Fiction or Non-Fiction, academic or casual, theory or non-theory, feel free to mention books of any genre and on any topic.

Previous week's thread.

This is a section of Chapter 1 from the memoir My Life and Faith by Ri In Mo, which I am currently proofreading for the ProleWiki library. Ri In Mo was a war correspondent in the Korean People's Army and an unconverted long-term prisoner who was imprisoned in south Korea for 34 years. The work spans his youth during the last years of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, to the early years of the DPRK, to his decades of imprisonment in south Korea, and his eventual repatriation to DPRK in the 1990s. This excerpt is from when he was 13, in the year 1930, describing the incident which sparked his interest in joining the liberation struggle. I thought it was an interesting section to share.

The Mt. Paektu Armed Unit Which Implanted the Anti-Japanese Fighting Spirit in My Young Mind

When I reached school age I entered Phabal Primary School in Ansan Sub-County.

There was a man who had been teaching at the school since graduating from Hamhung Normal School. He came from Anbyon (in today’s Kangwon Province) where most of the believers in the Chondo faith in South Hamgyong Province lived. He was also a believer in Chondo and taught us its doctrines. And we followed him well under its influence.

In 1926 Choe Rin from the new faction of Chondoism extracted from the Japanese imperialists a promise to allow the establishment of a Korean parliament in exchange for giving up the independence of Korea and launched a “self-government movement”.

In the 1930s believers in Chondo formed the Chondo Faith Youth Party and launched zealously a youth movement, an enlightenment movement and other campaigns devoid of any political character, in opposition to the revolutionary peasant movement led by socialists.

At that time I was only a little over ten years old and was not aware of this situation. As our teacher taught us, I believed that our country was badly off because Koreans were ignorant and lazy, and that only when the national character was changed could we be better off.

Around that time a young man called Jong Un Gil returned to his native village. According to a rumour, he had attended Pukchong Agricultural School but been expelled on the grounds that he had been the mastermind behind a student strike. In the evening he used to gather village children and teach them anti-Japanese patriotic ideas. Learning of this, our teacher who believed in the Chondo faith spoke ill of him, saying, “That person was expelled from his school because he led a student strike. He is a bad fellow who is disloyal to the Japanese emperor", and prevented us from approaching Jong Un Gil.

One day an unexpected incident took place, which awoke us to the fact that the teachers behaviour was a traitorous act of defending Japanese imperialism and abusing patriots.

One August day in 1930 my aunt sent me to buy noodles for lunch. She gave me a large brass bowl and a five-jon coin. At that time a bowl of oats noodles cost one jon, so for five jon I could buy more than enough noodles for our four family members—my grandmother, uncle, aunt and I—to eat.

Phabal-ri was by the Phabal Stream, a tributary of the Hochon River and on the road linking Pukchong with Phungsan, and a rather busy place of semi-agricultural and semi-commercial character. Fruit, rice and fish from the Pukchong area were transported to Phungsan and its surrounding area via Phabal-ri across the Huchi Pass, and potatoes, starch and hops produced in the area north of Phungsan were sent to Pukchong through Phabal-ri. Therefore, in Phabal-ri as well as the houses of slash and-burn farmers, there was a large market area full of pedlars’ stalls and inns.

The Japanese kept a tight guard over this busy place. They set up a police station near the market place, headed by a vicious inspector named Matsuyama. He so harassed the local Koreans that he went by the nickname of “Opasi” (digger wasp). He was so hated that boys like myself used to throw stones at him whenever he washed himself in the Pabal Stream.

Let me continue the story.

When I was going out of the gate, taking the large brass bowl and money with me, there sounded a thunderous “Bang!” from the direction of the police station, which was 13 or 14 houses away. Phabal-ri was a secluded mountain village where gunshots were never heard, so the unexpected sound of a gun being fired was enough to start my heart thumping.

When I looked in the direction of the police station I saw people trooping toward it from the market place, and other people looking out of the windows of their houses. Others were fleeing toward the mountains behind the Phabal Stream. They were those who used to drink wine with policemen in ordinary times and were pointed at with scorn for informing the police of what the village people said. They seemed to have apprehended danger.

The thought occurred to my young mind that something serious had happened.

I threw the bowl back into the house and ran like an arrow in the direction of the police station, clenching my fists.

Thirty or so people were already gathered in front of it. All of them were poor people who had been slighted and tormented by the Japanese. The adults as well as the children were excited.

They seemed to believe that the men who had fired the rifle were protecting them.

I forced my way through the crowd and peered into the police station. A person in the police station who looked refined and gentle beckoned me to come in. Prompted by curiosity and his beckoning, I quickly entered. I unexpectedly found there Jong Un Gil talking with him about something.

