This is a new single volume history of the Communist Party of Great Britain, examining the party from its foundation in 1920 to its demise in the early 1990s. Drawing on original research and a reading of specialist texts, the authors analyze the rise and fall of the party and evaluate its role on the left of British politics. While sympathetic to the ideals and commitment of many British communist activists, the book is sharply critical of much of the actual practice of the party.

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.

The Falungong movement originated in 1992 as a system of breathing exercises designed to promote health and well-being. Riding on the coattails of the qigong fever that swept through China, it attracted an extensive following until 1994, when the Chinese government suppressed the qigong movement. A series of protest rallies by Falungong organizations against local government repression set in motion an upward conflict spiral that culminated in the siege of the Party headquarters in Beijing on April 25, 1999, by more than 20,000 Falungong practitioners. Revenge of the Forbidden City begins with the shock of the Politburo against such insolent defiance, resolving to retaliate against the Falungong, a retaliation that represented "the most serious political incident" since the Tiananmen upheaval in 1989.
James W. Tong reveals how the Chinese government's relentless, sustained repression of the Falungong movement typifies its response towards perceived internal threats. Though many claim that the Democratic reforms in China have eroded the government's ability to monitor and control its citizens, the success of the campaign to eradicate Falungong indicates otherwise: the government effectively implemented a multifaceted offensive involving unsparing suppression, pervasive propaganda, and coercive conversion. The successful execution of this complex campaign reveals the resilience of China's authoritarian institutions. Using empirical evidence and thorough analysis, Tong reveals the Chinese state's formidable ability to crush dissent and provides a cogent rebuttal to those who claim that the Communist government is on the verge of collapse. The definitive account of China's response to Falungong, Revenge of the Forbidden City is essential for any scholar interested in how the Chinese state actually operates.

Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the worlds most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the Leagues purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communisms potential future

CONTENTS: Introduction - Labour, Necessary product, Surplus Product - Exchange, Commodity, Value - Money, Capital, Surplus-value - The Development of Capital - The Contradictions of Capitalism - Trade - Credit - Money - Agriculture- Reproduction and the Growth of National Income - Periodical Crises - Monopoly Capitalism - Imperialism - The Epoch of Capitalist Decline - The Soviet Economy - The Economy of the Transition Period - Socialist Economy - Origin, Rise and Withering Away of Political Economy- Bibliography - Index

Collins traces Communist strategy in the so-called Cold War from its ideological roots, through its successes, to the system's collapse. He demonstrates that Communist ideology made the Cold War inevitable, shaped Communist strategy and the resultant structure and purpose of Communist states, and assured that Soviet and other Communist states and party strategies would be subsets of a larger Communist world strategy. Collins challenges American perception and conduct of the Cold War as essentially a conflict between Great Powers in a bipolar world, demonstrating that it was in fact a real war, with its objective to create a Communist world. He illuminates the central role of internal strategy conflicts in fractionating the Communist world, and the direct linkage between the failure of Communist world strategy and the system's collapse. This is a major synthesis that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of international Communism and security issues as well as lay readers.

Using examples of democratic changes in former Communist states, Wejnert provides a dual-level conceptual framework that concentrates on objectification of the fundamental and unique roles of various mechanisms and components of transition. The first of these two levels is an integrative framework of the diverse social processes of transition. Here, the essays included examine the effects of global and domestic factors, and diffusion on the articulation of transition from communism. The second level is a similarly integrative framework of the interrelation of three distinct social entities of economy, polity, and culture as recorded at a time-point when the polity-economy-culture components of the transition are inserted into the processes of social change.

This collection brings together Eastern European, Russian, and American scholars as well as prominent political figures from democratically elected East European governments. Included are Jan Kavan, Vice-Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and Grzegorz Kolodko of Poland, the designer of the post-communist therapy economic plan. The theoretical and pratically oriented papers are enriched by the broad perspective of the book, making it particularly useful to scholars, students, and researchers of Eastern Europe and Russia.

CONTENTS: Introduction - Labour, Necessary product, Surplus Product - Exchange, Commodity, Value - Money, Capital, Surplus-value - The Development of Capital - The Contradictions of Capitalism - Trade - Credit - Money - Agriculture- Reproduction and the Growth of National Income - Periodical Crises - Monopoly Capitalism - Imperialism - The Epoch of Capitalist Decline - The Soviet Economy - The Economy of the Transition Period - Socialist Economy - Origin, Rise and Withering Away of Political Economy- Bibliography - Index

Explores Marx's attitude to "developing" societies. Includes translations of Marx's notes from the 1880s, among the most important finds of the last century.

