This extraordinary history of the Bruderhof shows how its commitment to religion, family, and community has enabled it to maintain its way of life since its inception over ninety years ago. Although Yaacov Oved identifies social tensions in the movement, he still considers it to be a shining example of communal stability.

After the horrors of World War I, German adolescents sought new directions in the form of youth movements. Young people from bourgeois families rejected materialism, celebrated nature, and longed for a simpler life. Eberhard and Emmy Arnold, a couple from an affluent background who identified fully with radical pacifist youth circles, fused the German Christian socialist youth into a new movement. They settled a commune in Sannerz known as "The First Bruderhof," whose members shaped their lives according to their faith.

The Bruderhof supported itself by publishing, printing, and providing reliable child care services. In 1937, responding to Nazi harassment, and to escape conscription, they fled to Liechtenstein and England where they provided shelter for many Jewish refugees. World War II forced them to emigrate further afield. They went to Paraguay and, eventually, to the United States. Sociologists, theologians, anthropologists, and psychologists alike will find The Witness of the Brothers to be a valuable resource.

First published in English in 1926, this work by Nikolai Bukharin, a highly influential Marxist and Soviet Politician who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, expands upon Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism. Offering a Marxist interpretation of sociology, this reissue is important not only from a sociological and economic perspective, but is also extremely valuable as a socio-historical document of contemporary thought in the Soviet Union in the years following the Bolshevik revolution.

This volume is concerned with the re-evaluation and criticism of Capital itself. It is in three parts, each covering a specific area of Marxist theory. The first part contains an investigation into Marx's theory of value and considers the types of questions and modes of analysis to which this theory leads. In the second part the nature and implications of necessary economic 'laws of tendency' in the capitalist mode of production are covered. Finally there is an analysis of the role of class structure and economic agents in Marxist theory.

First published in English in 1935, this is a critical appraisal of contemporary thought in the post-World War One era. Written by a selection of leading Marxist thinkers, including Nikolai Bukharin who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, this work offers a Marxist critique of contemporary thought relating to philosophy, science and history. The authors all tend towards the view that the general tendency of modern thought is to abandon the historical method and to deny progress, with the conclusion that Marxism was the only historical and progressive outlook in science, philosophy and history in the period following the First World War and the Communist revolution in Russia.

The essays and letters of Ervin Szabo (1877-1918) present proof of his critical insight into Marxist theory and of his perceptive analysis of socialism around the turn of the century. His ideals of an engaged social science and an enlightened socialism, his preoccupation with the socialist future, are still relevant today. The writings selected in this work, first published in 1982, are primarily those which address themselves to general issues of the European working-class movement and socialist theory, but there are also a few pieces that characterize the intellectual and political climate of early twentieth-century Budapest. Szabo was one of the theoretical leaders of a whole generation of progressive thinkers from Oscar Jaszi through Karl and Michael Polanyi to Georg Lukacs and many others. The almost insurmountable conflict between theory and practice that characterized Ervin Szabo's life remains a problem that has to be solved by engaged intellectuals whatever the time and place. Background notes and an introduction by the editors help to place the writings in their historical and political context.

This book serves as a case study of the Sudanese Communist Party and its impact as a grassroots movement that championed the Sudanese people. It accomplishes this by providing a rich narrative that details the SCP's inception, main players, important milestones and values of the Party. In this narrative, the author not only delivers a comprehensive examination of the party components, he guides readers through their connections to one another, but also associates them, and the party, to Sudanese society at large. Using original party documents and interviews with leading figures, this book is the first time this subject has been detailed so extensively in one publication. It is also the only up-to-date work available on the subject and includes analysis of the most recent party congress and the division of the Sudan and creation of the newly independent Republic of South Sudan.

This study examines Marx's disputes with, and attacks upon, those anarchist theoreticians he encountered at various stages of his career. Marx's attacks on Stirner, Proudhon and Bakunin are shown to be of vital importance to his career as a theorist and revolutionist. The formative influences upon Marx's writings and his political activity are discussed and analyzed. The author re-situates Marx's thought in the context of the 19th century when Marxism was not an unchallenged orthodoxy but a doctrine and method that needed to be defended against rival revolutionary impulses.

