"Aging Political Activists" is at once a series of political autobiographies, a set of personal narratives of social commitment, a model for qualitative research, and a challenge to current theory and practice in the social and behavioral sciences. It presents and examines the life stories of four individuals--close friends and former members of the Communist Party USA--revealing the ways they have developed and sustained their personal values and political outlook through a lifetime of involvement in movements for social change. Shuldiner approaches the interviews as a collaborative effort with his subjects who both describe their identities and experiences and critique the interview process, offering alternate readings of the content of their narratives or new directions for inquiry. These portraits of older activists challenge notions about the role of the personal in the development of political identity, while shifting the debate among gerontologists between activity versus disengagement in old age to a discussion of the dialectical relationship of these two aspects of human behavior throughout a lifespan.

North Carolina's 1963 speaker ban law declared the state's public college and university campuses off-limits to ""known members of the Communist Party"" or to anyone who cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer questions posed by any state or federal body. Oddly enough, the law was passed in a state where there had been no known communist activity since the 1950s. Just which ""communists"" was it attempting to curb? In Communists on Campus, William J. Billingsley bares the truth behind the false image of the speaker ban's ostensible concern. Appearing at a critical moment in North Carolina and U.S. history, the law marked a last-ditch effort by conservative rural politicians to increase conservative power and quell the demands of the civil rights movement, preventing the feared urban political authority that would accompany desegregation and African American political participation. Questioning the law's discord with North Carolina's progressive reputation, Billingsley also criticizes the school officials who publicly appeared to oppose the speaker ban law but, in reality, questioned both students' rights to political opinions and civil rights legislation. Exposing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the main target of the ban, he addresses the law's intent to intimidate state schools into submission to reactionary legislative demands at the expense of the students' political freedom. Contrary to its aims, the speaker ban law spawned a small but powerfully organized student resistance led by the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of North Carolina. The SDS, quickly joined by more traditional student groups, mobilized student ""radicals"" in a memorable effort to halt this breach of their constitutional rights. Highlighting the crisis point of the civil rights movement in North Carolina, Communists on Campus exposes the activities and machinations of prominent political and educational figures Allard Lowenstein, Terry Sanford, William Friday, Herbert Aptheker, and Jesse Helms in an account that epitomizes the social and political upheaval of sixties America.

Karl Marx's critque on capitalisn iss the major thrust in his Communist Manifesto.. Written over 150 year4s ago in 1858, a period of history with great upheaval, it continues to be an important work of political economy, especially as we enter the dawn of global economy. Politicians, business leaders, academics and students of different persuasions find the 'manifesto' a basic and essential treatise to be understood. It has had a tremend effect history and will continue to influence the future on mankind. "Wages, Price and Profit" is an examination of the relationship between these absolute realities - the theory of these realities and how they affect economies. A Collector's Edition.

Throughout history, strong-willed Russian autocrats have rescued their country from foreign domination, disorder, and possible chaos, often using the cruelest means to achieve their ends. Gorbachev tried to implement socialism with a human face in the Soviet Union, but failed. In the early 1990s, once again, Russia needed a strong hand to pull it out of chaos. In August 1991 Boris Yeltin emerged as such a leader, but unlike earlier strong leaders, he was determined to pull Russia out of the Communist morass and affect his country's integration with Western democracies through democratic means.

Felkay carefully analyzes the impact of Yeltsin on the newly evolving relationship between Russia and the Western democracies. But separating the process of formulating foreign and domestic policies would be impossible. From the onset, Yeltsin kept both reins of decision-making firmly in hand. Accordingly, Felkay assesses Yeltsin's effectiveness in moving his country toward democracy and a market economy, and he shows the ups and downs of his pro-Western foreign policies. This book provides an important analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with Russian studies, international relations, and comparative politics.

Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Nikolai Bukharin were the three leaders of the Russian Revolution who shaped the new society most, both through their theories and their political leadership. All three were motivated by the ideal of building a utopian collective. Once in power, they tirelessly tried to put their vision into practice, but the Soviet system that resulted was nothing like the one they tried to create. In Spontaneous Order and the Utopian Collective, Nell takes her cue from the personal writings and documents of Lenin, Trotsky, and Bukharin to consider them anew from an Austrian theoretical perspective, analyze the divergence between theory and practice using a spontaneous order framework, and identify three interconnected prerequisites necessary for a utopian collectivist society. Nell then asks whether it might be possible to create this utopian collective somehow, and avoid the pitfalls of planning.

Exam Board: Edexcel Level: A level Subject: History First teaching: September 2015 First exams: June 2017 This book: covers the essential content in the new specifications in a rigorous and engaging way, using detailed narrative, sources, timelines, key words, helpful activities and extension material helps develop conceptual understanding of areas such as evidence, interpretations, causation and change, through targeted activities provides assessment support for both AS and A level with sample answers, sources, practice questions and guidance to help you tackle the new-style exam questions. It also comes with three years' access to ActiveBook, an online, digital version of your textbook to help you personalise your learning as you go through the course - perfect for revision.