What was known about Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during his career was strictly limited by the secretive Soviet government. Little more information was available after he was ousted and became a "non-person" in the USSR in 1964. This pathbreaking book draws for the first time on a wealth of newly released materials -- documents from secret former Soviet archives, memoirs of long-silent witnesses, the full memoirs of the premier himself -- to assemble the best-informed analysis of the Khrushchev years ever completed. The contributors to this volume include Russian, Ukrainian, American, and British scholars; a former key foreign policy aide to Khrushchev; the executive secretary of a Russian commission investigating Soviet-era repressions and rehabilitations; and Khrushchev's own son Sergei.

The book presents and interprets new information on Khrushchev's struggle for power, public attitudes toward him, his role in agricultural reform and cultural politics, and such foreign policy issues as East-West relations, nuclear strategy, and relations with Germany. It also chronicles Khrushchev's years in Ukraine where he grew up and began his political career, serving as Communist party boss from 1938 to 1949, and his role in mass repressions of the 1930s and in destalinization in the 1950s and 1960s. Two concluding chapters compare the regimes of Khrushchev and Gorbachev as they struggled to reform Communism, to humanize and modernize the Soviet system, and to answer the haunting question that persists today: Is Russia itself reformable?

What were Socialist Spaces? The Eastern Bloc produced distinctive spaces, some of which were fashioned from ideological templates, such as the monumental parade grounds and Red Squares where communist leaders could receive tributes, or new factory cities with towering chimneys and glittering palaces of culture. But what of the grimy toilet in the communal apartment or the forlorn ruins left after the Second World War?This book explores the representation, meanings and uses of space in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union between 1947 and 1991. The essays - written from different disciplinary perspectives - investigate the extent to which actual spaces conformed to the dominant political order in the region. Should, for instance, the creation of private spaces, such as the Russian dacha and the Czech chata, be understood as acts of appropriation in which lives were fashioned against the collective or, alternatively, as 'gifts' given by the State in return for quiescence? Whilst monuments and public spaces were designed to relay official ideology, one of the most notable features of the events that marked the end of the Bloc was the way that they became sites of dissent. Examining the myriad ways in which space was used and conceived within socialist society, this book makes an essential contribution to Eastern European and Soviet Studies and provides significant new angles on the factors that underpinned socialism's eventual downfall.

In light of the events of the late 1980's and early 1990's, one might naively suppose that capitalism has emerged entirely victorious over communism, and hence that the former is practically and philosophically justified by its historical dominance. Even so-called "analytical Marxists" argue that in his later works Marx abandons his earlier "humanistic" perspective and with it his conception of "alienation." So then, is Francis Fukuyama correct to assert that we now have a glimpse of "the end of history," given that capitalism has seemingly triumphed over its alternatives? Some authors, such as David Schweickart, answer with a resounding, no. He is adamant that, "getting beyond capitalism is the best hope for our species," and although he does his best to offer an alternative to contemporary capitalism, his model is fraught with difficulties and still does not answer the question of the application of Marx's theory of alienation to contemporary society. This book argues that, to the contrary, Marx does not abandon the concept of alienation, and (contrary to the analytical Marxists and pro-capitalists) that its application is still relevant to today's economy and world. This account analyses at least four fundamental manifestations of the corrosive nature of American-style capitalism: excessive consumerism, negative effects of globalization, cruel economic inequalities between persons, and a deep "irrational exuberance" intensifying our interaction in the material world (from the pace of our work-lives to our relation to the environment). Padgett argues that new forms of these four traditional aspects of alienation outlined by Marx are still present in our world, and hence that Marx's analyses of negative aspects of capitalism are still widely relevant today.

This book provides, in one volume, primary sources by Marx and critical commentary which relates Marxism to contemporary social and political topics. It includes six brief works by Marx and ten articles by scholars, sympathetic to, but critical of, Marxism. For example, the author includes the classic essay by Heidi Hartmann which criticizes Marxism for misunderstanding gender oppression, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism." No previous anthology of Marx has combined both brief works by Marx and multiple critical essays elaborating on his themes or engaging the shortcomings of his arguments.

This volume bases a clear and unbiased account of Communist philosophy on the Marxian Materialist Concept of History and Marxian Theory of Value. The spear-head of Marxism is its doctrine of class-struggle and from this Laski sets out on in his exposition of the Communist attitude. Although first published in 1927, the intervening years have in no way detracted from the intrinsic value of this enlightening study, regarded by many as the essential textbook for the understanding of this subject.

This collection investigates the state of play in studies informed by Marxism. It includes an essay on state theory by Bob Jessop, a discussion of fundamental socialist values using analytical Marxism by Alan Carling, an introduction to Fromm's humanist Marxism by Lawrence Wilde, and pieces on Marxism and ecology, Marxism and feminism, the debate between Marxists and post Marxists, the democratic Marxism of Hal Draper, the confrontation between Marxism and Liberalism, and Marxism's place in the history of political thought.

