The definitive biography of the mercurial Soviet leader who succeeded and denounced Stalin.

Remembered by many as the Soviet leader who banged his shoe at the United Nations, Nikita Khrushchev was in fact one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, he managed to retain his humanity. His daring attempt to reform Communism—by denouncing Stalin and releasing and rehabilitating millions of his victims—prepared the ground for its eventual collapse. His awkward efforts to ease the Cold War triggered its most dangerous crises in Berlin and Cuba. The ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin's death, Khrushchev left his contradictory stamp on his country and the world. More than that, his life and career hold up a mirror to the Soviet age as a whole: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism.

The first full and comprehensive biography of Khrushchev, and the first of any Soviet leader to reflect the full range of sources that have become available since the USSR collapsed, this book weaves together Khrushchev's personal triumphs and tragedy with those of his country. It draws on newly opened archives in Russia and Ukraine, the author's visits to places where Khrushchev lived and work, plus extensive interviews with Khrushchev family members, friends, colleagues, subordinates, and diplomats who jousted with him. William Taubman chronicles Khrushchev's life from his humble beginnings in a poor peasant village to his improbable rise into Stalin's inner circle; his stunning, unexpected victory in the deadly duel to succeed Stalin; and the startling reversals of fortune that led to his sudden, ignominious ouster in 1964. Combining a page-turning historical narrative with penetrating political and psychological analysis, this account brims with the life and excitement of a man whose story personifies his era.

"A brilliant, stunning, magnificent book. One of the most important figures of the twentieth century, who had a lot to do with setting the stage for the twenty-first, Khrushchev finally has the biography he deserves—deep and detailed yet fast-paced, scholarly yet not stuffy, historical yet intensely human. Taubman brings Khrushchev alive in all his complexity, capturing both the humanity that somehow survived in him and became the bedrock for his political decency, and the cynicism that made him part of the brutality of the Soviet system. The book has the sweep of a Big Book about a Big Figure, yet its style is no-frills, no-nonsense, straight-from-the-shoulder, with judgments proferred judiciously. Taubman does a superb job of portraying the rogue's gallery of Soviet leaders while providing a colorful canvas of the country and its history. Having spent several years of my own life in Khrushchev's shadow, I couldn't be more admiring of what Taubman has accomplished." —Strobe Talbott, former U.S. deputy secretary of state, editor and translator of Khrushchev's memoirs

"Monumental, definitive, rich in detail. Taubman pulls aside the curtain and shows us both a fascinating man and new facts about Soviet decision making during the most dangerous days of the Cold War. A highly readable, compelling story." —Anthony Lake, former U.S. national security adviser

"The definitive account of Khrushchev's career and personality, this is also a wonderful page-turner about the deadly duel for power in the Kremlin. Altogether it is one of the best books ever written about the Soviet Union." —Constantine Pleshakov, coauthor, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War

"Few books in the field of Cold War history have been as eagerly awaited as William Taubman's biography of Nikita Khrushchev. Reflecting years of research as well as a keen sensitivity to culture, context, and personality, this extraordinary book more than matches the extraordinary character of its subject. It is a superb portrayal of one of the most attractive—but also dangerous—leaders of the twentieth century." —John Lewis Gaddis, professor of history, Yale University

Part of a definitive English-language edition, prepared in collaboration with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, which contains all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since. The series includes their complete correspondence and newly discovered works.

Dissident ethnic networks were a crucial independent institution in the Soviet Union. Voicing the discontent and resentment of the periphery at the policies of the center or metropole, the dissident writings, known as samizdat highlighted anger at deprivations imposed in the political, cultural, social, and economic spheres. Ethnic dissident writings drew on values both internal to the Soviet system and international as sources of legitimation; they met a divided reaction among Russians, with some privileging the unity of the Soviet Union and others sympathetic to the rhetoric of national rights. This focus on national, rather than individual rights, along with the appropriation of ethnonationalism by political elites, helps explain developments since the fall of the Soviet Union, including the prevalence of authoritarian governments in newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

International Communism and the Spanish Civil War provides an intimate picture of international communism in the Stalin era. Exploring the transnational exchanges that occurred in Soviet-structured spaces - from clandestine schools for training international revolutionaries in Moscow to the International Brigades in Spain - the book uncovers complex webs of interaction, at once personal and political, that linked international communists to one another and the Soviet Union. The Spanish Civil War, which coincided with the great purges in the Soviet Union, stands at the center of this grassroots history. For many international communists, the war came to define both their life histories and political commitments. In telling their individual stories, the book calls attention to a central paradox of Stalinism - the simultaneous celebration and suspicion of transnational interactions - and illuminates the appeal of a cause that promised solidarity even as it practiced terror.

