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On the Political Economy of the Socialist Transformation
“There are many questions which refuse a reassuring answer. This is no less true within socialist theory. The issue of whether socialists and Marxists should work within the Labour Party has preoccupied the British Left throughout this century. The Social Democratic Federation decided to disaffiliate in the early . . .” read more
Socialists and the Crisis of Labourism
“British politics today no longer lags behind economics. Hitherto, the hundred-year decline of British capitalism’s relative strength in the world economy, so often analysed, so rarely even temporarily checked, has been accompanied by a relative stability of the country’s political system. Of the major imperialist powers, only two . . .” read more
The Peace Movement and European Socialism
“A movement for peace and disarmament has exploded in Europe in these last months that has stupefied even those—like ourselves—who believed from the start in the possibility of building one, and worked to bring it about. There are many reasons for that stupor. First of all, there is . . .” read more
The SPD and the Peace Movement
“In our dialogue with the spd do their members accept that such phenomena as the arms race, the dire impoverishment of half mankind and the global ecological crisis, all of which are linked by a multiplicity of factors that may well have their roots in a common . . .” read more
Poland: Economic Collapse and Socialist Renewal
“Since August 1980 the Polish economy has turned from modest decline to catastrophic collapse, characterized by drastic falls in income and standards of living, endemic shortages, inflation, external imbalance and effective default on foreign debt, underutilization of capital and labour, and the disintegration of central control. Against this . . .” read more
The USSR and the Arms Race
“In face of what Edward Thompson has called the ‘present war crisis’, we welcome the invitation from our comrades in the peace movements and anti-nuclear campaigns of Western Europe to join in a cooperative project of dialogue and action. We want to reassure them that despite the barriers . . .” read more
Labourism and the Transition to Socialism
“In New Left Review 126 Michael Rustin analysed the constitutional changes currently taking place in the Labour Party and suggested that they contained at least the potential for the transformation of that party into a serious vehicle for socialist advance. Though he was very critical of the narrowness . . .” read more
Marxism, Structuralism and Literary Analysis
“Recent events in Cambridge, of which some of you may have heard, have persuaded me to bring forward some material which I was preparing for a course of five lectures in the autumn. Because the material was originally conceived on that scale, the prospect for this crowded hour . . .” read more
Solihull: Death of a Car Factory
“Nationally and internationally the motor industry has been catastrophically affected by the present recession. There have been massive layoffs, plant closures and redundancies with little resistance by the workforce. In Britain in the late sixties and early seventies, the workers at British Leyland were considered very militant and . . .” read more
The New Right’s Road to Power
“The worst nightmares of the American left appear to have come true. Like the beast of the apocalypse, Reaganism has slouched out of the Sunbelt, devouring liberal senators and Great Society programmes in its path. With the fortieth President’s popularity-rating soaring above eighty percent (partially thanks to an . . .” read more
The British Crisis--Can the Left Win?
“We are all learning from the crisis of the British economy, not only about how the economy itself works but also about the links between this and the politics of our society. We certainly need to learn if we are to make an effective political response. For the . . .” read more
Sociology, Liberalism and the Radical Right
“Ronald Reagan is the first American president of the twentieth century whose political origins do not lie in the broad consensual centre of American politics. Only time will tell whether Reagan will remain true to his oft-expressed conservative beliefs or whether, for the sake of political peace, his . . .” read more
The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism
“The intention of Marxism is to provide a theoretical foundation for interpreting the world in order to change it. This is not an empty slogan. It has—or ought to have—a very precise meaning. It means that Marxism seeks a particular kind of knowledge, one which is uniquely capable . . .” read more
'Teachers, Writers, Celebrities': Intelligentsias and Their Histories
“The appearance of Regis Debray’s Le Pouvoir intellectuel en France was a major cultural event in France. Critical reaction was instant and passionate; the book was soon a talking-point and—on a scale appropriate to a book of its kind—a best-seller. But if the public evidence pointed straightforwardly to . . .” read more
Different Conceptions of Party: Labour’s Constitutional Debates
“The Constitution of the Labour Party has for some years been the chosen terrain for an intensifying battle between left and right, over the issues of mandatory reselection of mp’s by their constituency parties, the determination of the party’s election manifesto, and the method of electing the . . .” read more
The Tragedy of the Turkish Left
