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.

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.

The black insurgence movement and experiments in Caribbean socialism, following the work of the committed revolutionary CLR James, have resounding significance for the political struggles of today. This book addresses class struggle and the battle against racialized capitalism, which in turn makes us reconceptualize the idea of revolution, liberation and rebellion by focusing on this great revolutionary theorist. Renowned political theorist Drucilla Cornell argues that the universal heartbeat of the struggle for socialism is a new praxis of being human together beyond the exploitation of colonial-racial capitalism. On this basis, this book's intervention emphasizes the continuous history of revolution, rather than understanding revolutions as "events" that either succeed or fail. In today's moment, with the simultaneity of the collapse of the post-Cold War neoliberal order and climate change, the struggle over what it means to be human on the planet today has taken on a new urgency. Cornell argues that today, the greatest vectors of this revolutionary struggle for a new humanity are Black, decolonial, and queer movements, as they show us ways of being beyond the reign of white economic man. Placing the insights of these struggles in conversation with "traditional" Marxist thought, this book speaks to the pragmatic questions of insurrection, insurgency, rebellion, revolution in a way that speaks to the politics of our time.

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.

This book renews the Marxian theory of the general equivalent by highlighting the contradiction between the social functions of money (unit of account, means of circulation) and its private functions (store of value, accumulation). It draws a clear distinction between the monetary base and the commodity base of money and thus avoids the confusion between money and credit on the one hand, and money and capital on the other, which are found in other heterodox monetary theories. It accounts for the new forms of monetary constraints weighing on the banking systems under and inconvertible fiat money standard, the class relationships underlying the interventions of monetary authorities and governments, and presents a definition of the state which emphasises its mode of intervention on the collective and social conditions of capitalisms which are money and labour power. The emphasis on the contradiction between these two types of monetary functions gives a more fundamental account of the conflict between the international role and the national origin of the dollar than the Triffin dilemma, which has been constantly overcome or deferred by the US since 1960. The author explains this evolution by demonstrating how, from the 1950s onwards, the dollar began a process of acquiring relative autonomy from the US economy. By focusing on the role and international functions of the dollar, he offers a fresh look at the 2008 crisis and its consequences for the international monetary system, but also for a possible post-capitalist financial system - which post-revolutionary Russia experimented with in the form of the NEP, and whose contemporary implementation is foreshadowed by the rise of digital central bank currencies. The book thereby provides a necessary update to the tools and concepts inherited from Marx for analysing and understanding money, capital and the state.

'Enlightening ... Funny, smart, original and provocative ... It is hard to imagine the stalwarts of Mock the Week recognising the Druze militia leader Walid Jumblatt in a London cinema' NEW STATESMAN 'Few standups have come close to capturing a fraction of this creative energy in a book ... Alexei Sayle is an exception' GUARDIAN "What I brought to comedy was an authentic working-class voice plus a threat of genuine violence - nobody in Monty Python looked like a hard case who'd kick your head in." In 1971, comedians on the working men's club circuit imagined that they would be free to continue telling their tired, racist, misogynistic gags forever. But their nemesis, a nineteen-year-old Marxist art student, was slowly coming to meet them... Thatcher Stole My Trousers chronicles a time when comedy and politics united in electrifying ways. Recounting the founding of the Comedy Store, the Comic Strip and the Young Ones, and Alexei's friendships with the comedians who - like him - would soon become household names, this is a unique and beguiling blend of social history and memoir. Fascinating, funny, angry and entertaining, it is a story of class and comedy, politics and love, fast cars and why it's difficult to foul a dwarf in a game of football.

This book is a documentary record of the statements and debates that defined the formative period of a movement that has affected modern politics and history more than any other. It is generally acknowledged that not only were the theoretical problems faced by Russian Marxists during this period more complex than those encountered elsewhere but that they also brought to the resolution of these problems an originality and intellectual rigour second to none in the Marxist tradition. As predominantly a movement of intellectuals during these years they achieved a level of articulation and sophistication unsurpassed in the literature of Marxism, and that makes them such a rewarding subject of study. Plekhanov, Akselrod, Lenin, Struve, Martov, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Kautsky all feature in both celebrated and little-known texts alongside anonymous pamphleteers and writers of resolutions, editorials, flysheets and programmes.

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.

The series, Mao's Road to Power, consisting of translations of Mao Zedong's writings from 1912 to 1949, provides abundant documentation in his own words on his life and thought as well as on developments in China during the pre-1949 period. This penultimate volume in the series, Volume 9, covers the period from the Japanese Surrender through the Chinese Communist Party's Strategic Defense during the Civil War, August 1945 to June 1947.

