Michael Parenti Lives On in the Global Struggle Against Imperialism

from Counter Currents

Michael John Parenti (September 30, 1933 – January 24, 2026) lives on through his works, which continue to educate anti-imperialist people and inspire struggles against imperialism unfolding across the world. The revolutionary’s voice resonates in city street protests, in mountains, among miners, sailors, peasants, workers, the urban poor, students searching for a peaceful and just world, and sections of the middle class that still stand against imperialism. It does not resonate among those who have sold themselves to imperialism, joined its intrigues, or among renegade, lumpen elements devoid of historical consciousness who identify themselves as “Gen-something.”

For Parenti, democracy was never class-neutral. Democracy always had class character. People’s democracy stands in polar opposition to the democracy propagated by exploitative classes.

A revolutionary intellectual, prolific writer, political scientist, academic historian, and critic of decadent bourgeois culture, Parenti taught hundreds of students through his lectures and analyses of contemporary world problems and imperialism. Beyond classrooms, thousands across the globe learned from his works. He exposed imperialist acts, designs, intrigues, invasions, and aggressions with facts and data that revealed the ugly, brutal, and anti-human character of imperialism. His uncompromising critique made him despised by the exploiting classes.

 

Standing firmly on the Left side of the class divide, Parenti never diluted his Marxist revolutionary position. Generations of Left activists and aspiring revolutionaries learned from his works—about 25 books, including Democracy for the Few (1974), continuously updated since its first publication. This book remains essential for understanding the U.S. political system and the class nature of democracy. Parenti wrote: “Power is not evenly distributed in society. Those who own and control the productive wealth tend to dominate the political life of the nation.” This insight applies to all class-divided societies.

His other works include:

• Against Empire, exposing the brutality and exploitative character of imperial power.
• Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media, analysing how corporate media shapes public consciousness and manufactures “reality.”
• Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, examining democracy, capitalism, fascism, and communism.
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome.
• Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid’s Life.
• To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia.
• The Sword and the Dollar, exploring how economic power and military force operate together to sustain empire and class domination.
• Left Anticommunism: The Unkindest Cut, one of his most incisive essays.

Parenti was among the most powerful voices exposing NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia. Mainstream media justified imperialist aggression by exaggerating Serbia’s actions while concealing imperialist brutality and intrigue. What remained in Serbia after the intervention? Privatized public assets and a new class of plunderers. The imperialist media remained silent about the devastation wrought by its masters.

Born into a working-class Italian-American family in East Harlem, New York, Parenti worked for years after completing school. After a teaching fellowship at Brown University and earning his MA in 1957, he completed his PhD in political science at Yale University. He taught at several institutions, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In May 1970, while protesting the Kent State shootings and opposing the Vietnam War, he was brutally beaten and jailed for two days. Later that year, he was found guilty on three counts, but following appeals from comrades and progressive circles across the U.S., his sentence was reduced to probation, a fine, and court costs. His academic career effectively ended thereafter. To the educational authorities of the empire, his conduct was deemed “unprofessional.”...

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