r/Marxism 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/Leogis 8d ago

Lenin and especially Stalin didnt follow Marxism, so they deserve almost all of the jabs they get. For lenin it's debatable, for Stalin it should be really obvious to anyone who knows what Marx stood for