Looking around the main room, I saw that “Opasi” had been shot and was writhing around on the floor, bleeding. I trembled all over. I was scared at the sight, but at the same time felt great satisfaction. So, there is no need to mention the feelings of the adults who had been harassed by "Opasi".

The person who told me to come in asked me if I was afraid. When I replied that I was not, he patted me on the shoulder and said that only when all such rascals were disposed of could the Korean people be better off.

Looking round the room, I found and picked up two spent cartridges.

Going out, I saw three men, including the one who had called me into the police station and who seemed to be their leader, wearing straw sandals and hemp clothes and each holding a Mauser rifle. I remember that they all had the same kind of hair style.

Their appearance seemed to be dignified and imposing, even to a youngster like myself. Kneeling before them, a Korean policeman kowtowed and pleaded with them for his life, rubbing his hands in supplication. There was none of his usual swaggering and shouting on that occasion!

One of the three said to him, “I should like to shoot dead right away you and your like who act as cat’s-paws of the Japanese imperialists, who invaded our country. But I will spare your life, believing that you have a bit of a conscience left, as you are a Korean. Stop being a policeman serving the Japanese and go back to your farm as an honest Korean.”

The policeman gratefully agreed to do this.

At that moment the wife of the hated “Opasi” ran out of a nearby house, barefoot, and fled toward the hill behind the house. One of the three men levelled his rifle at her, but the man who seemed to be the leader pulled his comrade’s arm down.

Frankly speaking, we were all hoping that the woman would be shot, but the leader said, “Esteemed people, you have had a hard time. We are the revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu, which fights to drive out the Japanese and win back the country. Our people are badly off and suffer misfortune because of the Japanese. We cannot become better off without smashing the Japanese. We have disposed of the police chief here to avenge the people on our way to Tanchon to help the patriotic struggle of the peasants who are fighting barehanded against the heavily armed Japanese forces. However, we cannot stay to protect you here. So, please return home.”

They then went to a sweet shop near the police station, and asked the owner for money to help them with their travel expenses. But the shopkeeper offered them only two copper coins worth one jon each. The armed men returned the coins in disgust and went on their way.

At that moment the sight of the owner of the shop became hateful to me. To think that he could maltreat in such manner patriots who were fighting to drive out the Japanese and win back our country! I thought: The rich people are blinded by money. They have no patriotism in their hearts and seek only their own interests. If I had been one of the guerrillas I would have shot the greedy shop owner. I wondered why they had left so meekly. From that time on I hated the like of that shopkeeper and began to think that I should stand by the poor people.

That night I lay in bed, tightly gripping the two empty cartridges I had picked up in the police station, and for a long time pictured myself holding a Mauser like the guerrillas and wreaking vengeance for the Korean people by shooting the Japanese. A bold idea to emulate them seized my mind. This was the first anti-Japanese idea implanted in my heart.

The impressive figures of the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters who operated on the Kaema Plateau in those remote days and kindled the flame of the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle in the heart of a 13-year-old boy there still dimly appear in my memory. I often wonder what would have become of me if it had not been for them.

The shot they fired in Pabal-ri was a fateful one which led me to the front of the anti-Japanese struggle; otherwise I might have led a life in poverty and ignorance or become a devout follower of the Chondo faith.

Fiction or Non-Fiction, academic or casual, theory or non-theory, feel free to mention books of any genre and on any topic.

Previous week's thread.

Can anyone recommend a good book of the history of Chinese socialism? I'm interested in a complete overview from Mao to Jinping but not sure which books are going to be more or less biased from a western point of view. Written by actual Chinese people would be best.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8159273

They'll be going to a physical library to get books made of paper, so weird out of print stuff is off the table. Kids these days, with their 'books' and 'physical media that a billionaire can't delete', am I right?

My child is old enough to say the fuck word, but not old enough to legally drink. So no need to hold back on complicated or mature content. ML, anarchist, Maoist, weird Deng-Hoxha-Gorbachev stans; any tendency is fine. I know where I stand, but I want them to be able to make up their own goddamn mind and not just agree with me, so diverse viewpoints are cool.

I know there are lists and resources lurking around here in some community's sidebar, but I got some family emergency stuff to handle in the immediate present. I probably won't read any of this for a day or two. Do a comrade a solid just this once? Please?

[2026-04-04] @\LoewenHelmut: Canada and NATO: The myth of a global peacekeeper. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2026.

Owen Schalk is a writer from rural Manitoba. He is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023 (2023), Targeting Libya: How Canada went from building public works to bombing an oil-rich country and creating chaos for its citizens (2025), and the co-author of Canada's Long Fight Against Democracy (2024).

This launch will be hosted live in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg and also available as a YouTube stream.

[This post was also posted in r/TankieTheDeprogram and r/TheMuffinManDeprogram (the latter im the mod and owner of) and yes this is the penguin of wallace and Gromit)]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this is not the right tag or if this feels off topic. I am currently looking for recommendations for Marxist or broadly left-wing publishers. ideally ones that produce both political theory/prose and classic literature.

