Nine specialists from four continents address the following questions: is China moving toward the type of developmental state and sophisticated economic powerhouse associated with the East Asian miracle? does China's Leninist political system and the heritage of a state-run-heavy-industrial sector present too great a burden for successful transformation? and what is the likelihood that China's party-state will ultimately collapse in a fashion similar to the Leninist governments of Europe? The findings and analyses should prove interesting to followers of China, East Asia as a whole, and the European postcommunist transition.

"Marxism Beyond Marxism" is a collection of essays that critically rethinks Marxism at time when its practice and theory has been seemingly taken to task by the events in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Containing essays from a group of internationally distinguished writers and intellectuals, this collection addresses Marxism as a cultural-political problematic.
Contending that Marxism is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices, the contributors illuminate Marxism's contribution to discussions of labor in post-industrial capitalism, to controversies surrounding compulsory heterosexuality and queer theory, and to debates about the institutionalization and academicization of the "New" Left. In examining Marxism's relationship to cultural practices, the contributors make a vigorous and compelling case for Marxism's continued relevance. By combining a diversity of perspectives, these essays demonstrate that Marxism addresses urgent needs that are often foresaken by other political and ideological practices. They show how--now more than ever--Marxism's reaffirmation can serve as a sophisticated and cunning response to the latest global devlopments--and travesties.

"Marxism Beyond Marxism" is a collection of essays that critically rethinks Marxism at time when its practice and theory has been seemingly taken to task by the events in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Containing essays from a group of internationally distinguished writers and intellectuals, this collection addresses Marxism as a cultural-political problematic.
Contending that Marxism is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices, the contributors illuminate Marxism's contribution to discussions of labor in post-industrial capitalism, to controversies surrounding compulsory heterosexuality and queer theory, and to debates about the institutionalization and academicization of the "New" Left. In examining Marxism's relationship to cultural practices, the contributors make a vigorous and compelling case for Marxism's continued relevance. By combining a diversity of perspectives, these essays demonstrate that Marxism addresses urgent needs that are often foresaken by other political and ideological practices. They show how--now more than ever--Marxism's reaffirmation can serve as a sophisticated and cunning response to the latest global devlopments--and travesties.

"Essays, poems, songs, folkloric anecdotes and photographs celebrating the myth of Mao. ... The editor supplies an insightful, and cohesing introduction". -- Reference & Research Book News

"(A) highly entertaining and informative collection of translations of official, admiring, tacky, but sometimes also highly critical writings, and illustrations of objects, all featuring Mao. ... A must-have book for everybody interested in contemporary China, Mao, and his legacy now and in the future". -- China Information

The end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1945 brought not peace but renewed confrontation between Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party and Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang. The ensuing Civil War, at the threshold of the Cold War, held enormous significance for international strategic alliances, and in particular the interests of the United States in East Asia, and has been the subject of intense research and debate ever since. Joseph Yick's Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945-1949, based partly on the rich new sources available in the PRC since 1978, rethinks the traditional interpretations of the Chinese Communist Party's victory in 1949 and makes a major contribution to the historiography of this period.

The end of the Sino-Japanese War in 1945 brought not peace but renewed confrontation between Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party and Chiang Kaishek's Guomindang. The ensuing Civil War, at the threshold of the Cold War, held enormous significance for international strategic alliances, and in particular the interests of the United States in East Asia, and has been the subject of intense research and debate ever since. Joseph Yick's Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945-1949, based partly on the rich new sources available in the PRC since 1978, rethinks the traditional interpretations of the Chinese Communist Party's victory in 1949 and makes a major contribution to the historiography of this period.

Translated from the Russian in 1928, this and the second volume of the same title give an invaluable picture of what the Russian leader Joseph Stalin understood by Leninism. Building on the pamphlet Foundations of Leninism, (which forms the first part of this book) the work presents a unified and complete work on the problems of Leninism and socialist construction as they were manifested in the 1920s, as well as discussion of the October Revolution and the relationship of the USSR and the West in the years following the First World War.

This sequel to "Man and the Biosphere" is an account of the origins and development of a cultural, social energetic and systems theoretical contribution to critical Marxism. It examines: the intellectual contributions of the Russian philosophers, A.A. Bogdanov and A.I. Bukharin; Bogdanov's and Bukharin's contributions as a search for a unity of scientific knowledge; and a paradigmatic change from a closed mechanical system to an open systems paradigm.

This sequel to "Man and the Biosphere" is an account of the origins and development of a cultural, social energetic and systems theoretical contribution to critical Marxism. It examines: the intellectual contributions of the Russian philosophers, A.A. Bogdanov and A.I. Bukharin; Bogdanov's and Bukharin's contributions as a search for a unity of scientific knowledge; and a paradigmatic change from a closed mechanical system to an open systems paradigm.