This edited volume looks at China in the twenty-first century from a holistic perspective. Each of the ten authors emphasizes a particular dimension of politics, political economy, political culture and foreign policy focusing on a specific issue within the broader dimension. Each specific issue, such as the so-called harmonious society, the internet, and technocratic leadership, serves as a window through which the reader can glimpse through to understand China in the new century.

This book comes to terms with Marxism and its relationship to workers' self-management. David L. Prychitko offers a reinterpretation of Marx's vision of socialism by arguing that Marx's understanding of the praxis-nature of humankind led him to a utopian goal of decentralized socialism based on the total abolition of market exchange. The full development of workers' self-management of industry was to be accompanied by comprehensive planning of the socially owned means of production. Prychitko takes modern economists to task for paying too little attention to the implications of Marx's praxis philosophy and to the organizational consequences of abolishing private ownership and the market process. This abolition leads inevitably, he argues, to the development of hierarchical structures of state domination and power. This tension between democratic decentralization--workers' self-management--and central economic planning--which tends to destroy meaningful self-management--can be traced back to Marx himself. The failure of state socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has not dissuaded those who wish to keep Marx alive from pushing workers' self-management as a feasible enterprise in a free market system. Prychitko's volume does more than simply interpret the meaning of Marxism. It analyzes the tension between centralization and decentralization in contemporary theory and practice. The contemporary theory of self-managed socialism, put to much use in Yugoslavia, is critically assessed by Prychitko. After focusing on a case study of American barrel-making cooperatives that managed to compete well with traditional capitalist firms and survive an extraordinary degree of market competition, Prychitko concludes the book by speculating over the feasibility of worker-managed firms in a truly dynamic, rivalrous market setting. Marxism and Workers' Self-Management will be of great interest to scholars of Marx, political economy, social theory, and labor studies.

Few writers have had a more demonstrable impact on the development of the modern world than has Karl Marx (1818-1883). Born in Trier into a middle-class Jewish family in 1818, by the time of his death in London in 1883, Marx claimed a growing international reputation. Of central importance then and later was his book Das Kapital, or, as it is known to English readers, simply Capital. Volume One of Capital was published in Paris in 1867. This was the only volume published during Marx's lifetime and the only to have come directly from his pen. Volume Two, published in 1884, was based on notes Marx left, but written by his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Readers from the nineteenth century to the present have been captivated by the unmistakable power and urgency of this classic of world literature. Marx's critique of the capitalist system is rife with big themes: his theory of 'surplus value', his discussion of the exploitation of the working class, and his forecast of class conflict on a grand scale. Marx wrote with purpose. As he famously put it, 'Philosophers have previously tried to explain the world, our task is to change it.'

This volume begins with an introduction to Marx's theory of capitalism in his own words, with his examples modernized from use of shillings and pence as subdivisions of the Pound. Well-known 1901 work on the theory of crises in capitalism by Michael Tugan-Baranowsky is translated into English for the first time, with a Preface placing it in context. The political activism and theoretical work of Henryk Grossman through 1926 is summarized in some detail, and a rarely-known brief article of his from
1919 included.

Ambiguity in Marx's definition of accumulation of capital and the
differing directions Lenin and Luxemburg took with it are next analyzed, with a more precise definition offered. Debate, begun in the last volume, over the valuation of means of production and its effect on the possibility of a falling tendency of the profit rate is taken a step forward as contrasting positions are developed.

Finally, credit money as an advanced form of money is analyzed and the post-Keynesian analysis of it, originating from Kaldor, subject to critique. Several theories of inflation theory are reviewed, with focus on the agencies causing inflation. A rediscovery of Marxian inflation theory is proposed.

This book develops a comprehensive systematic economic theory, conceiving how the dynamic of market relations generates an economy dominated by the competitive process of individual profit-seeking enterprises. The author shows how, contrary to classical political economy and contemporary economics, the theory of capital is an a priori normative account properly belonging to ethics. Exposing and overcoming the limits of the economic conceptions of Hegel and Marx, Rethinking Capital determines how the system of capitals shapes economic freedom, jeopardizing the very rights in whose exercise it consists. Winfield thereby provides the understanding required to guide the private and public interventions with which capitalism can be given a human face.

This study analyses enterprise development and entrepreneurship and their relationship with the state and market building in Russia. It focuses on continuities and changes in the factory regime, drawing on existing literature and the author's own research and evaluation.

