Khrushchev and the Communist World, first published in 1984, reviews the Khrushchev era, when the legacy of the Stalinist past was partly repudiated and the possibilities of reform within the USSR and the countries of the socialist camp were explored. The lessons derived from this exploration by Bloc leaders and Khrushchev's successors unhappily led them to conclude that the scope for such reform was extremely limited. Many of Khrushchev's reforms and reorganisation measures were indeed rescinded, but the notion had been planted that the naked terror of Stalinist rule and direct, centralised command over other socialist states were no longer feasible. This book reviews the evidence for this view both in internal terms and also in foreign affairs.

First published in 1985, Thomas Sowell's book is a crisp, lucid and commonsensical introduction to Marx's own writings and to Marxist theory. It combines readability with intellectual rigour and distils more than a quarter of a century of Thomas Sowell's research and thought on the philosophical and economic doctrines of Karl Marx. Its central theme is that Marxian philosophy must be understood before Marxian economics can be defined. The book discusses Marx's ideas, including his philosophy of history, concept of capitalist "exploitation", morality and business cycle theory. The author's treatment is balanced, though often critical and displays a mastery of Marx's own writings which are liberally extracted throughout the text.

If we are serious about finding a different way to run the post-credit crunch society, we must start by introducing alternatives to undergraduates. Kieran Allen begins the task with an accessible and comprehensive look at the ideas of Karl Marx. Dispensing with the dryness of traditional explanations of Marx, Allen shows how Marx's ideas apply to modern society. The first section briefly outlines Marx's life and the development of his work, then goes on to clearly explain his key theories, including historical materialism and surplus value. The second section examines alternatives to capitalism, the concept of 'anti-capitalism' and provides concrete, contemporary examples of Marx's theories being put into practice in today's world.

This book explores the role of coercion in the relationship between the citizens and regimes of communist Eastern Europe. Looking in detail at Soviet collectivisation in 1928-34, the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and the Polish Solidarity Movement of 1980-84, it shows how the system excluded channels to enable popular grievances to be translated into collective opposition; how this lessened the amount of popular protest, affected the nature of such protest as did occur and entrenched the dominance of state over society.

Over the past few years, Marx's Capital has received renewed academic and popular attention. This volume is dedicated to the history of the making, the theoretical evaluation, and the analysis of the dissemination and reception of an almost unknown version of Capital: the French translation, published between 1872 and 1875, to which Marx participated directly. In revising this version, Marx decided to introduce some additions and modifications, not hesitating to describe in the postscript Le Capital as 'a scientific value independent of the original'. To mark the 150th anniversary of the French translation of Capital (1872-2022), 15 authors have helped to shed light on its history and main features, as well as analysing its later fortunes in France and in the rest of the world. They also provide a more exhaustive account of the ideas of the "late" Marx. The book also includes a previously unpublished selection of 31 letters from correspondence of Karl Marx, Maurice Lachatre, Just Vernouillet and Friedrich Engels related to the making of Le Capital. 10 of these letters by Marx were only recently rediscovered and are translated here for the first time in English. This book is an indispensable source for academic communities who are increasingly interested in rediscovering Marx beyond 20th century Marxism. Moreover, it will be of appeal to graduate students, as well as established scholars, interested in French socialism and the history of the labour movement.

Zhang Shenfu, a founder of the Chinese Communist party, participated in all the major political events in China for four decades following the Revolution of 1919. Yet Zhang had become a forgotten figure in China and the West--a victim of Mao's determined efforts to place himself at the center of China's revolution--until Vera Schwarcz began to meet with him in his home on Wang Fu Cang Lane in Beijing. Now Schwarcz brings Zhang to life through her poignant account of five years of conversations with him, a narrative that is interwoven with translations of his writings and testimony of his friends. Moving circuitously, Schwarcz reveals fragments of the often contradictory layers of Zhang's character: at once a champion of feminism and an ardent womanizer, a follower of Bertrand Russell who also admired Confucius, and a philosophically inclined political pragmatist. Schwarcz also meditates on the tension between historical events and personal memory, on the public amnesia enforced by governments and the "forgetfulness" of those who find rememberance too painful. Her book is not only a portrait of a remarkable personality but a corrective to received accounts and to the silences that abound in the official annals of the Chinese revolution.