This is undoubtedly the best study of Lenin the political leader written to date, and it is likely to remain so for some time.' - John Barber, London Review of Books; ...Robert Service...has provided a rich, balanced portrait of the Bolshevik leader that presents the case for the defence as well as the prosecution.' - John Keep, Times Literary Supplement;The final volume of Robert Service's major trilogy on Lenin's political life takes the account from the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918 to the Bolshevik leader's death in 1924. Attention is paid to the military, political and economic conditions as they changed; to the internal pressures of the party's politics; to ideological imperatives; and to one man's reaction to events and situations he had only imperfectly anticipated. The volume incorporates not only the post-1985 documentary revelations but also the results of the author's searches in the Moscow archives since 1991.

Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents takes a comparative approach to understanding religion under communism, arguing that communism was integral to the global experience of secularism. Bringing together leading researchers whose work spans the Eurasian continent, it shows that appropriating religion was central to Communist political practices.

King seeks to understand how the transition from state-socialism to capitalism was accomplished in Eastern Europe. The purpose of studying the process of transition is uo understand the end-point of the transition; that is, the structure of the postcommunist economy results from the different ways that private property was made by enterprise level actors. King identifies strategies of transition employed by postcommunist economic elites to transform property and acquire various property rights discusses, the conditions under which different strategies are likely to be selected, lists and, the resources used by actors to implement these strategies.

As King illustrates through his case studies, when aggregated, these strategies are primarily responsible for the structuring of the postcommunist capitalist systems. This is done through the creation of different types of property (such as multinationals or management buy-outs) and integrating mechanisms (such as markets or state redistribution). The resulting property forms and integrative mechanisms that emerge from this process are assessed for their possible effect on economic performance and long-term development. Differences that exist among the various postcommunist economies are explained by the institutional legacies from the reform period of communism. This book is of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with East European studies, political and economic sociology, and international political economy.

Part of "The Collected Works" series, this book is the first volume of Karl Marx's famous text on the economies of capitalism, "Capital". The translation is based on the Moore and Aveling translation of 1887, but has been revised and supplemented with extensive notes. Aiming to become the definitive English-language edition of the "Collected Works" in 50 volumes, the series will eventually contain all the works of Marx and Engels, whether published in their lifetimes or since, including their complete correspondence and newly discovered works. Almost every volume contains published material published for the first time in English. The edition is organized into three main groups: philosophical, historical, political, economic and other works in chronological order; Marx's "Capital" with his preliminary versions, and works directly connected with it; and letters of Marx and Engels.

The clash between Communism and Islam in the Soviet Union pitted two socio-political systems against one another, each proclaiming ultimate truth. This study examines the first decades of the struggle in Central Asia (1917-1941), where an ancient religious tradition faced an aggressive form of secular modernity. The Soviets attempted to break down Muslim culture and remold it on Marxist-Leninist lines. Central Asians played complex roles in this effort, both defending and attacking Islam, but mostly trying to survive. Despite Stalin's totalitarian aims, the Soviet regime in Central Asia was often weak even into the 1930s, and by 1941 the opposing systems had reached a standoff.

The Communist Party pursued the destruction of Islam in stages, which reflected the development of Soviet political strength. The party developed propaganda that both attacked Islam and extolled the new Soviet culture. However, the entire process was plagued by inefficiency, ignorance, and disobedience. By 1941, the Communists had inflicted tremendous damage, but customs such as circumcision, brideprice, and polygyny had merely gone underground. Central Asians had not exchanged the fundamental identity of Muslim for Marxist-Leninist. Keller utilizes documents from Moscow and Tashkent, including the now-closed former Communist Party Archive of Uzbekistan.

As the world's largest country struggles with itself to build `rule by law', how is this process reshaping Communist Party rule? The Politics of Lawmaking in China examines how China's political and legal structure is quietly but dramatically changing from within, rather than being overthrown from below as in Eastern Europe. Examining the changing relationship between the National People's Congress and the Communist party hierarchy, this book casts light on China's fight to move toward law and democratization.

This work challenges the view that there is such a thing as Marxism-Leninism, arguing that the two have always been two distinct ideologies, despite the employment of a common vocabulary. Differences in attitudes to labour and revolutionary movements, and other matters, are highlighted.

The collection brings together proponents and critiques of the post- Fordist thesis. The debate focuses on the relation between crisis and societal as well as political restructuring. The collection provides an introduction to, and a critique of, the post-Fordist debate. The articles represent the fields of political economy, state theory, value theory, Marxist philosophy, and general questions of Marxist methodology. The volume includes, alongside the original debate between Werner Bonefeld, Bob Jessop and John Holloway, hitherto unpublished material by a wide range of authors.

