Central Asia is a fascinating region yet remote and unfamiliar to many people. This new study provides an introduction to the politics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Tajikistan, Turkestan, and Uzbekistan. The early chapters introduce the readers to the history of Russian and Soviet involvement in the region up until the collapse of communism, whilst the bulk of the book focuses on the politics of independence. The search for national identity in each region and the influence of Islam are discussed and attention is paid to political, economic and international developments. A central theme of the book is the importance of informal politics associated with national, regional and tribal networks in shaping the evolution of the five states.

Cultural Writing. Political Science. The purpose of this book is to address a recent claim that socialist theory can be renewed on the basis of 'classical Marxism', the socialist politics of the Second International in the period between the death of Karl Marx and the Russian Revolution of 1917. This claim is approached, with both sympathy and some distance, through a series of biographical chapters that address the lives and arguments of important figures within the movement: Paul Lafargue, Tom Maguire, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and V.I. Lenin.

The first collection of its kind, Transgender Marxism is a provocative and groundbreaking union of transgender studies and Marxist theory. Exploring trans lives and movements, the authors delve into the experience of surviving as transgender under capitalism. They explore the pressures, oppression and state persecution faced by trans people living in capitalist societies, their tenuous positions in the workplace and the home, and give a powerful response to right-wing scaremongering against 'gender ideology'. Reflecting on the relations between gender and labour, these essays reveal the structure of antagonisms faced by gender non-conforming people within society. Looking at the history of transgender movements, Marxist interventions into developmental theory, psychoanalysis and workplace ethnography, the authors conclude that for trans liberation, capitalism must be abolished.

Originally published in 1961. Russian Marxist philosophy of science originated among men and women who gave their whole lives to rebellion against established authority. The original tension within Marxist philosophy between positivism and metaphysics was repressed but not resolved in this first phase of Soviet Marxism. In this volume the author correlates the development of ideas with trends in the Cultural Revolution and against this background it is possible to understand why debates over general philosophy gave way to conflicts over specific sciences in the aftermath of the first Five Year Plan and why there was a genuine crisis in Soviet biology.

Authored by a stellar line-up of top China scholars from the US, Europe, Australia and China. Interdisciplinary in approach, so will appeal to courses on Chinese society, politics and history. Writing style is excellent and the chapters are truly connected due to the bok being co-authored.

In this study of the mechanisms of transitional justice in Poland, Frances Millard asks: How does society come to terms with its past? How should it punish the perpetrators of oppression and acknowledge its victims? In the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe the task of answering these questions came down to the need to eliminate the communist parties' hold over the state, the economy and society in order to move towards democracy. Millard argues that the key step in achieving this was uncovering the truth about the previous regime's past, prosecuting the perpetrators of past crimes and providing compensation and restitution for its victims. Through the specific case of Poland, Millard provides a comprehensive assessment of the mechanisms and institutions used to achieve this, such as lustration, law enforcement through a Constitutional Tribunal and institutions dedicated to dealing with the past such as the Institute of National Remembrance. Crucially, these processes have assumed new significance in recent years after the Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015, using transitional justice as a tool of political control which has enabled the restructuring of Polish democracy.

This is a work of historical critical exegesis. It aims to establish the influence of the Science of Logic (SL) of G.W.F. Hegel on the Grundrisse of Karl Marx. It is the first work in the history of Marx Studies to demonstrate that the Hegelian logic guided Marx's doctrinal development, and that the ordering of the logical categories in the SL is reflected in the ordering of economic categories in the Grundrisse.

Marking the 50th anniversary of events in 1956, that were a major turning point in the history of communist-ruled Eastern Europe, this book contains a selection of some of the most recent research on those momentous events and their memory and legacy. The book contains edited contributions from historians and social scientists from Hungary, Poland the UK and the USA. Their contributions are the fruit of research which has only been possible since 1989. In the years since the fall of the communist regimes the state archives have been opened to researchers and it has been possible to collect the testimony of eye-witnesses without fear of repression and censorship. The outcome of 1956 led to Poland embarking on its own distinctive version of communist rule. Meanwhile 1956 in Hungary saw the first society-wide attempt to overthrow a ruling communist regime - only to be put down by Soviet military intervention. In both countries the events of 1956 had lasting repercussions for society and its relationship with the communist regime. In retrospect they can be seen as paving the way for the eventual fall of the communist regimes in East Central Europe in 1989.

