This collection discusses China's contemporary national and international identity as evidenced in its geopolitical impact on the countries in its direct periphery and its functioning in organizations of global governance. This contemporary identity is assessed against the background of the country's Confucian and nationalist history.

First published in 1955 to wide acclaim, James Joll's introduction to the history and development of International Socialism before the First World War is of crucial importance for understanding the development of Left-wing movements in the 20th century: the difficulties posed by prominent anarchist groups, the ambiguities of the scope of revolutionary activity, and the challenges posed by the rise of nationalism. Incorporating insightful research into the international links and the ideological structure of socialism, as well as on the structure of individual parties and the actual nature of their working-class support, The Second International 1889-1914 is a valuable resource for political historians and students of socialist thought alike.

A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society. It has also proved to be the most influential work in social science in the twentieth century; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology. Millions of readers this century have treated Capital as a sacred text, subjecting it to as many different interpretations as the Bible itself. No mere work of dry economics, Marx's great work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama - with a message which has lost none of its relevance today. This is the only abridged edition to take account of the whole of Capital. It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867, excerpts from a new translation of 'The Result of the Immediate Process of Production', and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895.

In this work Conan Fischer investigates how the public-brawling between Communists and Nazis during the Weimar Era masked a more subtle and complex relationship. It examines the way in which the National Socialists' growth across traditional class and regional barriers came to threaten the Communists on their home ground and forced them to adopt increasingly precarious, comprising strategies to confront this challenge. Encouraged by Moscow, they ascribed a qualified legitimacy to grass-roots Nazism which justified fraternisation with Hitler's ordinary supporters. Fischer's book thereby strengthens and elaborates recent perceptions of Nazism as a populist mass movement and shows the collapse of Weimar to have been even more convoluted and controversial than hitherto believed.

Contemporary philosophy is by its nature pluralistic, to a perhaps greater extent than at any moment of the preceding tradition, in that there are multiple forms of thought competing for a position on the center of the philosophic stage. The reasons for this conceptual proliferation are numerous. But certainly one factor is the increasing development of contemporary means of publication and communication, which in turn make possible the rapid dissemination of ideas as well as an informed reaction to them. And this in turn has increased the possibility for serious philosophic exchange by enhancing the available opportunities for the interaction of competing forms of thought. But, although informed philosophic interaction has in principle become increasingly possible in recent years, the frequency, scope and quality of such discussion has often been less than satisfactory. Contemporary philosophic viewpoints tend not to interact in a Hegelian manner, as complementary aspects of a totally satisfactory and a-perspectival view, facets of a singly and all-embracing true position. Rather, contemporary philosophic viewpoints tend to portray themselves as mutually exclusive alternatives only occasionally willing to acknowledge the possible validity or even the intrinsic interest of other perspectives. Thus, although the multiplication of different forms of philosophy in principle means that there are greater possibilities for meaning ful exchange between them, in practice the tendency of each of the various philosophic positions to raise claims to philosophic truth from its point of view alone has had the effect of impeding such interaction."

To begin with, rational choice Marxism, promised to construct historical explanations and social theories with clarity and rigour. Subsequently, it took a `political turn' in addressing issues of class and production, and the prospects for electoral socialism. This anthology commences with the founding classics - Erik Olin Wright's `What is Analytical Marxism?' and Alan Carling's spirited challenge to the Marxist establishment - which are answered with critical responses detailed by Ellen Meiksins Wood and Michael Burawoy in previously uncollected debates. Also included are further debates charting the historical progression of rational choice Marxism. The editors demonstrate that the clarity and rigour originally promised by the rational choice Marxists was never in fact achieved, but that rational choice Marxism has considerably enhanced the theoretical treatment of class and production in a world of commodification and difference.

"On Anarchism" provides the reasoning behind Noam Chomsky's fearless lifelong questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. In these essays, Chomsky redeems one of the most maligned ideologies, anarchism, and places it at the foundation of his political thinking. Chomsky's anarchism is distinctly optimistic and egalitarian. Moreover, it is a living, evolving tradition that is situated in a historical lineage; Chomsky's anarchism emphasizes the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.
The collection includes a revealing new introduction by journalist Nathan Schneider, who documented the Occupy movement for "Harper's" and "The Nation," and who places Chomsky's ideas in the contemporary political moment. "On Anarchism" will be essential reading for a new generation of activists who are at the forefront of a resurgence of interest in anarchism--and for anyone who struggles with what can be done to create a more just world.

The author draws on lesser known archival materials, including Marx's notebooks on women and patriarchy and technology to offer a new interpretation of Marx's concept of alienation as this concept develops in his later works.

This is an analysis of the impact of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on the communist parties of Western Europe. Seven case-studies, covering the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, British and German parties, provide a comparative perspective. The conclusion assesses the range of responses to the dramatic events of 1989-91 and the likely future direction of the west-European communist movement. It is argued that, whilst it is no longer possible to talk of a coherent "family" of communist parties, various individual parties - some of them in revised form - may continue to prosper.

A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For the 150 years that Hong Kong was a British colony, people, money and technology flowed freely, while Hong Kong residents enjoyed freedoms that simply did not exist in mainland China. When the territory was handed over to China in 1997, the Communist Party promised that Hong Kong would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. Now, at the halfway mark, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted and activists have been jailed en masse following the decree of a sweeping national security law by Beijing. As China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower's control. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation first-hand and has unrivalled access to the full range of the city's society, from student protestors to billionaire businessmen and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.