“For twenty years, from 1960 to 1980, the Turkish left struggled to match its remarkable militancy, and not inconsiderable support, to the realities of its country and its time. Ultimately, socialists were able to garner 3 per cent of the national vote in 1979, a disappointing figure. Today . . .” read more
Looking Forward: History and the Future
“The annual lectures of which this is the first are intended to commemorate David Glass. He was my friend, and the friend of others in this room who don’t need this occasion to recall him in the presence of his inseparable partner, Ruth Glass. He was also one . . .” read more
The Politics of the Austrian 'Miracle'
“On 1 March 1970, the Austrian Social-Democratic Party (spö) won its first parliamentary majority. Under Bruno Kreisky’s leadership it strengthened its position in three successive elections and on 6 May 1979 set an international record for social democratic parties by winning 51.03 per cent of the vote. . . .” read more
Why the US Working Class Is Different
“In 1828—as Karl Marx once reminded his readers—a group of Philadelphia artisans organized the first ‘Labour Party’ in world history. Now, one hundred and fifty years later, a television news camera depicts a group of modern Philadelphia workers arguing in their local tavern over the candidates in the . . .” read more
Social Democracy as a Historical Phenomenon
“Not to repeat past mistakes: the sudden resurgence of a sympathetic interest in Social Democracy is a response to the urgent need to draw lessons from the history of the socialist movement. After several decades of analyses worthy of an ostrich, some rudimentary facts are finally being admitted. . . .” read more
Class Struggles in El Salvador
“The military coup in El Salvador of October 15th 1979 provoked a new and remarkable twist in the bloody social conflicts which have wracked this Central American republic. The former dictator, General Humberto Romero, was replaced by a junta which proclaimed the need for sweeping reforms and which . . .” read more
Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilization
“Comrades, we need a cogent theoretical and class analysis of the present war crisis. Yes. But to structure an analysis in a consecutive rational manner may be, at the same time, to impose a consequential rationality upon the object of analysis. What if the object is irrational? What . . .” read more
The New Left and the Present Crisis
“This paper is a reflection on the present condition of the Left, and on its recent history. It is meant to address our current situation, and indeed to suggest action, but I have not found it possible to do this without thinking about previous initiatives of the earlier . . .” read more
British Marxist Historians 1880-1980 (Part I)
“Marxism is often discussed, both by its partisans and its critics, as though it was a closed system which, once elaborated, could be said to exist more or less independently of historical time. Marx and Engels’ own texts are given a privileged status, and even when there is . . .” read more
The War and Revolution in Afghanistan
“The dramatic events in Afghanistan at the end of 1979, with the intervention of Russian forces and the fall of President Hafizullah Amin, come within two years of the uprising of April 1978, through which the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan gained state power. Whilst no-one can predict . . .” read more
Nicos Poulantzas: 'State, Power, Socialism'
“The unexpected and tragic death of Nicos Poulantzas, in Paris, in October of this year has robbed Marxist theory and the socialist movement of one of its most distinguished comrades. Though only 43 at his death, he had already established for himself a just reputation as a theoretician . . .” read more
The Problem of Reformism and Marx’s Theory of Fetishism
“The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between two apparently contradictory elements in Marx’s thought; namely, his belief that proletarian revolutionary consciousness will develop in a relatively straightforward way under capitalism, and his argument, in his later economic writings, that the fetishised nature of capitalist . . .” read more
Problems and Prospects of the Soviet Economy
“It has become customary on both right and far left to stress the weaknesses of the Soviet economy. The French book market is well stocked with works such as Emmanuel Todd’s La Chute finale, picturing the USSR as a land where nothing works and everything disintegrates. Senator Jackson’s . . .” read more
The Fine Arts after Modernism
“The London art community is very like a gymnasium. Every time you enter into discourse with your colleagues you first have to take a look around and see what posture everyone is adopting today. The collapse of the central, modernist consensus has led to exceptional enthusiasm among those . . .” read more
The Politics of Austro-Marxism
“Today Austro-Marxism is experiencing a certain renaissance, after being forgotten for several decades. Nor is this renewed interest confined to the German-speaking world, where the writings of Otto Bauer, Max Adler and Karl Renner have been reprinted, let alone simply Austria, where the Social-Democratic leaders now appeal more . . .” read more
From Man of Honour to Entrepreneur: The Evolution of the Mafia
“The conclusion reached by sociological research on the subject of the mafia can probably be said to consist in the claim that the mafia—in the commonly accepted meaning of the term—does not exist: ‘. . . most people, particularly those outside Italy, have a fairly precise image of . . .” read more
An Address on German Democracy to the Citizens of New York