According to Michel Henry, no thinker has been more influential than Marx, and no one has been more misunderstood. With his characteristic clarity and elegance, Henry seeks to pull out the philosophical heart of Marx's work and the reasons this complex philosophy has so often been simplified, distorted and obscured. Marx: An Introduction is not just a recovery of the theoretical centre of Marx's thinking, but also a brilliant introduction to the work of Marx in general; concise and punchy without glossing over the difficult material, it provides a totally fresh reading of Marx's corpus. Michel Henry shares with Marx a concern for the living work and the living individual and this shared preoccupation is brilliantly conveyed throughout the book. An essential read for those wrestling with Marx for the first time, and those looking for a new way to approach well-trodden territory.

This is the first scientific biography of Milan Rastislav Stefanik (1880-1919) that is focused on analysing the process of how he became the Slovak national hero. Although he is relatively unknown internationally, his contemporaries compared him "to Choderlos de Laclos for the use of military tactics in love affairs, to Lawrence of Arabia for vision, to Bonaparte for ambition ... and to one of apostles for conviction". He played the key role in founding an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 through his relentless worldwide travels during the First World War in order to create the Czechoslovak Army: he visited Serbia and Romania on the eve of invasion by the Central Powers, Russia before the February revolution, the United States after it declared war on Germany, Italy dealing with the consequences of defeat in the Caporetto battle, and again when Russia plunged into Civil War. Several historical methods are used to analyse the aforementioned central research question of this biography such as social capital to explain his rise in French society, the charismatic leader to understand how he convinced and won over a relatively large number of people; more traditional political, military, and diplomatic history to show his contribution to the founding of Czechoslovakia, and memory studies to analyse his extraordinary popularity in Slovakia. By mapping his intriguing life, the book will be of interest to scholars in a broad range of areas including history of Central Europe, especially Czechoslovakia, international relations, social history, French society at the beginning of the 20th century and biographical research.

During the last two centuries, ethnolinguistic nationalism has been the norm of nation building and state building in Central Europe. The number of recognized Slavic languages (in line with the normative political formula of language = nation = state) gradually tallied with the number of the Slavic nation-states, especially after the breakups of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. But in the current age of borderless cyberspace, regional and minority Slavic languages are freely standardized and used, even when state authorities disapprove. As a result, since the turn of the 19th century, the number of Slavic languages has varied widely, from a single Slavic language to as many as 40. Through the story of Slavic languages, this timely book illustrates that decisions on what counts as a language are neither permanent nor stable, arguing that the politics of language is the politics in Central Europe. The monograph will prove to be an essential resource for scholars of linguistics and politics in Central Europe.

Communist Propaganda at School is based on an analysis of reading primers from the Soviet bloc and recreates the world as presented to the youngest schoolchildren who started their education between 1949 and 1989 across the nine Eastern European countries. The author argues that those first textbooks, from their first to last pages, were heavily laden with communist propaganda, and that they share similar concepts, techniques and even contents, even if some national specificities can be observed. This volume reconstructs the image of the world presented to schoolchildren in the first books they were required to read in their school life, and argues that the image was charged with communist propaganda. The book is based on the analysis of over sixty reading primers from nine countries of the Soviet bloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia from the period. Written with simplicity and straightforwardness, this book will be a valuable resource, not only to international academics dealing with the issues of propaganda, censorship, education, childhood and everyday life under communism in Eastern and Central Europe, but can also academics dealing with education under communism or with the content of primary education. It also brings educational experiences of the Soviet bloc to international researchers, in particular to researchers of education under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

Public Libraries and Marxism provides a Marxist analytical framework for understanding public libraries and presents a set of proposals for transforming the capitalist libraries of today. Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of this Marxist framework, the authors also provide a critical examination of the history, theory and practice of libraries in the Soviet Union and North Korea. Considering what a Marxist library service would look like in the Western capitalist countries of today, Pateman and Pateman synthesise the insights provided throughout the book into a set of Marxist proposals designed to promote the transformation of contemporary Western public librarianship. These proposals suggest how Western public libraries can change their organisation and practices - their strategies, structures, systems and culture - in order to best serve those with the most needs, particularly as society evolves in response to new challenges. Public Libraries and Marxism will be relevant for scholars and students of library and information science, history, politics and sociology. Outlining the rudiments of a Marxist library service that should be applicable around the world, the book will also appeal to library practitioners who want to develop libraries in a community-led and needs-based direction.

