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.

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.

Exploring the gray zone of infiltration and subversion in which the Nazi and Communist parties sought to influence and undermine each other, this book offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between two defining ideologies of the twentieth century. The struggle between Fascism and Communism is situated within a broader conversation among right- and left-wing publicists, across the Youth Movement and in the "National Bolshevik" scene, thus revealing the existence of a discourse on revolutionary legitimacy fought according to a set of common assumptions about the qualities of the ideal revolutionary. Highlighting the importance of a masculine-militarist politics of youth revolt operative in both Marxist and anti-Marxist guises, Weimar Radicals forces us to re-think the fateful relationship between the two great ideological competitors of the Weimar Republic, while offering a challenging new interpretation of the distinctive radicalism of the interwar era.

The first archive-based study of official corruption under Stalin and a compelling new look at the textures of everyday Soviet life after World War II In the Soviet Union, bribery was a skill with its own practices and culture. James Heinzen's innovative and compelling study examines corruption under Stalin's dictatorship in the wake of World War II, focusing on bribery as an enduring and important presence in many areas of Soviet life. Based on extensive research in recently declassified Soviet archives, The Art of the Bribe offers revealing insights into the Soviet state, its system of law and repression, and everyday life during the years of postwar Stalinism.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

This compelling work of documentary history tells a story of idealism betrayed, a story of how the Comintern (Communist International), an organization established by Lenin in 1919 to direct and assist revolutionary movements throughout the world, participated in and was ultimately destroyed by the Stalinist repression in the late 1930s. Presenting and drawing on recently declassified archival documents, William J. Chase analyzes the Comintern's roles as agent, instrument, and victim of terror. In both principle and practice, the Comintern was an international organization, with a staff that consisted primarily of Communist emigres who had fled dictatorial regimes in Europe and Asia. It was, however, headquartered in Moscow and controlled by Soviet leaders. This book examines the rise of suspicions and xenophobia among Soviet and Comintern leaders and cadres for whom many foreigners were no longer the heroes of the class struggle but rather possible enemy agents. Some Comintern members internalized and acted on Stalin's theories about the infiltration of foreign spies into Soviet society, supplying the Soviet police with information that led to the exile or execution of imigris. Thousands of other imigris also became victims of the purges. Together the text and documents of this book convey graphically the essential roles played by the Comintern, providing a unique perspective on the era of Stalinist repression and terror.

This study examines the development of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the U.S.S.R. from its origins to the collapse of the Soviet regime. Alfred Evans argues that Soviet Marxism-Leninism was subject to significant adaptation under various leaders, contrary to the widespread impression that official Soviet ideology remained static after Stalin. While taking account of scholarly literature on each of the periods covered, the work is significant for being based principally on an analysis of primary (Soviet) sources. Evans' integrated analysis of changes in ideology during the post-Stalin decades is an important contribution to the literature in political science, political economy, and Soviet studies.

The authors examine the nature of the relationship between social science and philosophy and address the sort of work social science should do, and the role and sorts of claims that an accompanying philosophy should engage in. In particular, the authors reintroduce the question of ontology, an area long overlooked by philosophers of social science, and present a cricital engagement with the work of Roy Bhaskar. The book argues against the excesses of philosophising and commits itself to a philosophical approach more deeply grounded in the social sciences.

In this careful historical analysis, Edward Rice-Maximin documents the reactions of the French Left to the First Indochina War, 1944-1954. Unlike previous works, which dealt exclusively with the politics of the French Communists, this book is among the first to deal with the entire French left and to focus directly on the role of the Socialists.

This volume constitutes a rigorous attempt to assess the actual influence of traditional Marxist theory - the doctrines of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - on developments in revolutionary China. Employing primary documents, the exposition carries the reader from the first years of the Chinese Communist Party, through the stresses of the war of resistance against Japan and the Civil War - that concluded with the proclamation of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. An account of the Mao epoch, inspired by a fundamentally transformed Marxism, is prelude to the 'Second Chinese Revolution' that saw the 'Thought of Deng Xiaoping' shaping the destiny of the New China. The role of modern China, as a reactive nationalist, single-party, developmental dictatorship, is assessed against what we know of such systems, and how they have influenced our history in the past.

