|
|
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Marxism & Communism
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a
communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution,
the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and from
1922, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union. He was the
creator of Leninism, an extension of Marxist theory.
This volume contains an English translation of Karl Marx's
influential essay.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value is the fourth volume of his
monumental Das Kapital (Capital). Divided into three parts, this
lengthy work reviews classic economic analyses of labour and value
(Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and others), focusing on the concept of
"surplus value" - the difference between the full value of a
worker's labour and the wages received for this labour. This is a
key concept for Marx since in his view the capitalist maintains
power through controlling surplus value.
Almost three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today
more often than ever, global media and intellectuals rely on the
concept of homo sovieticus to explain Russia's authoritarian ills.
Homo sovieticus - or the Soviet man - is understood to be a
double-thinking, suspicious and fearful conformist with no
morality, an innate obedience to authority and no public demands;
they have been forged in the fires of the totalitarian conditions
in which they find themselves. But where did this concept come
from? What analytical and ideological pillars does it stand on?
What is at stake in using this term today? The Afterlife of the
'Soviet Man' addresses all these questions and even explains why -
at least in its contemporary usage - this concept should be
abandoned altogether.
As the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England and,
along with Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels is
a seminal 19th-century figure; the co-founder of Marxism, he left
an indelible impression as a philosopher, political theorist,
economist, historian and revolutionary socialist. The Life, Work
and Legacy of Friedrich Engels is nevertheless the first book to
comprehensively explore Engels' contributions in all of these
spheres. The book sees 13 experts from a range of scholarly
backgrounds examine Engels and his writing in relation to topics
including the United States and the future of capitalism, European
social democracy and the nature of the political economy, with
technology, capital, and labor acting as fundamental cross-cutting
themes throughout. The volume analyses the intriguing relationship
between Engels and Karl Marx, the towering historical figure whose
long shadow has obscured the achievements of Engels for so long,
and reassesses Engels' significance in this context. There are 66
images to be found throughout the text, 30 of these in colour, as
well as a conclusion which successfully views Engels in the context
of the age. As a journalist, author and communist figurehead,
Engels dealt succinctly - and with strong opinions - with the core
questions of the developments changing the globe in the 19th
century and The Life, Work and Legacy of Friedrich Engels finally
shines a light on this in a compelling call for revisionism.
|
|