Paul Froelich was a key figure in the formative years of German Communism. From a working-class family, he was active in the Social Democratic Party from the late 1890s, a left radical opposed to the First World War, and a founder member of the German Communist Party (KPD). His previously unpublished memoir, only recently discovered, casts valuable new light on a key period, particularly the intervention by the Communist International that led to the disastrous 'March action' of 1921.

This book makes a theoretical contribution to animal rights issues from a Marxist perspective. Drawing on ethics, politics and philosophy, it focuses on how to create a social formation that will improve animal welfare. Further, the book enables the readers to grasp current theoretical debates on animal welfare and to gain insight into theoretical and practical perspectives in dealing with the animal issues. The volume will be of great interest to scholars of politics and political philosophy, especially Marxism, and animal rights activists.

Communism as a political movement attained global importance after the Bolsheviks toppled the Russian Czar in 1917. After that time the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, especially the influential "Communist Manifesto (1848)", enjoyed an international audience. The world was to learn a new political vocabulary peppered with 'socialism', 'capitalism', 'the working class', 'the bourgeoisie', 'labor theory of value', 'alienation', 'economic determinism', 'dialectical materialism', and 'historical materialism'. Marx's economic analysis of history has been a powerful legacy, the effects of which continue to be felt world-wide. Serving as the foundation for Marx's indictment of capitalism is his extraordinary work titled "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts", written in 1844 but published nearly a century later. Here Marx offers his theory of human nature and an analysis of emerging capitalism's degenerative impact on man's sense of self and his creative potential. What is man's true nature? How did capitalism gain such a foothold on Western society? What is alienation and how does it threaten to undermine the proletariat? These and other vital questions are addressed as the youthful Marx sets forth his first detailed assessment of the human condition.

The book The Magical Lantern is a collection of essays on Marxist philosophy. It is based on the philosophical reflection on Marx's idea of phantasmagoria as the 'magical lantern' that creates eerie images, an idea that is central to Marx's theory of modern capitalist societies. It talks of the importance of Marx's philosophy and its application in concrete politics, especially in creating socialist humanist philosophy of human emancipation where global societies can be emancipated from the phantasmagorias that haunt them, thus able to transcend global capitalism which is in terminal and permanent crisis. It then critiques the rise of authoritarian regimes emerging all over the world and seeks to explain the rise of global totalitarianism. But it claims that the answer to authoritarianism is not liberalism since liberalism is part of the late imperialism in permanent crisis as well as it involves what Slavoj Zizek calls the Denkverbot ('the prohibition against thinking') and thus involves the return of the eerie phantasmagoria that does not allow critical thinking. However, the critique of liberalism does not relapse into orthodox Marxism, since this book argues that in the genre of orthodox Marxism the ghosts of Stalin and Mao with their own authoritarianism haunt philosophies of human emancipation. While Stalin is portrayed as a brutal counter-revolutionary who destroyed Marxism by evoking Marxism itself, Mao is presented as the alchemist of the revolution and a peculiar form of Stalinism in rebellion against Stalinism itself! The chapters in this book were originally published in Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory.

First published in 1933, Nationalism in the Soviet Union aims at presenting the mentality of the Soviet citizen, of the Communist 'theology,' and the way in which it tried to make its peace with the 'theology' of nationalism that dominated the world. The author uses the term 'theology' intentionally for he argues that both the Soviet Union and the Western civilization are based on the same idea: the secularization of the Biblical faith in world history as a single comprehensive conception; their methods, however, are radically different. The Soviet Union's understanding and use of nationalism provides deep insight into the nature of nationalism while proving the well-known truth that the emotional appeal of nationalism overrides all other forms of loyalties. Both a personal account and a political note, this book will be of interest to students of political science, international relations, history, geography, and philosophy.

This volume examines how numerous international transfers, circulations, and exchanges shaped the world of socialism during the Cold War. Over the course of half a century, the Soviets shaped politics, values and material culture throughout the vast space of Eurasia, and foreign forces in turn often influenced Soviet policies and society. The result was the distinct and interconnected world of socialism, or the Socialist Second World. Drawing on previously unavailable archival sources and cutting-edge insights from "New Cold War" and transnational histories, the twelve contributors to this volume focus on diverse cultural and social forms of this global socialist exchange: the cults of communist leaders, literature, cinema, television, music, architecture, youth festivals, and cultural diplomacy. The book's contributors seek to understand the forces that enabled and impeded the cultural consolidation of the Socialist Second World. The efforts of those who created this world, and the limitations on what they could do, remain key to understanding both the outcomes of the Cold War and a recent legacy that continues to shape lives, cultures and policies in post-communist states today.