Part of the reason is that I am trying to move away from large corporate publishers like Penguin Random House. I would prefer to support publishers that are more aligned with leftist/Marxist values, rather than large commercial entities. I also feel like Penguin is more so aligning with reactionary thought and I hate their prefaces.

Additionally, I have had a negative personal experience in academia involving a former lecturer, this lecturer stole my work and actively discriminated against me and other students during the covid lockdown. He received a deal with penguin. This has further pushed me to rethink which publishers I want to support.

So, I would really appreciate any suggestions for publishers you would recommend for everyday reading, not just the more well-known ones like Verso, but also other popular or accessible options. Thanks in advance!

From Iskra Books: Iskra Books is excited to launch our new journal project - Red Horizons!

This scholarly, radical journal will be in the service of global liberation movements—a site for cutting-edge theory, translations, art, and poetry.

We're accepting submissions until end of May, and publishing in September of this year. This journal will be published twice yearly. For more details, see https://www.iskrabooks.org/journal.

Send contributions to submissions@iskrabooks.org for review. Procedures and details: https://www.iskrabooks.org/submissions.

Fiction or Non-Fiction, academic or casual, theory or non-theory, feel free to mention books of any genre and on any topic.

Previous week's thread.

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/729305e7d7634f9037b115813d7c9cc8

The book spam isn't going anywhere BTW I just think the megathreads need pinning first

Fiction or Non-Fiction, academic or casual, theory or non-theory, feel free to mention books of any genre and on any topic.

Previous week's thread.

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/c497b7bc8b6aaaf94a28471d71893e8a

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/776b44282640217360f063ae8bfdb255

Summary of the book and the author:

The book tells the story of two residents of Elektrostal, a city in the Moscow region, who were unexpectedly transported 200 years into the future, to the year 2224. By this time, a just communist society had already been established. The story's protagonists, Elektrostal residents Semyon Semyonovich Baryshnikov, an antique shop owner, and Irina Petrova, a pediatrician, saw their hometown in the future. In the Elektrostal of the future, they saw a developed communist society based on high-tech production, where everything was for working people, where all the conditions for personal development were created, and where labor became creativity, not the exploitation of man by man, as is the case under capitalism. Together with Nikolai Stepanovich Shabakin, a staff member at the Institute of History, the time travelers visited a children's clinic, a stadium, a theater, a metallurgical plant, and went on an excursion to Cuba. We learn that by 2224, people are already working on the Moon and Mars.

Pavel Belykh's book, "Leap into the Future," argues that communism is not a utopia, but a realistic and only possible social structure if it is truly interested in its own preservation and development. The author continues the work of the renowned Soviet science fiction writer Ivan Efremov. The book is easy to read and doesn't give the impression of being an outright utopia. Let's recall the works of Jules Verne and Alexei Tolstoy ("The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin"). After all, much of what they wrote about became reality not hundreds, but decades later.

Pavel Andreevich Belykh is a man with extensive life experience. He graduated from MISiS, served in the Soviet Army, was a company and battalion Komsomol organizer, and spent 20 years as a Soviet engineer, including a stint in Cuba at the Jose Marti Metallurgical Plant. It's a shame that in the 1990s, when the industrial collapse was underway (and continues), Pavel Belykh's experience as a talented engineer was unclaimed. Until his retirement, Pavel Andreevich earned his living as a laborer. Pavel Belykh is a committed communist and a longtime member of the Left Front.

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/38e1129fcd659bbc996d771f3e902086

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/e8753cacf9b6eb8424e73c1c6e142325

Guys this is like one of the best ones 🥺 I'm glad you like Samir Amin tho

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/61e9265cf8daa72f7e764cab4805338d

Fiction or Non-Fiction, academic or casual, theory or non-theory, feel free to mention books of any genre and on any topic.

Previous week's thread.

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/29920e567466c607a0780b0dca965d7e

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/843262b6c1b635361608ad823f5a51bd

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/181fa6926a9a34e2865ff97e9d5d10cd

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/786c2548e1b40cb6ef939cb1ac7d0d64

I want the Rape of Nanking to penetrate into public consciousness. Unless we truly understand how these atrocities can happen, we can't be certain that it won't happen again.

If the Japanese government doesn’t reckon with the crimes of its wartime leaders, history is going to leave them as tainted as their ancestors. You can’t blame this generation for what happened years ago, but you can blame them for not acknowledging these crimes.”

Denial is an integral part of atrocity, and it’s a natural part after a society has committed genocide. First you kill, and then the memory of killing is killed.

We won't let them kill the memory of those dying today either. 👍

https://annas-archive.pk/md5/84accb9e0b393ff6b833072ab0948d01