Sounds like Blackshirts and Reds did its job! As you point out, its biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. In being a short and direct cry of support for revolution in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR, which set Socialism back dramatically at the time (especially because the 90s really did seem like China had abandoned Socialism, when we now know that that wasn’t the case and Deng’s gamble paid off), it also skimps out on thorough analysis and deep historical account.

I want to add that the purpose of my list is to equip the reader with solid foundational knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, so that the reader may better make up their own conclusions and further explore theory and historical texts (though I do include a section on history later).

As for Envisioning Real Utopias, I hadn’t heard of it until you told me, truth be told. My immediate reaction to trying to establish cooperatives to “overcome Capitalism” is that it doesm’t work like that. Cooperatives are better in that they avoid the excesses of standard firms, but since they fundamentally rely on exclusive ownership there is a barrier to scaling, and a lack of a collective plan. It merely repeats petite bourgeois class relations, an individualist view of the economy rather than a collectivist, resulting in an economy run by competing interests rather than being run by all in the interests of all. I actually wrote a comment on the communist perspective on cooperatives a few days ago.

I also think that, eventually, you’ll want to read Anti-Dühring. Engels counters the cooperative model from a Marxist perspective. It’s the much larger book the essay Socialism: Utopian and Scientific comes from, so if you’re down for a challenge you can read Anti-Dühring instead of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Ultimately, it boils down to 2 possibilities, neither of which are good for the cooperative model:

1. We try to build cooperatives within Capitalism, and establish our “seed bank” cooperatively. This runs into several errors:

-The state will dismantle any legitimate threat to the Capitalists if Capitalists cannot find a way to profit off of this new development

-Cooperatives alone are not enough to overcome Capitalism, rather, they replicate it in a different form

-Production is already extremely complex and monopolized, the age of small businesses growing to huge powerhouses is dying. Cooperatives will always be at a disadvantage when competing with established businesses

2. Cooperatives are the basis of a Socialist economy, where the workers have dismantled the Capitalist state and hold power over Capitalists, also called “Market Socialism”

-Cooperatives compete and eventually begin to replicate bourgeois class relations, if the public ownership of the economy is not the dominant factor, ie in control of larhe firms and industries. A few cooperatives would scale and create a new Capitalist relation.

Those are just my perspectives based on your summary. Cooperatives certainly aren’t bad at all, and are a part of Socialist economies as a minority of the economy, like Huawei in China or the collective farms in China. However, public ownership is still the key factor, as it goes beyond the profit motive and into allowing humanity to finally direct production for the needs of all, and not for the profits of the few.

You’ll have plenty of time to develop your own opinions, cooperatives are certainly better than traditional firms, but you’ll find Marxists typically don’t agree with “utopia building” and other cooperative forms of ownership, and you’ll best see why generally in section 2.