In this collection, four philosophers and four economists consider the Third Volume of Marx's Capital. The essays take up each of the major themes of Volume III - competition, for formation and development of the general rate of profit, the credit system and finance capital, rent, the Trinity formula and the concept of class - and consider them in the light of the two previous volumes. The authors share a focus on the concept of social form in Marx's work and on the method of his argument. The collection is intended both for specialists in Marxian theory and for students of the history of economic thought and of methodology.

This volume traces the developments in Cuba following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent definitive demise of state socialism. Working from the premise that most non-European countries did not undergo the economic and political regime changes experienced by their European counterparts, this volume examines the nature of Cuban socialism. Topics covered include: the reasons for the persistence of "the Cuban model," and an examination of the complex interaction between elite and non-elite actors, as well as between domestic and international forces.

In old Russia, patron/client relations, "clan" politics, and a variety of other informal practices spanned the centuries. Government was understood to be patrimonial and personal rather than legal, and office holding was far less important than proximity to patrons. Working from heretofore unused documents from the Communist archives, J. Arch Getty shows how these political practices and traditions from old Russia have persisted throughout the twentieth-century Soviet Union and down to the present day. Getty examines a number of case studies of political practices in the Stalin era and after. These include cults of personality, the transformation of Old Bolsheviks into noble grandees, the Communist Party's personnel selection system, and the rise of political clans ("family circles") after the 1917 Revolutions. Stalin's conflicts with these clans, and his eventual destruction of them, were key elements of the Great Purges of the 1930s. But although Stalin could destroy the competing clans, he could not destroy the historically embedded patron-client relationship, as a final chapter on political practice under Putin shows. 

It is widely acknowledged that Karl Marx was one of the most original and influential thinkers of modern times. His writings have inspired some of the most important political movements of the past century and still has the power to arouse controversy today. Marx: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear and thorough account of Marx's thought, his major works and theories, providing an ideal guide to the important and complex ideas of this major figure in the history of political thought. The book introduces key Marxist concepts and themes and examines the ways in which they have influenced philosophical and political thought. Geared towards the specific requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of Marx's ideas, the book provides a cogent and reliable survey of some of the most important debates surrounding his often controversial theories. This is the ideal companion to the study of this most influential and challenging of thinkers.

Grassroots Russian women's organizations faced multiple challenges in the early 1990s. Like their members, they were confronted with both potentially hostile attitudes and numerous practical difficulties. Post-Soviet ideologies of gender difference produced a gender climate which was particularly unsympathetic to female activism in support of other women. This book presents a detailed study of grassroots Russian women's organizations in 1991-96, against the background of a careful analysis of gender relations and attitudes to women's place in post-Soviet Russian society.

Communists on Education and Culture, 1848-1948 is aimed at both a specialist and non-specialist readership. It provides a detailed yet readable account of the attitudes of leading communists, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Gorky, Gramsci, Lukacs, Mao Zedong and John Maclean, towards education and culture during the first 100 years of the communist movement.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was the most influential, challenging, and provocative pacifist of his generation. The most famous person alive at the dawn of the twentieth century, his international stature came not only from his great novels but from his rejection of violence and the state. Tolstoy was a strict pacifist in the last three decades of his life, and wrote at length on a central issue of politics, namely, the use of violence to maintain order, to promote justice, and to ensure the survival of society, civilization, and the human species. He unreservedly rejected the use of physical force to these or any ends. Tolstoy was a religious pacifist rather than an ethical or political one. His pacifism was rooted not in a moral doctrine or political theory but in his straightforward reading of the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels. Despite his fame, Tolstoy's pacifism remains insufficiently studied. A hundred years after his death, Tolstoy is a figure unfamiliar in political science, encountered, if at all, as the author of hortatory quotations on the wrongness of political violence or of allegiance to the state. This work of political science offers an account of Leo Tolstoy as a Christian thinker on political violence. It presents Tolstoy's pacifism as a striking case of the impact of religious idealism on political attitudes. The Russian novelist offers an instructive case study in Christian pacifism and in the attractions and failings of strict, literalist, and simplistic religious approaches to the many and complex issues of politics. Today, the political implications of religious fundamentalism, scriptural literalism, and Christian faith are very much live issues and the contemporary discussion of them should not omit pacifism. In this first study of Tolstoy's pacifism by a political scientist, Colm McKeogh unravels the complexities of Tolstoy's writings on Christianity and political violence. This work serves scholars of political science by bringing together relevant extracts from Tolstoy's writings and providing a succinct treatment of the core political issues. It establishes that Tolstoy's stance is primarily one of non-violence rather than non-resistance. McKeogh's work then assesses the internal consistency of Tolstoy's pacifism, its grounding in the Gospels and Christian tradition, its political and anti-political implications, and the meaning in life that it offers. It finds that Tolstoy does great service to the pacifist cause (with his defense of peace as close to the centre of Christ's message) and yet harm to it too (by divorcing peace from the love that is even more central to Christ's message). Tolstoy's political and religious legacy is not that of a prophet, a social activist, a moral reformer, a political idealist or pacifist theorist but that of a dissident. Tolstoy stands as one of the great dissidents of twentieth-century Russia, a man who condemned the system utterly and who refused to perform any act that could be construed as compromising with it. He left behind a powerful statement of the urgent human need to connect our daily living to a deep and fulfilling conception of the meaning of life. Tolstoy's Pacifism is important for political science, Christian ethics, literature, and Russian collections.