This book explores the development of Lenin's thinking on violence throughout his career, from the last years of the Tsarist regime in Russia through to the 1920s and the New Economic Policy, and provides an important assessment of the significance of ideological factors for understanding Soviet state violence as directed by the Bolshevik leadership during its first years in power. It highlights the impact of the First World War, in particular its place in Bolshevik discourse as a source of legitimating Soviet state violence after 1917, and explains the evolution of Bolshevik dictatorship over the half decade during which Lenin led the revolutionary state. It examines the militant nature of the Leninist worldview, Lenin's conception of the revolutionary state, the evolution of his understanding of "dictatorship of the proletariat", and his version of "just war". The book argues that ideology can be considered primarily important for understanding the violent and dictatorial nature of the early Soviet state, at least when focused on the party elite, but it is also clear that ideology cannot be understood in a contextual vacuum. The oppressive nature of Tsarist rule, the bloodiness of the First World War, and the vulnerability of the early Soviet state as it struggled to survive against foreign and domestic opponents were of crucial significance. The book sets Lenin's thinking on violence within the wider context of a violent world.

In this gripping narrative, John Koehler details the widespread activities of East Germany's Ministry for State Security, or "Stasi." The Stasi, which infiltrated every walk of East German life, suppressed political opposition, and caused the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of citizens, proved to be one of the most powerful secret police and espionage services in the world. Koehler methodically reviews the Stasi's activities within East Germany and overseas, including its programs for internal repression, international espionage, terrorism and terrorist training, art theft, and special operations in Latin America and Africa.Koehler was both Berlin bureau chief of the Associated Press during the height of the Cold War and a U.S. Army Intelligence officer. His insider's account is based on primary sources, such as U.S. intelligence files, Stasi documents made available only to the author, and extensive interviews with victims of political oppression, former Stasi officers, and West German government officials. Drawing from these sources, Koehler recounts tales that rival the most outlandish Hollywood spy thriller and, at the same time, offers the definitive contribution to our understanding of this still largely unwritten aspect of the history of the Cold War and modern Germany.

Originally published in 1984, this study deals with a number of influential figures in the European tradition of Marxist theories of aesthetics, ranging from Lukacs to Benjamin, through the Frankfurt School, to Brecht and the Althusserians. Pauline Johnson shows that, despite the great diversity in these theories about art, they all formulate a common problem, and she argues that an adequate response to this problem must be based on account of the practical foundations within the recipient's own experience for a changed consciousness.

Available for the first time in English language translation, the third volume of Totalitarianism and Political Religions completes the set. It provides a comprehensive overview of key theories and theorists of totalitarianism and of political religions, from Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron to Leo Strauss and Simone Weill. Edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier, it represents a major study, examining how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. Where volumes one and two were concerned with questioning the common elements between twentieth century despotic regimes - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - this volume draws a general balance. It brings together the findings of research undertaken during the decade 1992-2002 with the cooperation of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists for the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Munich. Following the demise of Italian Fascism (1943-45), German National Socialism (1945) and Soviet Communism (1989-91), a comparative approach to the three regimes is possible. A broad field of interpretation of the entire phenomenon of totalitarian and political religions opens up. This comprehensive study examines a vast topic which affects the political and historical landscape over the whole of the last century. Moreover, dictatorships and their motivations are still present in current affairs, today in the twenty-first century. The three volumes of Totalitarianism and Political Religions are a vital resource for scholars of fascism, Nazism, communism, totalitarianism, comparative politics and political theory.

Available for the first time in English language translation, this is the long-awaited second volume of the three part set on Totalitarianism and Political Religions, edited by the eminent Professor Hans Maier. This represents a major study, with contributions from leading scholars of political extremism, sociology and modern history, the book shows how new models for understanding political history arose from the experience of modern despotic regimes. We are used to distinguishing the despotic regimes of the twentieth century - Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Maoism - very precisely according to place and time, origins and influences. But what should we call that which they have in common? On this question, there has been, and still is, a passionate debate. Indeed, the question seemed for a long time not even to be admissible. Clearly this state of affairs is unsatisfactory. The debate has been renewed in the past few years. After the collapse of the communist systems in Central, East and Southern Europe, a (scarcely surveyable) mass of archival material has become available. Following the lead of Fascism and National Socialism, communist and socialist regimes throughout the world now belong to the historical past as well. This leads to the resumption of old questions: what place do modern despotisms assume in the history of the twentieth century? What is their relation to one another? Should they be captured using traditional concepts - autocracy, tyranny, despotism, dictatorship - or are new concepts required? Here, the most important concepts - totalitarianism and political religions - are discussed and tested in terms of their usefulness. This set of volumes is as topical and relevant to current world events in the twenty first century.

This book fills a significant gap in the study of the establishment of communist rule in Poland in the key period of 1944-1950. It shows that nationalism and nationality policy were fundamentally important in the consolidation of communist rule, acting as a crucial nexus through which different groups were both coerced and were able to consent to the new unfolding social and political order. Drawing on extensive archival research, including national and regional archives in Poland, it provides a detailed and nuanced understanding of the early years of communist rule in Poland. It shows how after the war the communist Polish Workers Party (PPR) was able to redirect widespread anger resulting from the actions of the NKVD, Soviet Army and the communists to more 'realistic' targets such as minority communities, and that this displacement of anger helped the party to connect with a broader constituency and present itself as the only party able to protect Polish interests. It considers the role played by the West, including the endorsement by the Grand Alliance of homogenising policies such as population transfer. It also explores the relationship between the communists and other powerful institutions in Polish society, such as the Catholic Church which was treated fairly liberally until late 1947 as it played an important function in identifying who was Polish. Finally, the book considers important episodes - hitherto neglected by scholars - that shed new light upon the emergence of the Cold War and the contours of Cold War geopolitics, such as the 'Westphalian incident' of 1947-48, and the arrival of Greek refugees in Poland in the period 1948-1950.

This reissue was first published in 1982. It deals specifically with the 'Asiatic mode of production' described by Karl Marx in his basic evolutionary model for human society. The term defines a special form of society marked by state ownership of the means of production and extensive intervention by the state in all forms of social life. In the soviet Union, the concept has had a chequered and controversial career: leading writers, primarily Stalin, have denied its very existence, mobilizing the heavy artillery of state ideology in their defence, whilst later scholars show signs of reversing this trend. Drawing on a large body of Soviet writing on historiography, Stephen Dunn develops a critical analysis of the issue, and introduces important corrections to the accounts hitherto available in the West. His work should be of major interest to students of Soviet politics, economists and Marxists.

A basic consideration of the conditions and problems in the formation of a vanguard, revolutionary party.

Poland is a particularly interesting case of truth revelation and transitional justice in a post-communist country. This is because of the radical change of trajectory in its approach to dealing with the communist past, and the profound effect this had on Polish politics. The approach moved from 'communist-forgiving' in the early 1990s, to a mild law vetting individuals for their links with the communist-era security services at the end of the decade, through to a more radical vetting and opening up of the communist security service files in the mid-2000s. This book examines the detail of this changing approach. It explains why disagreements about transitional justice became so prominent, to the extent that they constituted one of the main causes of political divisions. It sets the Polish approach in the wider context of transitional justice and truth revelation, drawing out the lessons for newly emerging democracies, both in Eastern Europe and beyond.

The rise of Maoism as one of the organized political movement in India is the outcome of a historical situation. Both colonialism and the failure of the Indian state to implement land reforms more stringently in the aftermath of independence resulted in terrible sufferings of the marginalized, land- dependent, sections of society.

Through historical analysis, this book assesses the ideological articulation of the contemporary ultra-left movement in India, including Maoism which is expanding gradually in India. The author provides answers to the following issues: Is Maoism reflective of the growing disenchantment of the people in the affected areas with the state? Is it a comment on the distorted development planning pursued by the Indian state? Is this an outcome of the processes of deepening of democracy in India? Using Orissa as a case study, the book raises questions on India 's development strategy. The author argues that Maoism provides critical inputs for an alternative paradigm for development, relevant for transitional societies and that it is a still a powerful ideology for the poorer parts of the world although its ideological appeal has declined internationally.

Contrary to the American public image of international communism as monolithic, the history of communism has been one of increasingly frequent deviation and dissension--punctuated by a process of defection and expulsion of individuals and entire national parties. In examining the fragmentation of communism as a movement, Bernard S. Morris focuses on the breakdown of its structure of authority as exercised through the organs of control. He analyzes factors contributing to the initial cohesion and later disintegration of the communist movement. The author demonstrates how the artificial attempt to maintain the Marxian vision of world revolution through the agency of the Soviet system faltered and ultimately failed. He shows how tensions between communist doctrine and foreign policy, coupled with the unexpected viability of the capitalist system in the West, accelerated pluralism within the communist movement. This led to Yugoslavia's assertion of independence, the rise of polycentrism in the post-Stalinist era, and the Russo-Chinese split. As we have seen, it ultimately led to the demise of the Soviet Union itself. Morris contends that the collapse of international communist unity underscores the inexorable hold of nationalism on human loyalties. He points out that American policy's obsession with international communism frustrated the development of a realistic policy toward radical nationalist movements which, because they were identified with communism, became equally suspect. Written by an experienced scholar and political analyst, this highly informative work skillfully balances a chronological account with a searching examination of the evolution and gradual disintegration of the dream of world revolution.

The importance of Antonio Gramsci 's work for postcolonial studies can hardly be exaggerated, and in this volume, contributors attempt to situate Gramsci's work in the vast and complex oeuvre of postcolonial studies. Specifically, this book endeavors to reassess the impact on postcolonial studies of the central role assigned by Gramsci to culture and literature in the formation of a truly revolutionary idea of the national a notion that has profoundly shaped the thinking of both Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. Gramsci, as Iain Chambers has argued, has been instrumental in helping scholars rethink their understanding of historical, political, and cultural struggle by substituting the relationship between tradition and modernity with that of subaltern versus hegemonic parts of the world. Combining theoretical reflections and re-interpretations of Gramsci, the scholars in this collection present comparative geo-cultural perspectives on the meaning of the subaltern, passive revolution, hegemony, the concept of national-popular culture, in order to chart out a political map of the postcolonial through the central focus on Gramsci.

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years.

"Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit", Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience -- in the China of "the Great Helmsman", Kim II Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the wide-scale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards.

As the death toll mounts -- as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on -- the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.

Popular uprisings have taken many different forms in the last hundred or so years since Muslims first began to grapple with modernity and to confront various systems of domination both European and indigenous.The relevance of studies of popular uprising and revolt in the Muslim world has recently been underlined by shattering recent events, particularly in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Libya. The book consists of a close analysis of the problematique of the Qur'an, showing the openness of the text to Islamic reform and renewal; the role of Islam in creating a specific form of communism in Albania and Kosova; the Chechen revolts against Russian rule after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the short-lived period of alliance between communism and Islam in the early 1920s; the history of alliances between British Muslims and socialists since the 1950s. The book also traces the evolution of the Muslim-Communist alliance during the twentieth century, analyses the driving forces behind it, looks at the new situation created by the democratic revolts of 2010-11 in the Middle East and attempts a prognosis for future relations between these and existing communist groups. This volume contributes to the debate over the aims and methods of these popular uprisings. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

Although Marx's writings on social transformation figured prominently in the global Left imagination for more than 150 years, by the late 20th century the relevance of Marxism was under question by both the Left (including Marxists) and the Right. Its revival in the second decade of the 21st century is finding new sources of inspiration and creativity from movements that believe that "another world is possible" through democratic, egalitarian, and ecological alternatives to capitalism built by ordinary people. The Marxism of many of these movements is not dogmatic or prescriptive, but open, searching, utopian. It revolves around four primary factors: the importance of democracy for an emancipatory project, the ecological limits of capitalism, the crisis of global capitalism, and the learning of lessons from the failures of Marxist-inspired experiments. This edited book introduces some contemporary approaches to Marxism. It shows how the 21st century has seen enormous creativity from movements that seek to overcome the weaknesses of the past by forging fundamentally new approaches to politics that draw inspiration from Marxism along with many other anticapitalist traditions such as feminism, ecology, anarchism, and indigenous traditions. Featuring leading thinkers from the Left, the book offers provocative ideas on interpreting our current world and will serve as an excellent reference book to introduce a new way of thinking about Marxism to students and scholars in the field.

Communism has cast a long shadow over Romania. The passage of little over a quarter of a century since the overthrow in December 1989 of Romania's last Communist leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, offers a symbolic standpoint from which to penetrate that shadow and to throw light upon the entire period of Communist rule in the country. An appropriate point of departure is the observation that Romania's trajectory as a Communist state within the Soviet bloc was unlike that of any other. That trajectory has its origins in the social structures, attitudes and policies in the pre-Communist period. The course of that trajectory is the subject of this inquiry.

First published in 1977. Ethics is the most practical branch of philosophy: its immediate concern is with people's actions. Yet most philosophers do little to relate ethics intelligibly to the human situation. In this inquiry into the nature of ethics, William Ash draws on the relevant works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin to present the theory and practice of Marxist ethics. He offers an explanation of the moral aspect of Marx's dictum: 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.' The book includes, perhaps for the first time in so considered a form, an assessment of Mao Tsetung's contribution to Marxist moral philosophy, together with the ethical implications of such developments in social practice as the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The author deals with the question of value by analysing the concept of 'good'; with the question of claims on people and things by analysing the concept of 'right'; with the question of the limits and scope of freedom of choice and action by analysing the concept of 'ought'.' Clearly written in order to 'de-mystify' the subject, the book challenges readers to test the author's enlightened, Marxist approach in terms of the ethical ordering of their own society.

Why did communism grow so quickly? Why did it spread to turn almost half of the world red by the mid-1970s? What impact did it have upon capitalism and capitalist society?

"Communism" is a concise introduction to one of the most important and influential movements of the 20th century. It shows how the modern communist movement emerged out of radical millenarian movements of the Middle Ages and the English Civil War, becoming a mass movement of industrial society, seeking to overturn capitalism and replace it with a society of equality, justice, harmony and co-operation. It traces the growth of modern communism from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to its position of global power at the end of the Second World War.

Mark Sandle investigates the ultimate failure of communism as a political ideology, and concludes by asking how far the historical record of communism has been used to conceal the historical record of capitalism.

Ideal for courses in both History and Politics.