Mistrusted and derided, instrumentalised and adored - the story of football in Tsarist and early Soviet Russia is as wild and intriguing as that of the country itself. In many ways it is the same story... Football in the Land of the Soviets offers a fresh perspective on a momentous chapter in modern political history. Carles Vinas shows how the Russian game was transformed in just a few decades: from a minor emigre pastime, to a modernising driver of society, to a vanguard for Soviet diplomacy and internationalism, and finally, with the first championship of the Soviet League in 1936, into a truly mass phenomenon. So exactly how did a bourgeois game end up as the collective passion of the Soviet working class? And why does it matter? Football in the Land of the Soviets brings these questions to the fore in this thrilling, unorthodox account of the fall of an imperial dynasty and the rise of the world's first socialist state.

'This expert guide to the political economy of Marx's Capital has always been the very best available' - David Harvey This brilliantly concise book is the classic companion to Karl Marx's most well-known work, Capital. In print now for over a quarter of a century, and translated into many languages, this new edition has been fully revised and updated, making it an ideal modern introduction to one of the most important texts in political and economic thought today. The authors cover all central aspects of Marx's economics. They explain the structure of Marx's analysis and the meaning of the key categories in Capital, showing the internal coherence of Marx's approach, and their relevance today. Marx's method and terminology are explored in detail, with supporting examples. Short chapters set out the significance of Marx's main concepts and can be grasped easily, making it a practical text for anyone with an interest in understanding Marx's magnum opus. Discussing Capital's relevance today, the authors keep abstract theorising to a minimum. This readable introduction highlights the continuing relevance of Marx's ideas in the light of the problems of contemporary capitalism.

For mainstream economics, cultural production raises no special questions: creative expression is to be harvested for wealth creation like any other form of labour. As Karl Marx saw it, however, capital is hostile to the arts because it cannot fully control the process of creativity. But while he saw the arts as marginal to capital accumulation, that was before the birth of the mass media. Engaging with the major issues in Marxist theory around art and capitalism, From Printing to Streaming traces how the logic of cultural capitalism evolved from the print age to digital times, tracking the development of printing, photography, sound recording, newsprint, advertising, film and broadcasting, exploring the peculiarities of each as commodities, and their recent transformation by digital technology, where everything melts into computer code. Showing how these developments have had profound implications for both cultural creation and consumption, Chanan offers a radical and comprehensive analysis of the commodification of artistic creation and the struggle to realise its potential in the digital age.

Hope lies in our richness, in the joy of our collective creativity. But that richness exists in the peculiar form of money. The fact that we relate to on another through money causes tremendous social pain and destruction and is dragging us through pandemics and war towards extinction. Richness against money: this battle will decide the future of humanity. If we cannot emancipate richness from money-capital-profit, there is probably no hope. Money seems invincible but the constant expansion of debt shows that its rule is fragile. The fictitious expansion of money through debt is driven by fear, fear of us, fear of the rabble. Money contains, but richness overflows. In this final part of his ground-breaking trilogy, John Holloway expertly fuses anti-capitalism and anti-identitarianism, and brings hope into the critique of political economy and revolutionary theory, challenging us to find hope within ourselves and channel it into a dignified, revolutionary rage.

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.

Shows that the communist system in science and higher education was created less by an intentionally-imposed Soviet model than by the pressures and agendas developed within communist societies to reshape science and learning in successive periods of upheaval and consolidation. The communist academic regime was considerably more complex and historically contingent than previously recognized, as the persistence of many of its features after the fall of communism demonstrates.

The latest archival research by an international team of scholars is brought together to produce the first comparative treatment of the periods of upheaval that shaped the rise and fall of the communist academic regime in Russia and East Central Europe. This volume sheds new light on the question of a Soviet model by examining how a particular Soviet system of science and higher education emerged, how it was exported and imported across varying local, national and international settings, and how key aspects of it outlived the political system that fostered it. The contemporary crises in science and higher education surrounding the demise of communism appear as a distinctive break from the patterns set into motion in the 1920s and 30s, but also as one more upheaval following a long line of previous reorderings throughout the 20th century that were conditioned by broader cataclysms in politics, society, ideology, and culture.