This Element details how elites provide policy concessions when they face credible threats of revolution. Specifically, the authors discuss how the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent formation of Comintern enhanced elites' perceptions of revolutionary threat by affecting the capacity and motivation of labor movements as well as the elites' interpretation of information signals. These developments incentivized elites to provide policy concessions to urban workers, notably reduced working hours and expanded social transfer programs. The authors assess their argument by using original qualitative and quantitative data. First, they document changes in perceptions of revolutionary threat and strategic policy concessions in early inter-war Norway by using archival and other sources. Second, they code, for example, representatives at the 1919 Comintern meeting to proxy for credibility of domestic revolutionary threat in cross-national analysis. States facing greater threats expanded various social policies to a larger extent than other countries, and some of these differences persisted for decades.

Were the occupations of 2010-11 - from Spain to Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street - a success or failure? Are they the model for urban radical politics? This book challenges common understandings and underlying assumptions of what constitutes activism and resistance. It proposes a critical urban theory of politics and citizenship that is grounded in the city as it is inhabited. For those who are marginalized, the city is a double-edged sword of oppression and emancipation. This book argues for an intersectional approach that actively dismantles hierarchies and embraces a wider range of acts of resistance and creative transformation, one in which we recognize these acts of citizenship as a form of constitutionalism. Wood reframes the theorization of protest and of the city, 'post-political' literature and the history of protest, and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. Through this, she adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post-political thinking. This book will be valuable reading for those interested in political, urban and social geography, in addition to political economy and progressive politics in the urban context.

Originally published in 1984 this book reconsiders the effect of Lenin on the politics and culture of the 20th Century. In a detailed examination of Lenin's famous text, The State and Revolution, the author argues that the peculiar status of this work presents readers with major problems of interpretation and shows how a failure to identify these problems has prevented an adequate understanding of important issues in modern politics, history and social theory. The book compares Lenin's 'radical utopia' with the ideas of politics offered by other theorists, centrally Weber and Sartre, but also writers such as Jefferson and Habermas. This original approach shows the impact of Lenin's text on political history and theory and leads to a new understanding of the connection between revolution and violence, social change and authoritarianism.

Translated from the Russian in 1933, this and the first volume of the same title give an invaluable picture of what the Russian leader Joseph Stalin understood by Leninism. Building on the pamphlet Foundations of Leninism, (which forms the first part of this book) the work presents a unified and complete work on the problems of Leninism and socialist construction as they were manifested in the 1920s, as well as discussion of the October Revolution and the relationship of the USSR and the West in the years following the First World War.

In the voluminous secret history of the 1930s, one episode that still puzzles researchers is the death in 1937 of one of Stalin's key allies - his fellow Georgian, G.K. Ordzhonikidze. Whether he took his own life or, like Kirov, was murdered, the case of Ordzhonikidze intersects several long-debated problems in Soviet political history. What role did Politburo members play in decision making during the Stalin era? What formed the basis of Stalin's alliances? Were there conflicts between Stalin and his comrades and, if so, how far did they go? Was there in fact opposition to Stalin? These and other questions are addressed by one of Russia's best young historians whose pioneering work in previously closed party and government archives is refining our understanding of the political history of the Stalin era.

In the voluminous secret history of the 1930s, one episode that still puzzles researchers is the death in 1937 of one of Stalin's key allies - his fellow Georgian, G.K. Ordzhonikidze. Whether he took his own life or, like Kirov, was murdered, the case of Ordzhonikidze intersects several long-debated problems in Soviet political history. What role did Politburo members play in decision making during the Stalin era? What formed the basis of Stalin's alliances? Were there conflicts between Stalin and his comrades and, if so, how far did they go? Was there in fact opposition to Stalin? These and other questions are addressed by one of Russia's best young historians whose pioneering work in previously closed party and government archives is refining our understanding of the political history of the Stalin era.

Based on Party and state documents, Chinese newspaper reports and surveys, the Chinese and Western scholarly literature and the author's own fieldwork, this important study examines the private sector as a case study of the mechanics of reform in China, emphasizing the relationships among local officials, private businesses, and central policy. The book traces the growth of private business in China since 1978 and focuses on the interaction between private sector policy and other reforms and examines how this has affected China's political economy.

Based on Party and state documents, Chinese newspaper reports and surveys, the Chinese and Western scholarly literature and the author's own fieldwork, this important study examines the private sector as a case study of the mechanics of reform in China, emphasizing the relationships among local officials, private businesses, and central policy. The book traces the growth of private business in China since 1978 and focuses on the interaction between private sector policy and other reforms and examines how this has affected China's political economy.

Sidney Hook (1902-1989) was a philosopher, a college professor, America's leading disciple of John Dewey, and, during the 1930s, perhaps America's most significant explicator of Karl Marx. He was also for many years arguably the country's most astute and important anti-communist intellectual. This volume is the first devoted to his private letters. Selected from the voluminous collection of his papers at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University and spanning the years 1929 to 1987, the letters contain Hook's views on such subjects as war and peace, Marxism and communism, the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. Hook was a prolific letter writer, and he corresponded with a great variety of individuals. Some were strangers who had written to him concerning an article or book review he had just published, others were prominent intellectuals - among them Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to name just a few - and still others were public officials. Hook saw himself, above all, as a teacher, and as a teacher he felt it his duty to discuss with anyone who would listen his conception of the obligations of democratic citizenship. Hook had enormous faith in the power of education and reason and in the soundness of America's democratic institutions and values. That faith is reflected in these letters.