Since the 1920s, scholars have promoted a set of manuscripts, long abandoned by Marx and Engels, to canonical status in book form as The German Ideology, and in particular its 'first chapter,' known as 'I. Feuerbach.' Part one of this revolutionary study relates in detail the political history through which these manuscripts were editorially fabricated into editions and translations, so that they could represent an important exposition of Marx's 'theory of history.' Part two presents a wholly-original view of the so-called 'Feuerbach' manuscripts in a page-by-page English-language rendition of these discontinuous fragments. By including the hitherto devalued corrections that each author made in draft, the new text invites the reader into a unique laboratory for their collaborative work. An 'Analytical Introduction' shows how Marx's and Engels's thinking developed in duologue as they altered individual words and phrases on these 'left-over' polemical pages.

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

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.

What makes some Eastern European countries politically victorious and economically prosperous while others have failed in both regards? Zuzowski deals with fundamental changes in the area after the demise of communism. He argues that the past is important because it is usually a reliable indicator of things to come in the near future. He also states that if systemic transformation is to succeed, a new totalism or comprehensive change introduced swiftly and based on justice and a rule of law is necessary. After a general discussion of Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland, and the Czech Republic are examined in detail. In addition, the West's approach to Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism is analyzed. This significant assessment will be of value to scholars, researchers, students, and policy makers involved with economic, political, and social change, post-communism, and Eastern Europe.

The concepts of alienation and its overcoming are central to Marx's thought. They underpin his critique of capitalism and his vision of future society. Marx's ideas are explained in rigorous and clear terms. They are situated in the context of the Hegelian ideas that inspired them and put into dialogue with contemporary debates.

Denis Janz argues that the encounter with Marxism has been the defining event for twentieth century Christianity. No other worldview shook Christianity more dramatically and no other movement had as profound an impact on so many. Now the Cold War is over and as we approach the end of the century we need, Janz says, to ask ourselves what happened.
This book is the first unified and comprehensive attempt to analyze this historic meeting between these two antagonistic worlds of thought and action. The intellectual foundation of this antagonism is to be found in Karl Marx himself, and thus the book begins with an account of Marx's assault on Christianity. All the diverse philosophical and political manifestations of Marxism were ultimately rooted in Marx's thought, and supporters based their greater or lesser hostilities toward Christianity on their reading of his critique. Janz follows this with an overview of Christian responses to Marx, extending from the mid-19th century to the onset of the Cold War. He argues that within this time frame Christianity's negation of Marx was not absolute; the loud "no" to Marx bore with it an important, if muted, "yes."
With this intellectual groundwork in place, Janz turns to an examination of the encounter as it unfolded in specific national contexts: the United States, the Soviet Union, Poland, Nicaragua, Cuba, China, and Albania. The experiences of these countries varied widely, from Poland where Christianity maintained its strongest independence, to Nicaragua where a Christian alliance with Marxism contributed to revolutionary change, to Albania where a Stalinist government attempted to abolish religion entirely. From this survey emerges theevidence that world Christianity has clearly internalized some of the prominent features of its antagonist, suggesting that the "Marxist project" is not as utterly defunct as many have assumed.

By looking at state-sponsored memory projects, such as memorials, commemorations, and historical museums, this book reveals that the East German communist regime obsessively monitored and attempted to control public representations of the past to legitimize its rule. It demonstrates that the regime's approach to memory politics was not stagnant, but rather evolved over time to meet different demands and potential threats to its legitimacy. Ultimately the party found it increasingly difficult to control the public portrayal of the past, and some dissidents were able to turn the party's memory politics against the state to challenge its claims of moral authority.