

I read the first 30 or so pages. It seems promising. It’s setting the stage for sort of an anthropological study of class based on interviews with a large number of working class people, exploring their feelings about upward mobility and exploitation and the sort of sense of inadequacy many feel about being of low status or education or origin in a society dominated by the “well to do” accultured few…
It started off with a brief outline of the evolving lives and views of two former communists, which was interesting, and I’m very curious to see if and how it circles back to them. There’s an examination of whether/why American workers lack revolutionary potential, and seems to show significant criticism of the purely economic explanations that a lot of people on both the left and right hold, the idea that it just boils down to bread and circuses and some small measure of economic stability. It seems like they’re trying to thread the needle and examine social forces that act on working class people , without completely collapsing into individualistic nonsense.
There’s also a CW: SA needed within the first 2 pages of the introduction
State and Revolution is SHOCKINGLY clear and accessible, and yes, not a million pages long.