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 provides a comprehensive account of the structure, conduct, and performance of the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe, the USSR, Communist China and the Marxist LDCs, looking at 26 nations in all. The author focuses on reform, perhaps the most important issue facing countries such as the USSR, Poland, Hungary, and China. Bureaucracy, soft budget constraints, markets, and the nature of the socialist state are the central issues that arise in the course of reforming a socialist economy. The first half of the book deals with 'classical socialism' and provides a theoretical summary of the main features of a now closed period of history. The second half deals with the processes of reform and concludes that the reform of classical socialist systems is doomed to failure as they are unable to renew themselves internally.

This book aims to restore Marx's original emancipatory idea of socialism, conceived as an association of free individuals centered on working people's self- emancipation after the demise of capitalism. Marxist scholar Paresh Chattopadhyay argues that, Marx's (and Engels's) ideas have been deliberately warped with misinterpretation not only by those who resent these ideas but more consequentially by those who have come to power under the banner of Marx, calling themselves communists. This book challenges those who have inaccurately revised Marx's ideas justify their own pursuit of political power.

From Discrimination to Death studies the process of genocide through the human rights violations that occur during genocide. Using individual testimonies and in-depth field research from the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide, this book demonstrates that a pattern of specific escalating human rights abuses takes place in genocide. Offering an analysis of all these particular human rights as they are violated in genocide, the author intricately brings together genocide studies and human rights, demonstrating how the 'crime of crimes' and the human rights law regime correlate. The book applies the pattern of rights violations to the Rohingya Genocide, revealing that this pattern could have been used to prevent the violence against the Rohingya, before advocating for a greater role for human rights oversight bodies in genocide prevention. The pattern ascertained through the research in this book offers a resource for governments and human rights practitioners as a mid-stream indicator for genocide prevention. It can also be used by lawyers and judges in genocide trials to help determine whether genocide took place. Undergraduate and postgraduate students, particularly of genocide studies, will also greatly benefit from this book.

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.

This book was the first English-language history of Poland from the Second World War until the fall of Communism. Using a wide range of Polish archives and unpublished sources in Moscow and Washington, Tony Kemp-Welch integrates the Cold War history of diplomacy and inter-state relations with the study of domestic opposition and social movements. His key themes encompass political, social and economic history; the Communist movement and its relations with the Soviet Union; and the broader East-West context with particular attention to US policies. The book concludes with a first-hand account of how Solidarity formed the world's first post-Communist government in 1989 as the Polish people demonstrated what can be achieved by civic courage against apparently insuperable geo-strategic obstacles. This compelling new account will be essential reading for anyone interested in Polish history, the Communist movement and the course of the Cold War.

In The Longing for Total Revolution: Philosophic Sources of Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche (1986), the eminent intellectual historian and political theorist Bernard Yack offered a sweeping reinterpretation of modern thought. Yack argued that Rousseau prompted a line of philosophy that continued through Kant, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche, which viewed the essential spirit of modernity as dehumanizing, and therefore implied, in a matter that became increasingly clear over time, that a total revolution against modernity is necessary. In this volume, seven political theorists and historians, including Yack himself, reconsider the book's substantive and methodological innovations, its limitations, and its current relevance. Contributors to the volume discuss, inter alia, left Kantianism in historical context, the theological origins of the longing for total revolution, the question of whether the tradition identified by Yack is connected to twentieth-century totalitarianism, and the unique form of critical genealogy pioneered by Yack's book. The volume concludes with Yack's response to the other contributors' chapters. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Critical Review.

This book makes an original contribution to Russia-EU literature by analyzing constructions and trans-formations of the Russian 'Self' in relation to the European "Other". It provides an orientation towards understanding Russian foreign policy discourse under Putin and offers a thorough analysis of the actions of key policy actors to ground the Russian discourse ideationally, historically, psychologically, and politico-sociologically. Providing a rich analysis of how Russian foreign policy toward the EU evolved from cooperation to competition and ultimately conflict, the author argues that to understand these changes and continuities we must explore concepts of sovereignty and balance of power central to the drafting of Russian foreign policy. Primarily situated in the fields of International Relations and Russian foreign policy, this book will also be of interest to scholars in the fields of Foreign Policy Analysis, Post-Soviet Studies, Eurasian Studies, Historical International Relations, Critical Security Studies, Political Sociology, and Political Psychology.

This book is the first study of the mentality of anti-Communist underground fighters and presents, especially, their thinking, ideals, stereotypes and customs. The models and psychological processes that the volume analyses are relevant not only to the Polish partisans, but also to members of other underground organisations, in East-Central Europe, South America and Asia. It explores how the underground organizations were created, who joined them and why, what thoughts and emotions were involved, and what were the consequences of the decisions to join them. Experiences and situations are illustrated with excerpts of diaries and memoirs which reveal the thinking of people in extreme situations, when their lives are in danger, when they are caught in desperate conflicts, or are fighting against overwhelming government forces. The Mentality of Partisans is useful for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in the history of Europe, resistance movements, anticommunism, military and political conflicts, World War Two and non-classical historiography.