As a Western economist studying and working abroad, Peter M. Lichtenstein witnessed first-hand China's tumultuous cycle of reform and retrenchment in the 1980s. From the early euphoric stage to the last and most brutal episode, Lichtenstein's book describes and explains the economics behind this cycle and ties together the economic, political, and cultural aspects of the reform era. The book also chronicles the achievements, problems, events and political controversies that led up to the Tiananmen Square debacle and the subsequent retrenchment away from the broad goals of reform.

Organized chronologically, this work begins by detailing the reasons for the economic reform movement upon the death of Mao in 1976. In the mid-1980s those reforms began to encounter serious difficulties--Lichtenstein explains what these difficulties were and why they arose. He also describes how, in the summer of 1988, the conservative hardliners were able to regain political power from the reformers, setting the stage for what would happen eight months later in Tiananmen Square. Following this is an analysis of the development of the basic positions of the Chinese left and right, and Lichtenstein's first-hand observations of the retrenchment following Tiananmen. Concluding with a retrospective look at the reforms and retrenchment, this work will be of interest to professors and students of political science, international relations, economics, contemporary Asian history, and China in particular. It will also appeal to the intelligent layperson with an interest in current affairs.

The attention economy is a notion that explains the growing value of human attention in societies characterised by post-industrial modes of production. In a world in which information and knowledge become central to the valorisation process of capital, human attention becomes a scarce and hence increasingly valuable commodity. To what degree is the attention economy a specific form of capitalist production? How does the attention economy differ from the industrial mode of production in which Marx developed his critique of capitalism? How can Marx's theory be used today despite the historical differences that separate industrial from post-industrial capitalism? The Attention Economy argues that human attention is a new form of labour that can only be understood through a systematic reinterpretation of Marx. It argues that the attention economy belongs to a general shift in capitalism in which subjectivity itself becomes the territory of production and exploitation of value as well as the territory of the reproduction of capitalist power relations.

This timely book explores the unique challenges facing the left in Latin America today. The contributors offer clear and comprehensive assessments of the difficult conditions and conflicting forces that have brought to power the current leftist regimes in Latin American and the Caribbean and are shaping their development. Avoiding the widely accepted but simplistic dichotomy of "good" and "bad" left or democratic and antidemocratic left, the book first sets the theoretical and historical context for understanding the rise of the left in the region. It then provides case studies of the radical left in power in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador and its influence in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba. Thematic chapters consider social and labor movements and debates over problems arising from the democratic transition to socialism. The book points to concrete circumstances in which theoretical issues related to reform and change have played out in nations where the left is in power. These include prioritization of social over economic objectives, the role of the state in the democratic road to socialism, and ecological as opposed to developmentalist strategies. Finally, the book examines the opposition to radical governments in power coming not only from the right but also from movements to their left. With its balanced and thorough assessment, this study will provide readers with a deep and nuanced understanding of the complexity of the political, economic, and sociocultural reality of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean. Contributions by: Marc Becker, Roger Burbach, George Ciccariello-Maher, Hector M. Cruz-Feliciano, Steve Ellner, Federico Fuentes, Marcel Nelson, Hector Perla Jr., Camila Pineiro Harnecker, Thomas Purcell, Diana Raby, William I. Robinson, and Kevin Young

Like most discussions within the tradition of rights-talk, this study is motivated by the desire to promote the idea that rights are moral assets that people should acquire in the course of their membership within social and political frameworks. However, while most participants in rights-talk concentrate on the safety and protection constraints required for a successful exercising of rights, the present study inquires into the circumstances under which people's rights lose their validity. The author believes that if we want to prevent the erosion of the role of rights within society and to encourage their obligatory status, we should prevent their misuse, or their unjustified or excessive use. Those who have interests in rights, and are concerned about their withdrawal or denial, will find a unique and inventive way of dealing both with the use, as well as the abuse of rights.