Neal Riemer presents, analyzes, and criticizes Marx's guiding values, his social scientific criticism of the existing 19th century order, his theory of revolutionary action, and his views of the future of economics, politics, society, and culture.

Historical Materialism and Social Evolution brings together a collection of essays which investigate the relationship between Marxist thought and Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Each of the contributors emphasize the idea that the distinctive character of progressive social thought is derived from creative ideas drawn from the study of natural evolutionary processes.

The Revolutions of 1989 were a surprise to Kremlinologists because their models of change overestimated the staying power of ruling communist elites; at the same time civil society was able to form alternative political cultures which undermined the legitimacy of the socialist order. The Revolutions were the result of a prolonged systemic crisis of communism, combined with the unwillingness of Gorbachev to use force to maintain the Eastern European rulers in power. Civil society lost its fear of the repressive apparatus of the communist system as the ruling elites became increasingly disunited as to how to best respond to the crisis. After the Revolutions, other surprises were in store as the transition unfolded and the process of democratic consolidation encountered unanticipated obstacles.

Weiner details these issues in one of the most up-to-date examinations of change in East Europe. After reviewing the history of the region and the imposition of communism, he analyzes the collapse of communism and the efforts to create stable alternatives country-by-country. In addition, he examines models of change and the foreign policies of the region. An indispensable guide to the area that will be of value to political scientists and others concerned with contemporary Eastern Europe.

The Chinese system is like no other known to man, now or in history. This book explains how the system works and where it may be moving. Drawing on Chinese and international sources, on extensive collaboration with Chinese scholars, and on the political science of state analysis, Stein Ringen concludes that under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the system of government has been transformed into a new regime radically harder and more ideological than the legacy of Deng Xiaoping. China is less strong economically and more dictatorial politically than the world has wanted to believe. By analyzing the leadership of Xi Jinping, the meaning of "socialist market economy," corruption, the party-state apparatus, the reach of the party, the mechanisms of repression, taxation and public services, and state-society relations, The Perfect Dictatorship broadens the field of China studies, as well as the fields of political economy, comparative politics, development, and welfare state studies.

The purpose of this translated volume Tadeusz Kowalik's book is to examine Rosa Luxemburg's contribution to economic theory. The essential subject-matter is the dependence of capital accumulation on effective demand, the dependence of economic growth on specific capitalist barriers to growth.

Drawing on secret and therefore candid coded telegraphs exchanged between Communist Party leaders around the world and their overseers at the Communist International (Comintern) headquarters in Moscow, this book uncovers key aspects of the history of the Comintern and its significant role in the Stalinist ruling system during the years 1933 to 1943. New information on aspects of the People's Front in France, civil wars in Spain and China, World War II, and the extent of the Comintern's cooperation with Soviet intelligence is brought to light through these archival records, never examined before.

Richard Muller, a leading figure of the German Revolution in 1918, is unknown today. As the operator and unionist who represented Berlin's metalworkers, he was main organiser of the 'Revolutionary Stewards', a clandestine network that organised a series of mass strikes between 1916 and 1918. With strong support in the factories, the Revolutionary Stewards were the driving force of the Revolution. By telling Muller's story, this study gives a very different account of the revolutionary birth of the Weimar Republic. Using new archival sources and abandoning the traditional focus on the history of political parties, Ralf Hoffrogge zooms in on working class politics on the shop floor and its contribution to social change. First published in German by Karl Dietz Verlag as Richard Muller - Der Mann hinter der November Revolution, Berlin, 2008, this english edition was completerly revised for the english speaking audience and contains new sources and recent literature.

The Soviet elite has undergone two major transformations in the twentieth century: Stalin's purges and replacement of old elite by Soviet trained proletarian modernizing managers; and, under Gorbachev, the current displacement of the modernizing managers by politicians. This book is an analytical study of the Soviet political elite as a body, from 1917 to 1990. Focusing on the changing structure of the elite, it is based partly on Kenneth C. Farmer's database consisting of biographical and career data on over 1500 high-level leaders. Farmer also synthesizes the work of four classical theorists--Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Max Weber, and Alexis de Tocqueville--with more contemporary theorists. The book's unique features include its scope, the central database (the largest on which any work has been published), and its creative theoretical approach.

Farmer concludes that the dismantling of the personnel selection system with competitive elections deprives the elite of the ability to reproduce itself. New voluntary associations make possible the emergence of genuine strategic elites. In examining the ramifications of this new system, this book is one of the first studies to apply a structural-anthropological theoretical framework to the phenomenon of Soviet elites. Scholars in the Soviet studies field will find this unique theoretical approach refreshing and thought provoking.