Exploring the connections between Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history and a Marxian Critique of Political Economy, Duy Lap Nguyen analyses Benjamin's early writings and their development into a distinct understanding of historical materialism. Benjamin's historically materialist conception of history is shown to be characterised by a focus on the religion of capitalism, the mythology of the state, and messianic time. Revealing these factors, Nguyen joins up Benjamin's philosophical critique of the Kantian conception of history, alongside the historical trajectory of capitalism he subscribed to. Influenced by the theory of fascism outlined by German Marxist theorist Karl Korsch, we see how Benjamin's own theory of revolution and redemption in capitalist society developed into a sophisticated critique. Essential to Benjamin's materialist critique was a recognition of the fallibility of the Enlightenment notion of progress, as well as the need to overturn the political and economic catastrophes which enable capitalism and fascism to thrive. In mapping the exact course of Benjamin's critical historical materialism, Nguyen fully explicates the unique contribution he made to western Marxism.

In this age of overlapping and mutually reinforcing deep global crises (financial convulsions, global warming, mass migrations, militarism, inequality, selfish nation-states, etc.), there needs to be more realistic dialogue about radical alternatives to the status quo. Most literature produced heretofore has focused on the surface causes of these crises without much attention given to the sorts of major societal changes needed in order to deal with the crises we face. This book moves the debate beyond the critiques and the false or not fully realised alternatives, to focus on what can be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book outline a range of practical proposals for constructing pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the deep structural problems and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array of complementary proposals and perspectives that can inform both theoretical thinking and practical action. This volume will be of interest to academics and students who study political science, ecological economics, international politics and socialism.

Post-communist transformation differs from any previous experience of societies in transition by its scope, speed, international framework and complicity. It contains elements of democratization, marketization, nation building, and the creation of a new international environment in the framework of globalization. The contributors give an internal perspective of these highly complicated processes in a comparative form and using a multidisciplinary approach.

This volume offers a full account of the December 1989 revolution that toppled the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. Based on the author's personal investigation and interviews, extensive screening of the Romanian and international press, and critical examination of sources and interpretations, it offers a full and objective analysis of a complex, often puzzling series of events. Nestor Ratesh explores the economic, social, and human disaster that led to the uprising, and then chronicles the seven days of the revolution from its inception in the western city of Timisoara to its climax in Bucharest on December 22, 1989, when Ceausescu fled the city. The bloody and confused aftermath is examined from different angles, with surprising details and telling portraits of the main players, some of whom the author knows personally. Ratesh skeptically scrutinizes the revelations, hints, and rumors of conspiracies that reportedly either caused the revolution--or hijacked it. Evidence available so far points toward a genuinely spontaneous popular uprising during which large segments of the army and secret police slowly realized that the fall of the regime was imminent. They first blinked, then searched for ways to save themselves--forcing Ceausescu to flee and bringing into power both new and old politicians who represented change to the masses but maintained relative stability in the power structure. The paradox that an essentially anti-Communist revolution would produce a regime controlled by former Communists has dominated most of the developments since then. The book concludes by examining the ensuing months of dislocation and commotion. Clearly the December revolution remains unfulfilled, entangled in a myriad of contradictions, obstacles, intrigues, lies, rivalries, ineptitude, and plain wrongdoing.

This is a collection of essays which were published variously between 1973 and 1985 in the CSE journals "Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists" and "Capital and Class" which investigate from a variety of viewpoints fundamental categories of Marxian economics. It includes the English translation of Marx's "value-form" appendix to the first German edition of "Capital I" and a 1920s commentary on Marx's categories by the Russian economist I.I. Rubin. The remaining essays each include a postscript in the early 1990s.

In 1919 the Prussian Ministry of Science, Arts and Culture opened a dossier on "Einstein's Theory of Relativity." It was rediscovered by the author in 1961 and is used in conjunction with numerous other subsequently identified 'Einstein' files as the basis of this fascinating book. In particular, the author carefully scrutinizes Einstein's FBI file from 1950-55 against mostly unpublished material from European including Soviet sources and presents hitherto unknown documentation on Einstein's alleged contacts with the German Communist Party and the Comintern. Siegfried Grundmann's thorough study of Einstein's participation on a committee of the League of Nations, based on archival research in Geneva, is also new.

This book outlines Einstein's image in politics and German science policy. It covers the period from his appointment as a researcher in Berlin to his fight abroad against the "boycott of German science" after World War I and his struggle at home against attacks on "Jewish physics" of which he was made a prime target. An important gap in the literature on Einstein is thus filled, contributing much new material toward a better understanding of Einstein's so rigorous break with Germany.

Sarah Birch assesses the impact of electoral system design on political change in post-communist Europe. Since the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, virtually all the states in the region have undertaken significant electoral reform. This study traces the multiple links between the evolution of electoral systems and political change and establishes patterns in the effects of electoral system design on post-communist developments.

The Soviet attempt to propagandise the "new Soviet woman" through the magazines "Rabotnitsa" and "Krest'yanka" from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era is explored here. Women were expected to play a full role in the construction of socialism, but they also had to reproduce the population. Balancing work and family did not prove easy in a climate of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and the periodic changes made to the model are charted here.