Richard Pipes from Old Trees by Tyler Shipley

today something caught my eye when I glanced at my bookshelf
and before I time to think better of it, I found myself
reading Richard Pipes’ Communism: A History
and laughing at the margin notes I had written in fury

Pipes was one of what used to be called Sovietologists
and yeah their analysis operated on about the level of today’s Scientologists
they were anti-communist cold warriors who brazenly lied
to keep the American public obedient and capitalist and terrified

of the supposed evils of communism and before I circle back
to that Pipes book that I’ve got sitting in my lap
I just want to take a moment to appreciate the names of these Cold War relics
Richard Pipes, Robert Service and Robert Conquest

I had to read these guys when I started in university
and I’m not gonna lie there were moments when it occurred to me
that they maybe made these names up, because they were too perfect
big old Pipes leading the Conquest of communism in lady liberty’s Service

anyway ok in the first sentence Pipes says his book is an obituary
for communism of course and I underlined that and wrote “we’ll fucking see”
“it’s rout has been so complete” wrote Pipes with flair
“that we may only ask if it was human error or flaws inherent in its nature”

but Pipes is only warming up here and my favourite line
which you can tell from how heavily it is underlined
is when he says Marx’s Capital is so dense that few have ever read it
so the fact that it’s been so influential may be confusing to many

beside this in my own scrawl it says lol omg dude didn’t read Capital
he’s built a career as an expert on communism but doesn’t know it’s most basic principles
imagine writing a book about the history and practice of rock n roll
and admitting you’ve never actually listened to the White Album by the Beatles

which certainly explains how Pipes is able to say with credulity
that Marxism is hostile to new evidence or information, as a theory
as if Marx hadn’t pioneered an entire social scientific method
called dialectical materialism which was all about synthesizing new data with existing theory to test it

but look theory can be hard, I won’t be too rough on pipes for that
but the next underlined section is really unforgivably bad
beside it I just wrote "lol you can’t be serious"
he said “thus virtually all of Marx’s predictions turned out to be wrong, as became increasingly apparent during his lifetime and incontrovertibly so after his death”

the reality is that there are few social theorists who got nearly so much right
which is why Marx is a foundational piece of half of the social sciences
and at the core of it, his most straightforward claims are demonstrably true
and these aren’t even controversial, in many places they’re widely accepted too

one: that capitalism creates great wealth for the rich and poverty for the poor
and that inequality means two: that people will eventually demand more
and three: in trying to crush those workers movements, capital will create
four: a crisis where people can’t afford to buy the things their exploited workers make

this is only the beginning of the things that Marx accurately predicted
but poor old Richard Pipes would have a hard time knowing that since he admits he didn’t read it
and it seems around this point I got bored of his inane propaganda
because my margin notes abruptly end and fair enough, who has the stamina

who has the stamina to read the empty ravings of a guy who worked for Reagan in the 80s
and had multiple homes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire paid for by the CIA
presumably, since he headed a team there in the 70s
and of course serious scholars have long since shredded his books to confetti

but of course as Marx pointed out in the German Ideology
the ideas of the ruling class are widely spread and framed as common sense in any society
so as idiotic as Pipes work certainly was
a lot of people would have read it and would have nodded along

because it sat neatly alongside what people were taught as basic truths
communism is evil right, come on, you know this, you do
and there are plenty of Richard Pipes still bleating away today
because the ruling class and its ideology hasn’t yet changed

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