I've watched his Yellow speech, and I've read segments from Blackshirts and reds. I understand his point of view, but I fundamentally disagree with his conclusions.

Seizing land from capitalists is fine, it's what bureaucratic marxist-leninist regimes do with it afterward that bothers me. It's an age old disagreement between ML's and Anarchists that stretches back to at least the Russian Revolution war, and is something that cannot be compromised on.

Cuba's agrarian reforms eventually centralized the majority of farming land under state control instead of simply all of it to the people in a decentralized manner, which they were later forced to do after the USSR fell in the 90's (but did not cede such power without that outside force).

That centralization, that state control, is what I detest and denounce, as it furthers the ability for coercive and unequal hierarchies to exist and flourish in an ideology that is supposedly intended to eliminate them. The ML argument is that it must be done to survive against the enemies of socialism, and may point to the fact that there was never a long-term anarchist society as proof that decentralized power doesn't work, but then they conveniently pass over the fact that all promising Anarchist revolutions were actively fought and suppressed by ML's, such as the betrayal of Nestor Mahkno's Black Army of Ukraine, the Anarchists during the Spanish Revolution, The Kronstadt Rebellion, and many more.

You suggest I simply misunderstand history, yet it was through intense historical research that I came to what, at least to me, seemed like self evident conclusions based on historical fact. The fundamental disagreement between us is that we will likely always disagree on what is fact, misinterpretation, or fiction. You trust your sources, I have come to trust mine, and thus our conclusions, and perhaps even our mental reality, will lead us to reject each other's solutions to the same problem we all face: Capitalism.

To return to Parenti; his view is to suggest that the downsides of Marxist-Leninist regimes do not offset the material living condition improvements for the people living under them.

I contend that minimizes just how unjust and evil those downsides truly are. I would personally find living under the USSR just as hellish as living under Capitalism. I might have better healthcare, but then I'd have to contend with living in a deeply distrustful society where having the wrong thought could land me in the gulag or executed, all while a bureaucratic elite dictate how things will be structured and run no differently from a capitalist boss.

I have read enough ML literature and watched enough documentaries to know that I want nothing to do with that ideology, and I assume you feel the same about Anarchism, otherwise you'd be one, eh? 😅

If not, then I would implore the same from you, in that you open yourself up to Anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninism.