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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Marxism & Communism
This study explores the history of the "new school" that developed
in the immediate postwar period and its role in communicating
antifascism to young people in the Soviet zone. Blessing traces how
the decisions about how to educate young people after twelve years
of a National Socialist dictatorship became part of a broader
discussion about the future of the German nation.
No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of
major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in
German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and
Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over
literature and art during these years are assembled in a single
volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a continuous,
interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of
twentieth-century intellectual history.
Karl Marxs CAPITAL Introductory Essay By A. D. LINDSAY Master of
Balliol College, Oxford LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS HUMPHREY
MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMEN HOUSE, E. G. 4 LONDON
EDINBURGH GLASGOW LEIPZIG NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPETOWN
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI HUMPHREY MILFORD PUBLISHER TO THE
UNIVERSITY Impression of First edition, 1925 Printed in Great
Britain PREFACE I OWE much in the preparation of this book to Mr.
Beers Karl Marx, Sein Leben und Seine Lehre, and to Mr. G. W.
Portuss Marx and Modern Thought, published for the Workers
Educational Association in Australia. How much I have been helped
in Chapters III and IV by M. Elie Halevys La Formation du
Radicalisms Philosophique will be evident to all who know that
great work. Though I differ widely from Mr. H. W. B. Joseph, I have
been greatly helped by his demonstration in Karl Marxs Theory of
Value of the indefensibility of doctrines often ascribed to Marx.
But above all I wish to acknowledge my debt, for their discussion
and criticism, to those to whom the lectures from which this book
has been made were first delivered the Glasgow audiences meeting
under the auspices of the Independent Labour Party and the Workers
Educational Association and in par ticular to Mr. John McLure and
to Mr. D. Kennedy of the Glasgow Independent Labour Party. My
references throughout are to the English translation of Marxs
Capital, but in the quotations from Marx I have in many passages
made my own corrections in that translation. A. D. L. BALLIOL
COLLEGE, OXFORD. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 I. Marx and Hegel 15 II.
Economic Determinism . . .27 III. The Labour Theory of Value . - S3
IV. Marxs account of Surplus Value and of theCollective Labourer .
. .81 V. Marx and Rousseau . . . .109 INDEX 126 INTRODUCTION THIS
small book is intended, as were the lectures in which it first took
form, to be an introduction to the study of Marxs Capital. It is
not meant to be a substitute for such study. It is the fate of all
great books tp get bcdleA-down and served up cold in text-books,
which purport to tell exactly what the great book comes to, as
though a mans conclusions were worth very much apart from the way
in which he arrived at them. We must all have had the experience,
after reading even appreciative books about great authors, of going
back to the authors themselves and finding how much more there is
in them than their commentators lead us to expect. Marxs Capital is
obviously a book of historical importance, and any one who reads it
impartially will find it greater and far more illuminating than
most critics of Marx would like us, or most Marxian writers allow
us to believe. There are two ways in which it is indefensible to
treat a great book, ways which seem nevertheless to characterize
much of what is said of Marx in this country the way of uncritical
condemnation and the way. of uncritical praise. There are some
books on Marx in which are collected all his inconsistencies and
nothing else, as though there was nothing in Marx but
inconsistencies. Such books give the impression that Marx was one
of the most muddle-headed, idiots that ever lived. On the other
hand, some of his interpreters seem to have given up the belief in
the verbal insgiratipn of scripture for the belief in the verbal
inspiration of Capital and try to maintain that there are no
inconsistencies in Marx at all. 2535 61 B io Introduction Wemight
surely be prepared, without having read a word of Marx, to reject
both these extreme views. Mere inconsistent thinking has never made
history as Capital has made it. But no man who has brought about a
great revolution in thought has ever been without inconsistencies.
The original thinker is too much occupied in trying to express the
creative thought which is welling up in him to trouble himself
about getting it all straightened out. There are always parts of
his work which he has taken over as they stood from other people...
The demise of the French Communist Party (PCF) has been a recurrent
feature of overviews of the Left in France for the past two
decades, and yet the Communists survive. This study examines the
factors that undermined the position of the PCF as the premier
party of France, but also highlights the challenges that the party
faces in a society disillusioned with politics, and the new
strategies that it is developing in order to revive its
fortunes.
This book investigates the Communist political phenomenon,
including the origins and development of Communism as well as the
revolutions that led to the rise of the major Communist states
around the world. Written for high school students, undergraduates,
and general readers, this book surveys the global rise of
Communism. It begins with a timeline and narrative overview, which
are followed by reference entries, primary source documents, and
original argumentative essays on enduring issues related to
Communism. The book first covers the earliest phases of the
"Utopian Socialist" movement and the beginnings of Marxist theory.
It then discusses the Russian Revolution of 1917; the creation of
the Soviet Union; the regime of terror instituted by Stalin; the
expansion of Communism during the years of the Cold War,
particularly in Asia; and the Cuban Revolution and the regime of
Fidel Castro. It also discusses the progression toward revolution
among the European Satellite countries as it included the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956, the Czech revolution of 1968, and the multiple
revolutions from 1989-1991 that saw the collapse of the Soviet
system and the Cold War. Includes a timeline to help students
identify key events related to the rise of Communism and their
relation to one another Examines the rise of Communism around the
world, its causes, and its significance in a narrative overview
Provides fundamental information about key topics through
alphabetically arranged reference entries Presents primary source
historical documents to give students first-hand accounts of the
development of Communist thought and its legacy Offers original
argumentative essays to help students critically consider major
issues and debates related to Communism
First published in 1990. The individual's obligation to obey the
law, the state and the government is a fundamental part of
contemporary political theory. The contributors to this volume,
drawn from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, political
science and law, take a fresh look at the dilemmas of political
obligation. They discuss the extent to which we should allow the
need for conformity to override individual liberties, and ask
whether individualism is indeed feasible without a highly developed
sense of the 'public interest' or the 'common good'. The contrast
between individualism and communitarianism is examined throughout
the book. The contributors also look at the various means through
which the state can coerce or persuade the individual to be
obedient. The emphasis throughout this collection is on the
substantive problems themselves, rather than on the way these
issues have been addressed in the history of political thought. The
book offers a number of different perspectives on political
obligation, and will be valuable to students of moral, political,
social and legal philosophy.
This book examines the construction, dissemination, and reception
of the Stalin cult in East Germany from the end of World War II to
the building of the Berlin Wall. By exporting Stalin's cult to the
Eastern bloc, Moscow aspired to symbolically unite the communist
states in an imagined cult community pivoting around the Soviet
leader. Based on Russian and German archives, this work analyzes
the emergence of the Stalin cult's transnational dimension. On one
hand, it looks at how Soviet representations of power were
transferred and adapted in the former "enemy's" country. On the
other hand, it reconstructs "spaces of agency" where different
agents and generations interpreted, manipulated, and used the
Stalin cult to negotiate social identities and everyday life. This
study reveals both the dynamics of Stalinism as a political system
after the Cold War began and the foundations of modern politics
through mass mobilization, emotional bonding, and social
engineering in Soviet-style societies. As an integral part of the
global history of communism, this book opens up a comparative,
entangled perspective on the ways in which veneration of Stalin and
other nationalistic cults were established in socialist states
across Europe and beyond.
Henryk Grossman is best-known as a Marxist economist, but he also
wrote valuable political interventions from his various positions
within the workers' movement-first as a leader of the revolutionary
organization of Jewish workers in the Polish province of Austria
before the First World War, then as a member of the Communist
Workers Party of Poland during the early 1920s, and later as a
Marxist academic during the early 1930s. These writings deal with
the political situation, tactics and strategy for the Jewish Social
Democratic Party of Galicia, the initial reception of Marxism in
Poland, and include substantial reflections on the left wing
movements, organizations, and leading individuals of his time. This
is the second volume in a substantial multi-volume reference work
collecting and translating all of Grossman's writings.
Very little has been written on the political implications of
diverse accounts of "virtue, "vice," and "moral character," and
even less has been offered on this subject from any identifiably
leftist perspective. This book begins by demonstrating the
plausibility of a "Marxist ethics" in general; the author then
proceeds to work out an understanding of moral character itself and
its role in living a "good life," based on a historical materialist
philosophical anthropology. This leads to an analysis of which
character traits should be considered virtues and vices, and what
would count as a successful or unsuccessful moral education, within
the context of contemporary North American society. The text
concludes by focusing on the problems associated with identifying
real-life, useful exemplifications of such virtuous and vicious
character.
A first hand account of a society mobilized from below at a
critical time in its history How the Workers' Parliaments Saved the
Cuban Revolution brings us to the heart of one of the most
precarious and transformational moments in Cuba's evolution. As the
Soviet Union fell to pieces in the 1990s, Cuba managed to evade the
fate of its primary trading ally. How was this possible, especially
as Cuba endured relentless attacks from the capitalist behemoth
directly to its north? As the GDP plunged by over a third, and the
Cuban people endured brutal food shortages- a time of crisis known
as the "Special Period"- the country embarked upon a remarkable
collective effort to cope with its dire circumstances and escaped
the starvation, disease, death, and violence that often plague poor
countries facing similar conditions. Not only did Cuba manage to
evade collapse, it maintained its high life expectancy, low infant
mortality, and universal access to health and education, preserving
many of the gains of the revolution. At the center of this
collective effort were lifelong revolutionaries like Pedro Ross,
construction worker, literacy educator, and labor activist. As head
of Cuba's labor federation throughout the "Special Period," Ross
developed a nationwide series of "Labor Parliaments" which turned
the country into an immense school of economics and politics. Over
a 45-day span in 1993, women's rights activists, farmers'
organizations, youth movements, and academic associations came
together for tens of thousands of meetings, successfully restored
the production cycle, and ultimately revolutionized nearly every
aspect of life in Cuba. Singularly positioned to write this seminal
account of those days, Ross has given us a rare, moving,
on-the-ground account of a society mobilized from below,
buttressing the Revolution when it was under maximum stress.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value is the fourth volume of his
monumental Das Kapital (Capital). Divided into three parts, this
lengthy work reviews classic economic analyses of labour and value
(Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and others), focusing on the concept of
"surplus value" - the difference between the full value of a
worker's labour and the wages received for this labour. This is a
key concept for Marx since in his view the capitalist maintains
power through controlling surplus value.
Communism Unwrapped is a collection of essays that unwraps the
complex world of consumption under communism in postwar Eastern
Europe, featuring new work by both American and European scholars
writing from variety of disciplinary perspectives. The result is a
fresh look at everyday life under communism that explores the ways
people shopped, ate, drank, smoked, cooked, acquired, exchanged and
assessed goods. These phenomena, the editors argue, were central to
the way that communism was lived and experienced in its widely
varied contexts in the region. Consumption pervaded everyday life
far more than most other political and social phenomena. From
design, to production, to retail sales and black market exchange,
Communism Unwrapped follows communist goods from producer to
consumer, tracing their circuitous routes. In the communist world
this journey was rife with its own meanings, shaped by the special
political and social circumstances of these societies. In examining
consumption behind the Iron Curtain, this volume builds on a new
field of study. It brings dimension and nuance to our understanding
of the communist period and a new perspective to our current
analyses of consumerism.
What is socialist feminism and why is it needed to fight the global
rise of authoritarianism and fascism? Frieda Afary brings the
insights gained through her study of feminist philosophy, her
international activism and her work in community education as a
public librarian in Los Angeles, offering a bold new vision of an
alternative to capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism and
alienation. Socialist Feminism: A New Approach reclaims theories of
women's oppression through a return to humanism, enriched by social
reproduction theories, Black feminist intersectionality,
abolitionism, queer theories, Marxist-Humanism and the author's own
experiences as an Iranian American feminist, scholar and activist.
She looks at global developments in gender relations since the
1980s, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the distinct features
of twenty-first century authoritarianism and current struggles
against it, drawing out lessons for revolutionary theorising,
organising and international solidarity including the #MeToo and
Black Lives Matter movements. This book also contains a study guide
which transforms it into a useful pedagogical tool for teachers and
activists.
With the recent revival of Karl Marx's theory, a general interest
in reading Capital has also increased. But Capital - Marx's
foundational nineteenth century work on political economy - is by
no means considered an easily understood text. Central concepts
such as abstract labor, the value form, or the fetishism of
commodities, can seem opaque to us as first time readers, and the
prospect of comprehending Marx's thought can be truly daunting.
Until, that is, we pick up Michael Heinrich's How to Read Marx's
Capital. Paragraph by paragraph, Heinrich provides extensive
commentary and lucid explanations of questions and quandaries that
arise when encountering Marx's original text. Suddenly, such
seemingly gnarly chapters as "The Labor Process and the
Valorization Process" and "Money or the Circulation of Capital"
become refreshingly clear, as Heinrich explains just what we need
to keep in mind when reading such a complex text. Deploying
multiple appendices referring to other pertinent writings by Marx,
Heinrich reveals what is relevant about Capital, and why we need to
engage with it today. How to Read Marx's Capital provides an
illuminating and indispensable guide to sorting through cultural
detritus of a world whose political and economic systems are
simultaneously imploding and exploding.
Presented here is an overview of the recent scholarship on the sub-
and counter-culture aspects of the Communist movement. The articles
cover Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and
Finland, spanning the entire history of Communism, from the 1920s
to the 1980s. Such issues as ethnic organizations, cadre formation,
the Communist scouts movement, party families, and Communist
fiction are explored. Themes discussed include gender, ethnicity,
generation, local milieu, and the role of intellectuals.
The postcommunist countries were amongst the most fervent and
committed adopters of neoliberal economic reforms. Not only did
they manage to overcome the anticipated domestic opposition to
'shock therapy' and Washington Consensus reforms, but many
fulfilled the membership requirements of the European Union and
even adopted avant-garde neoliberal reforms like the flat tax and
pension privatization. Neoliberalism in the postcommunist countries
went farther and lasted longer than expected, but why? Unlike
pre-existing theories based on domestic political-economic
struggles, this book focuses on the imperatives of re-insertion
into the international economy. Appel and Orenstein show how
countries engaged in 'competitive signaling', enacting reforms in
order to attract foreign investment. This signaling process
explains the endurance and intensification of neoliberal reform in
these countries for almost two decades, from 1989-2008, and its
decline thereafter, when inflows of capital into the region
suddenly dried up. This book will interest students of political
economy and Eastern European and Eurasian politics.
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.
This book deals with six trials, conducted by the Romanian state
against Jewish key officials employed in state-owned import-export
companies between 1950 and 1960. It begins with a presentation of
the political realities of Romania following the Communist Party's
rise to power, in particular those regarding its relationship with
Romania's Jews and Gheorghiu-Dej's policy of National Communism.
Rozenberg describes the criminal procedure used in the staged
economic trials follows and then examines this procedure based on
the legal system of the period, as exemplified by the six analyzed
trials. The Romanoexport Jewish officials' trial is analyzed in
depth, as the case study of the whole book. This book concludes by
bringing to light two phenomena that dissipate some mystique
surrounding the events: first, the state's practice of using its
legal system as a means of oppressing the population; and second,
the stereotypical image of "The Jew" which the regime in Romania
developed. Despite its supposed anti-religiosity, it held on to
centuries-old prejudices against Jews as pariahs, with supposed
allegiance to foreign elements preferred over their surrounding
society, even to the point of betraying and exploiting their own
country.
When American teacher June Mudan traveled to China in 2000 to teach
at a Chinese university, her goals were simple: to experience a new
culture and to help the Chinese people learn English. Over a year
later, she returned to the United States with much more, including
well-kept dark secrets of control, horror and death told to her by
a fellow Chinese teacher. "In The Dragon's Teeth "relates these
dark secrets lurking in China's past and becomes significant when
grim details are revealed about the Chinese Laogai, the name for
the system of labor and re-education camps throughout China. June's
teacher/friend had been a political prisoner in various camps and
experienced many atrocities, the sharing of which had a powerful
impact on the author's perceptions of China.
In America, we have become tantalized by the "Chinese Dragon"
and especially its low-priced wares, but "In The Dragon's Teeth
"provides the evidence that we need to become mindful of its sharp,
vicious teeth and how they were used to maim and kill perhaps 50
million Chinese citizens.
You have heard of the Nazi Holocaust and the Russian Gulag, now
you will know about the Chinese Laogai, which needs to take its
place in the annals of human atrocities.
The French Communist Party has traditionally been identified with
the urban working class but paradoxically its position as France's
main left-wing party was dependent upon support from the
countryside. "Communism in Rural France" explores for the first
time the party's complex and often misunderstood relationship with
agricultural labourers.During 1936 and 1937 a bitter struggle
between agricultural workers and farmers swept through parts of the
French countryside. Coinciding with the urban 'social explosion'
which followed the victory of the Popular Front government, the
strikes, farm occupations and increased unionisation panicked
farmers and shocked right-wing opinion, which blamed the spread of
the 'corrupting' collectivist influences of urban society into the
countryside on the French Communist Party."Communism in Rural
France" traces the evolution and characteristics of the
agricultural workers' movement from the turn of the 20th century
through the inter-war years, as well as the response of the
government and the resistance organised by farmers during 1936-37.
By focussing on agricultural workers, John Bulaitis sheds light on
a section of the rural population that has been generally
overlooked in French rural and labour history. "Communism in Rural
France" explores their relationship with the French Communist Party
and illuminates an important and previously neglected aspect of
European politics.
Russian conservatism is making a forceful return after a century of
experimenting with socialism and liberalism. Conservatism is about
managing change by ensuring that modernization evolves organically
by building on the past. Conservatism has a natural attraction for
Russia as its thousand-year long history is largely characterized
by revolutionary change - the destructive process of uprooting the
past to give way to modernity. Navigating towards gradual and
organic modernization has been a key struggle ever since the
Mongols invaded in the early 13th century and decoupled Russia from
Europe and the arteries of international trade. Russian history has
consisted of avoiding revolutions that are either caused by falling
behind on modernization or making great leaps forward that disrupts
socio-economic and political traditions. Russian conservatives are
now tasked with harmonizing the conservative ideas of the 19th
century with the revolutionary changes that shaped Russia in the
20th century. The rise of Asia now provides new opportunities as it
enables Russia to overcome its fixation on the West and develop a
unique Russian path towards modernization that harmonizes its
Eurasian geography and history.
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