This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements. The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology, literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism and Soviet culture.

This book tells the story of the dissident imaginary of samizdat activists, the political culture they created, and the pivotal role that culture had in sustaining the resilience of the oppositional movement in Poland between 1976 and 1990. This unlicensed print culture has been seen as one of the most emblematic social worlds of dissent. Since the Cold War, the audacity of harnessing obsolete print technology known as samizdat to break the modern monopoly of information of the party-state has fascinated many, yet this book looks beyond the Cold War frame to reappraise its historical novelty and significance. What made that culture resilient and rewarding, this book argues, was the correspondence between certain set of ideas and media practices: namely, the form of samizdat social media, which both embodied and projected the prefigurative philosophy of political action, asserting that small forms of collective agency can have a transformative effect on public life here and now, and are uniquely capable of achieving a democratic new beginning. This prefigurative vision of the transition from communism had a fundamental impact on the broader oppositional movement. Yet, while both the rise of Solidarity and the breakthrough of 1989 seemed to do justice to that vision, both pivotal moments found samizdat social media activists making history that was not to their liking. Back in the day, their estrangement was overshadowed by the main axis of contention between the society and the state. Foregrounding the internal controversies they protagonized, this book adds nuance to our understanding of the broader legacy of dissent and its relevance for the networked protests of today.

'One the foremost writers and participants in the Kurdish women's movement' - Harsha Walia The Kurdish women's movement is at the heart of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the world today: Rojava. Forged over decades of struggle, most recently in the fight against ISIS, Rojava embodies a radical commitment to ecology, democracy and women's liberation. But while striking images of Kurdish women in military fatigues proliferate, a true understanding of the women's movement remains elusive. Taking apart the superficial and Orientalist frameworks that dominate, Dilar Dirik offers instead an empirically rich account of the women's movement in Kurdistan. Drawing on original research and ethnographic fieldwork, she surveys the movement's historical origins, ideological evolution, and political practice over the past forty years. Going beyond abstract ideas, Dirik locates the movement's culture and ideology in its concrete work for women's revolution in the here and now. Taking the reader from the guerrilla camps in the mountains to radical women's academies and self-organised refugee camps, readers around the world can engage with the revolution in Kurdistan, both theoretically and practically, as a vital touchstone in the wider struggle for a militant anti-fascist, anti-capitalist feminist internationalism.

This book expounds the dialectical conception of science largely implicit in the writings of Marx and Engels, offering a sympathetic reconstruction of a philosophy of science commensurate with Marx's thought. Drawing on a reading of dialectics found in Plato and Hegel, it recasts Marx's implicit ontology in terms of dialectical conceptions of the world, as these conceptions have responded to the growing sophistication of modern science. It thus deepens our understanding of materialist philosophy as it relates to science and draws out Marx's logic of science in light of continuing discussions. As such, it will appeal to philosophers with interests in the nature and development of science and Marxist thought.

The economic growth in East Asia has been believed to be the model case of the triumph of capitalism. Some progressive economists, for example, the developmental state theorists, also praised the East Asian model as the progressive alternative to neoliberal market fundamentalism, arguing that they are the outcomes of state-led development. However, with the sudden advent of the 'Lost Decade of Japan' in the 1990s, and the ensuing 'IMF Crisis' of South Korea in 1997, and now the imminent 'hard landing' of the Chinese economy, the East Asian miracle story is quickly becoming a thing of the past. East Asia has now become an epicentre of the contradictions and crisis of global capitalism. Today, deepening economic crises, exacerbation of social polarization, rising popular discontents, and escalating geopolitical tensions are common to China, Japan and Korea. Moreover, East Asia has been at the centre of global ecological contradictions. Indeed, East Asia has now become the typical place of Marxian macro-dynamics. ; This important and timely volume brings together experts in political economy from across the globe, to comment on the return of Marxian macro-dynamics in East Asia. The contributions explore macro-dynamics, the role of the state and hegemony in the context of transnational capitalism, and Marxian alternatives for East Asia.