“You are surprised, ladies and gentlemen, at much of what you have heard from West Germany of late; and because you would like to know how things stand with regard to liberty and social control, to the democratic rule of law, and police repression in that part of . . .” read more
Russia under Brezhnev
“When Khruschev fell in 1964 it was widely believed in the West that the rule of his successors Brezhnev and Kosygin would be a short one—an interlude in the political development of Soviet society. Isaac Deutscher, for example, thought that it was likely to prove little more than . . .” read more
The Fall of Somoza
“The first decades of the 20th century saw the transformation of Nicaragua into one of the so-called banana republics of Central America; though it was not so much banana companies who took charge of the country’s political and economic destiny, as United States wood and mining interests. As . . .” read more
The Pessimistic Materialism of Giacomo Leopardi
“Giacomo Leopardi was born at Ricanati (a town of the Marches) in 1798, the off-spring of a reactionary and clerical family of the minor nobility (the Marches belonged to the Papal States, even though at the time of Leopardi’s birth its lands were occupied by the French). He . . .” read more
The Political Economy of Turkish Democracy
“Turkey occupies a highly distinctive position within the third world. Never colonized, the country inherited a rich political tradition from its imperial predecessor. Before ‘liberation struggle’ became the order of the day, its leaders were proclaiming a secular republic within a nation state constructed much along the lines . . .” read more
The Travail of Latin American Democracy
“The shifting complexity of Latin American politics baffles the observer, frustrates the theoretician and challenges both the committed endurance and the tactical subtlety of the revolutionary. Continent of military coups and dictators—but also of (male) bourgeois democracies as old or even older than some West European or North . . .” read more
Revolution in Afghanistan
“On 27 April 1978 the world heard that there had been a successful military coup in Afghanistan. The régime headed by Mohammad Daud, which had itself come to power through a coup in July 1973, had been suddenly overthrown by tanks and jet planes that struck in the . . .” read more
Ideology and Class Politics: A Critique of Ernesto Laclau
“Ernesto Laclau’s Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory contains four interconnected, but relatively self-contained essays. Two of these had already been published, indeed had been quite influential. Laclau’s critique of Gunder Frank’s theory of underdevelopment, and especially of his definition of capitalism in market rather than production terms, . . .” read more
In Search of Sadat
“‘I, Anwar el-Sadat, a peasant born and brought up on the banks of the Nile—where man first witnessed the dawn of time—present this book to readers everywhere.’ The tone of voice is lofty. The gaze that seems, in the cover photograph, to be both inward to some hidden . . .” read more
The Russian Revolution and the West
“You have now completed ‘A History of Soviet Russia’, which covers the years from 1917 to 1929 in fourteen volumes, and commands the whole field of studies of the early experience of the ussr. In the widest historical retrospect, how do you judge the significance of the . . .” read more
Kollontai and the History of Women’s Oppression
“Between April and June 1921, on the eve of the Third Congress of the Communist International, Alexandra Kollontai delivered fourteen lectures at Sverdlov University on Women’s Labour in the Evolution of the Economy. These were intended for women workers and peasants who were either members or close sympathizers . . .” read more
Eurocommunism, Socialism and Democracy
“As is well known, a reassessment of the relationship between Democracy and Socialism lies at the heart of Eurocommunism’s theoretical aggiornamento, underpinning the strategy of ‘democratic roads’ to socialism and the conception of a ‘State of advanced democracy’. This reassessment, which is explicitly presented as a revision of . . .” read more
Liberality and Order: The Criticism of John Bayley
“Few English literary critics command more respect than John Bayley, Warton Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford. The author of six full-length critical studies, as well as of numerous articles and reviews, Bayley has not only become established as a revered figure within the literary . . .” read more
Problems of Materialism
“There are inevitable difficulties in any serious materialism. In its earliest phases it has a comparative simplicity of definition, since it rests on a rejection of presumptive hypotheses of non-material or metaphysical prime causes, and defines its own categories in terms of demonstrable physical investigations. Yet such definitions . . .” read more
On the Nature of the Soviet State
“The sixtieth anniversary of the Russian revolution was celebrated this year. It was also the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed, which analysed the Soviet Union as a degenerate workers’ state. Many historic events have occurred during the past four decades. We have seen . . .” read more
Political Power and Dissent in Post-Revolutionary Societies
“The question of political power in post-revolutionary societies is and remains one of the most neglected areas of Marxist theory. Marx formulated the principle of the abolition of ‘political power properly so-called’ in no uncertain terms: ‘The organization of revolutionary elements as a class supposes the existence of . . .” read more