This book highlights the role of Romani musical presence in Central and Eastern Europe, especially from Krakow in the Communist period, and argues that music can and should be treated as one of the main points of relation between Roma and non-Roma. It discusses Romani performers and the complexity of their situation as conditioned by the political situations starkly affected by the Communist regime, and then by its fall. Against this backdrop, the book engages with musician Stefan Dymiter (known as Corroro) as the leader of his own street band: unwelcome in the public space by the authorities, merely tolerated by others, but admired by many passers-by and respected by his peer Romain musicians and international music stars. It emphasizes the role of Romani musicians in Krakow in shaping the soundscape of the city while also demonstrating their collective and individual strategies to adapt to the new circumstances in terms of the preferred performative techniques, repertoire, and overall lifestyle.

Nationalism and Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union looks at communism's attempts to come to terms with nationalism between Marx and Yeltsin, how the inability of communist theorists and practitioners to achieve an effective synthesis between nationalism and communism contributed to communism's collapse, and what lessons that holds for contemporary Europe.

Marx's Rebellion Against Lenin, by negating the Leninist-Stalinist theory of dialectical materialism and tracing Marx's political philosophy to the Classical Humanism of Aristotle, overthrows the stultifying entrapment of Stalinist Bolshevism and contributes to the revitalization of Marx's method.

This volume contains the correspondence of Marx and Engels from April 1883 through to December 1886. It is 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.

This book describes and explains the remarkably large rural-urban divide in economic well-being that exists in China, tracing the root causes, present effects, and future implications for the increasingly marketized Chinese economy. It uses the rigorous analysis and empirical methodology of modern economics. Primarily aimed at a broad readership of development and transition economists, China specialists will also find much that is of interest.

1. One of the most outstanding leaders within Second International Marxism, George Plekhanov has interested Western scholars primarily as a historical and political figure, specifically as the first full-fledged Marxist among the Russian intelligentsia. At the end of the nineteenth century he was the leader in putting Russian progressive culture in touch with Western Marxism, breaking away from Populism and, at the same time, resuming materialistic tradition within Russian progressive thought. Among Russian revolutionaries, a few others to be sure had been interested in Marx before Plekhanov. The translations of some of Marx' works into Russian show this clearly. In 1869 Mikhail Bakunin translated The Communist Manifesto. Three years later Nikolaj Daniel'son, a populist, completed the first foreign-language version of the first book of Marx' Capital and within six months about a thousand copies had been sold. In the middle of the 1870's, an 'academic' economist, N. !. Ziber, helped to spread Marx' economic ideas by teaching them in Kiev and writing articles in the journal Slovo, which to some extent influenced Plekhanov's later choices. But it was Plekhanov who first analyzed the Russian situation as a whole in Marxist terms, thereby earning renown as the "Father of Russian Marxism". 1 His writings became the school for a whole generation of revolutionaries. At the beginning respected and venerated, then rejected and criticized, Plekhanov for long held the leadership of Russian Marxism, as its best-known 'Master'.

The Defence of Terrorism, originally written in 1920 on a military train during the Russian Civil War, represents one of Trotsky's most wide-ranging and original contributions to the debates that dominated the 1920s and '30s. Trotsky's intention is "far away from any thought of defending terrorism in general". Rather, he seeks to promote an historical justification for the Revolution, by demonstrating that history has set up the 'revolutionary violence of the progressive class' against the 'conservative violence of the outworn classes'. The argument is developed in response to the influential Marxist intellectual Karl Kautsky, who refuted Trotsky's 'militarisation of labour' and Lenin's wholesale rejection of a 'bloodless revolution'. The introduction, written for the second edition of 1935, presents Trotsky's reflections on the similarities between Kautsky and the burgeoning British Labour Party: specifically, it recapitulates Trotsky's belief that revolution conducted according to the norms of Parliamentarianism is no revolution at all.

Minneapolis in the early 1930s was anything but a union stronghold. An employers' association known as the Citizens' Alliance kept labour organisations in check, at the same time as it cultivated opposition to radicalism in all forms. This all changed in 1934. The year saw three strikes, violent picket-line confrontations, and tens of thousands of workers protesting in the streets. Bryan D. Palmer tells the riveting story of how a handful of revolutionary Trotskyists, working in the largely non-union trucking sector, led the drive to organise the unorganised, to build one large industrial union. What emerges is a compelling narrative of class struggle, a reminder of what can be accomplished, even in the worst of circumstances, with a principled and far-seeing leadership.

The Real Situation in Russia, first published in 1928, contains three of Trotsky's harshest rebuttals of Stalin's takeover of the Russian Revolution following the death of Lenin. The first part contains a defence of the 'Opposition Platform' against the Stalinist denunciation; the second details Trotsky's view of the precise nature of the Stalinist program, as well as its disastrous consequences for Russia; and the third demonstrates the unashamed falsification of the history by Stalin with regard to the beginning of the Revolution. Including a sympathetic, but nonetheless astute, introduction to Trotsky's argument by the translator, The Real Situation in Russia will prove to be of value to all students of twentieth-century Marxism, and in particular to those interested in the Russian Revolution - not only its origins and early development, but also, perhaps, the reasons for its ultimate failure.

John E. Roemer, one of the founders of analytical Marxism, draws on contemporary mathematical economics to put forward a refined extension of the Marxian theory of exploitation, labour value and class.

This book analyses racism in communist and post-communist contexts, examining the 'Red' promise of an end to racism and the racial logics at work in the Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe, Cuba and China, placing these in the context of global racialisation.