The thought of Antonio Gramsci continues to enjoy widespread appeal in contemporary political and social theory. This book draws together some of the world's leading scholars on Gramsci to critically explore key ideas, debates and themes in his work in an accessible manner, relating them to contemporary politics and society.

This book responds to recent events by proposing a radical reshaping of Marxist theory. Taking the core problem as that of the historical subject, it conceptualises human life in terms of four interrelated practices. It explores these in turn in the context of a capitalism divided into 'centre' and 'periphery', primarily through nine 'theoretical reconstructions', which attempt to meet such problems as the labour theory of value, the nature and role of the state, and consciousness.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago, Russia has undergone a dizzying and complex transition that has seen it transform from a communist state into a democracy before regressing back to the more authoritarian regime that exists today. Through a compelling and insightful analysis of the Russian case, this book explores the role that social welfare plays in regime transitions, specifically it examines the role that gender and social welfare has played in Russia's often chaotic post-communist political evolution, from Boris Yeltsin's assumption of the presidency in 1991 to Vladimir Putin's return for a third term as president in 2012. From 2001 to 2011, social welfare (especially pronatalist policies) was a key part of the political leadership's governance strategy. A shift from pluralism to regulation accompanied a discourse in which strong government would rein-in a wayward society. But can a hierarchical political system satisfy the aspirations of a changing citizenry? This study demonstrates that gender is at the very centre of debates over the authenticity of democracy in Russia.

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 February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy launched an anti-communist crusade that lasted for more than four years. His attempts to unmask communists in the American administration and governmental agencies gave rise to actions that infringed on democratic procedure and civil liberties. As the Cold War grew, fear of communism at home and abroad meant that minorities were particularly under threat, as tensions and frustrations were channelled towards the handiest scapegoats. American Jewish organizations, that were having to come to terms with the Holocaust in Europe, were forced to contend with the real possibility of a serious anti-Semitic outburst at home. The Jewish presence in the American Communist Party was conspicuous; although the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans did not sympathise with its politics, there was concern that anti-communism would develop into anti-Semitism. McCarthy's anti-communist campaign endangered the very civil liberties that protected minorities, but criticism of McCarthy and his actions could be interpreted as support for communism.In order to convey the message that Jews were patriotic Americans concerned about both national security and civil liberties, Jewish organizations chose to present a united front, whilst also cooperating with non-sectarian American bodies. By doing so, they professed an alternative anti-communism to the hardline McCarthy. This book sheds new light on McCarthy's attitudes to the Jews, to the Jewish organizations and to the Jewish individuals identified with communism.

Exploring relationships between politics, the people and social change, this book assesses the fortunes mainly of Labor, but also of the Communist Party and the New Left in postwar Britain. Using concepts like political culture, it looks at the left's articulation of "affluence": consumerism, youth culture, America, TV, advertising and its disappointment at the people under the impact of such changes. It also examines party organization, socialist thinking and the use of new communication techniques like TV, advertising and opinion polling.

The communists of East Central Europe came to power promising to bring about genuine equality, paying special attention to achieving gender equality, to build up industry and create prosperous societies, and to use music, art, and literature to promote socialist ideals. Instead, they never succeeded in filling more than a third of their legislatures with women and were unable to make significant headway against entrenched patriarchal views; they considered it necessary (with the sole exception of Albania) to rely heavily on credits to build up their economies, eventually driving them into bankruptcy; and the effort to instrumentalize the arts ran aground in most of the region already by 1956, and, in Yugoslavia, by 1949. Communism was all about planning, control, and politicization. Except for Yugoslavia after 1949, the communists sought to plan and control not only politics and the economy, but also the media and information, religious organizations, culture, and the promotion of women, which they understood in the first place as involving putting women to work. Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Robert K. Merton on functionalist theory, this book shows how communist policies were repeatedly undermined by unintended consequences and outright dysfunctions.