The Kuczynskis were a German-Jewish family of active anti-fascists who worked assiduously to combat the rise of Nazism before and during the course of the Second World War. This book focuses on the family of Robert and his wife Berta - both born two decades before the end of the nineteenth century - and their six children, five of whom became communists and one who worked as a Soviet agent. The parents, and later their children, rejected and rebelled against their comfortable bourgeois heritage and devoted their lives to the overthrow of privilege and class society. They chose to do this in a Germany that was rapidly moving in the opposite direction. With the rise of German nationalism and then Hitler fascism, the family was confronted with stark choices and, as a result of making these choices, suffered persecution and exile. Revealing how these experiences shaped their outlook and perception of events, this book documents the story of the Kuczynskis for the first time in the English language and is a fascinating biographical portrait of a unique and radical family.

These essays present fresh insights into the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from its founding in 1920 to its assumption of state power in 1949. They draw upon considerable archival resources which have recently become available.

New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution brings together the work of a new, international generation of students of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history. Exploiting new sources made available in China in the 1980s, some chapters in this book bring new events and areas into the study of the CCP. Other chapters provide detailed analyses on the basis of new evidence of long-standing problems in the history of the CCP, such as the rise of Mao Zedong. Yet others are significant because they offer new explanatory frameworks for understanding CCP history, such as the importance of Yanan as symbolic capital. New issues are brought up, such as the role of women, internal CCP terror, the use of opium sales to sustain the Yanan economy, and the great difficulty of controlling mass peasant movements once mobilized. The most important contribution of the volume is to show that the old explanations of the CCP's success - peasant support, organizational strength, the supply of administrative services - are incomplete and do not account for the diverse and heterogeneous nature of the CCP and the great difficulties it had in building up mass support. This volume makes clear that the question of the CCP's success remains one of the most elusive but also most important that historians of China face today.

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was one of the most brilliant and passionate minds drawn to the revolutionary socialist movement. An outstanding social and economic theorist of the twentieth century, and a dedicated political activist, she proved willing to go to prison and even give her life for her beliefs. Providing an extensive overview of her writings, this volume contains a number of items never before anthologized. Her work was broad in scope tackling capitalism and socialism; globalization and imperialism; history; war and peace; social struggles, trade unions, political parties; class, gender, race; the interconnection of humanity with the natural environment. The editors provide an extensive and informative introduction outlining and evaluating her life and thought. This is the best introduction to the range of Rosa Luxemburg's thought.

The end of the cold war and the fall of the Soviet empire have had major consequences for Italian politics. Leonard Weinberg explores some of those consequences, focusing on the transformation of the Italian Communist party from a Leninist to a democratic party. He also discusses the relationship between the end of communism and the unfolding of the entire Italian system.

"The Transformation of Italian Communism "has two objectives. First, it calls the reader's attention to the role of international developments, an important but largely overlooked area involved in the study of European party politics. Traditional texts in this area emphasize domestic factors, but Weinberg focuses on the influence of international developments on domestic party politics in Italy. The implications for other nations are transparent.

The second objective of this work is to examine how Italy's Communist party, the largest such party of its kind in the Western world, reacted to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Weinberg analyzes the meaning of these events for long-tune party members in Italy'as well as for Italian political and cultural life. "The Transformation of Italian Communism "offers an original, intimate, and unique assessment of how the end of the cold war has affected Italian political culture. It will be a valuable addition to those interested in the convulsions taking place in modem Italy, as well as to political scientists and theorists of political culture.

"Whither Marxism" considers the fate of Marxism after the global collapse of communism. This collection, the companion volume to Jacques Derrida's "Specters of Marx", reassesses Marx as a philosopher and political thinker and examines the wider questions about the current status of Marxist social goals. What is living and what is dead in Marxism? Has the collapse of communism also spelled the death of Marxism and of Marx as an important political thinker? Have we reached "the end of history" as Frances Fukayama has argued, where pluralistic democracies and capitalist economies reign supreme? Given the plight of the homeless, the lack of adequate health care, environmental degradation, racism and enormous national debt burdens, what sort of a model for the future do we have? "Whither Marxism?" raises these questions in an international and interdisciplinary context. It brings leading scholars from North America and Western Europe into conversation with scholars from former communist countries who lived through and often participated in these transformations.

Millenarian Bolshevism had its origins in a debate between positivist and idealist Marxists at the turn of the 20th Century. This book, originally published in 1987, charts the development of Millenarian Bolshevism by studying the careers of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky and analyzing their relations with Lenin, Gorky and other left Bolsheviks. In discussing their relationship with Lenin, the author maintains that the millenarian Bolsheviks gave expression to the voluntarist, idealist spirit which was inherent in the program and organization of Bolshevism and which provided the philosophy of Soviet socialist idealism.