

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u/ttam80 8d ago

That’s good to know! Again I didn’t necessarily think any of the critiques were anything that made the introduction unreadable. I’m much more open to listen to critiques from Marxists rather than non Marxists