Reveals the ideal of a sustainable ecosocialist world in Marx's writings Karl Marx, author of what is perhaps the world's most resounding and significant critique of bourgeois political economy, has frequently been described as a "Promethean." According to critics, Marx held an inherent belief in the necessity of humans to dominate the natural world, in order to end material want and create a new world of fulfillment and abundance--a world where nature is mastered, not by anarchic capitalism, but by a planned socialist economy. Understandably, this perspective has come under sharp attack, not only from mainstream environmentalists but also from ecosocialists, many of whom reject Marx outright. Kohei Saito's Karl Marx's Ecosocialism lays waste to accusations of Marx's ecological shortcomings. Delving into Karl Marx's central works, as well as his natural scientific notebooks--published only recently and still being translated--Saito also builds on the works of scholars such as John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, to argue that Karl Marx actually saw the environmental crisis embedded in capitalism. "It is not possible to comprehend the full scope of [Marx's] critique of political economy," Saito writes, "if one ignores its ecological dimension." Saito's book is crucial today, as we face unprecedented ecological catastrophes--crises that cannot be adequately addressed without a sound theoretical framework. Karl Marx's Ecosocialism shows us that Marx has given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to finishing Marx's critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world.

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

"Home Front" examines the gendered exploitation of labor in the household from a postmodern Marxian perspective. The authors of this volume use the anti-foundationalist Marxian economic theories first formulated by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff to explore power, domination, and exploitation in the modern household.

Eric Roman is the first scholar to be granted access to the vast, heretofore closed, archive of documents relating to the communist era in Hungary. This archive included the files of the Hungarian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Hungarian Socialist Worker's Party, as well as minutes of political committee meetings, private correspondence, secret papers and confidential reports on special commissions within Hungary. Skilfully using all this material, Eric Roman weaves a fascinating portrait of Hungary in the post-war period. As the country began to reconstruct itself after the War, Roman shows the toll taken by poverty and racial discord. In what amounts to the only complete English-language account of Hungary's diplomatic policy, Hungary and the Victor Powers takes an in-depth look at Hungary's relationship with those countries nearest to it, especially the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Eric Roman's Hungary and the Victor Powers, 1945-1950 is a compelling work of history that is destined to be one of the most important books on the topic.

Communism in Eastern Europe is a ground-breaking new survey of the history of Eastern Europe since 1945. It examines how Communist governments came to Eastern Europe, how they changed their societies and the legacies that persisted after their fall. Written from the perspective of the 21st century, this book shows how Eastern Europe's trajectory since 1989 fits into the longer history of its Communist past. Rather than focusing on high politics, Communism in Eastern Europe concentrates on the politics of daily life, melding political history with social, cultural and gender history. It tells the history of this complicated era through the voices and experiences of ordinary people. By focusing on the complex interactions of everyday life, Communism in Eastern Europe illuminates the world Communism made in Eastern Europe, its politics and culture, values and dreams, successes and failures. This book is an engaging introduction to the history of Communist Eastern Europe for any reader. It is ideal for adoption in a wide array of undergraduate and graduate courses in 20th century European history.

A major and timely re-examination of key areas in the social and political thought of Hegel and Marx. The editors' extensive introduction surveys the development of the connection from the Young Hegelians through the main Marxist thinkers to contemporary debates. Leading scholars including Terrell Carver, Chris Arthur and Gary Browning debate themes such as: the nature of the connection itself; scientific method; political economy; the Hegelian basis to Marx's 'Doctoral Dissertation'; human needs; history and international relations.

All the great political revolutions of the twentieth century referred back to Marx. Reviled by some, revered by many, Marx's influence can be found in every area of the humanities and social sciences from literary criticism to globalization. In this thoroughly revised and updated new edition of his classic biography, David McLellan provides a clear and detailed account both of Marx's dramatic life and of his path-breaking thought together with a wealth of bibliographical information for further reading.

This is the first English translation of one of the classical works of Marxist economic theory. When Rudolf Hilferdings "Finance Capital" was first published in 1919 it was acclaimed by reviewers as a continuation of Marxs Capital, and it has a major influence upon subsequent Marxist thought, especially in the analysis of imperialism where it provided some of the fundamental ideas for the theories of Bukharin and Lenin.
But Hilferdings work was much more than a study of imperialism, which was presented only in the last section of the book. It set out to examine the main tendencies in the development of the capitalist mode of production as a whole at the beginning of the twentieth century, beginning with an exposition of the theory of money (in which particular attention was paid to the growth of credit money), then analysing the increasingly important role of the banks in the mobilization of capital, along with the development of large corporations, cartels and trusts, and finally outlining atheory of economic crises.
Hilferdings book has, however, more than an historical interest. It is a model for any renewed attempt to understand the latest phase of capitalist development in the closing decades of the twentieth century, and Hilferdins ideas still provide essential elements for the elaboration of theoretically enlightened and realistic policies in the socialist movement.