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The Syrian Enigma: What Is the Baath?
“A few weeks before the Israeli-Arab conflict last June, an uncharitable commentator compared the Baath to Samson. Blinded and weakened like the Biblical hero, he wrote, the party in power in Syria was doing its best to pull down the pillars of the temple which would kill it. . . .” read more
The Marxism of Regis Debray
“As we go to press, Régis Debray is about to stand trial in Bolivia. The military authorities who claim to try him have announced him in advance ‘guilty’ of the fabricated charges against him. The story of his arrest, torture and imprisonment when on a journalistic mission to . . .” read more
Trotsky’s Marxism
“For many years, Trotsky was an impossible subject for a Marxist. The struggle in the Bolshevik Party in the twenties produced such a violent polarization of his image within the international working-class movement that all rational discussion of his person and works ceased. The anathema pronounced by Stalin . . .” read more
Marxist Political Theory in Britain
“In the last few years an important current of Marxist thought has emerged in Great Britain. The editorial committee of New Left Review, particularly Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn, have undertaken a political study of the structures of British society in a number of articles, which include Anderson’s . . .” read more
Introduction to Poulantzas
“In this issue, we are publishing an essay by Nicos Poulantzas, a young Greek philosopher working in Paris, on the analysis of English history and society pursued by Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson in New Left Review, and contested by Edward Thompson in The Socialist Register, in the . . .” read more
Second Thoughts on Ghana
“The interest of ‘Ghana: End of an Illusion’ far transcends its immediate subject. In reality it exposes two ‘illusions’: on the one hand, the absence of lucidity and consistency in the anti-imperialist and ‘socialist’ strategy applied by the Ghanaian political leadership under Nkrumah; on the other, the willing . . .” read more
Indian Realities
“The world seems suddenly to have woken up to the fact that India is in a mess—because it has been extremely badly governed. British liberals and socialists have been among the chief perpetrators of the myths that India is a democracy and that the forces of democracy are . . .” read more
Inequality and Exploitation
“Britain remains a country where the concentration of wealth is still one of the highest in the world. This is a fact that has significance for all societies of the capitalist type. After all, Britain has had one of the strongest Labour movements of any advanced capitalist country. . . .” read more
Bolivia
“The inauguration of René Barrientos Ortuño as the ‘constitutional’ president of Bolivia on August 6th, 1966 represented the consolidation of military rule in that unfortunate land-locked Andean republic. More important than the mere consolidation of military rule, however, was the armed forces’ ability to move away from outright . . .” read more
Labour and the City: The Predictable Crisis
“At one point in their lives Labour Party spokesmen must have repeated their criticisms of ‘Stop-Go’ even in their sleep. Yet, on July 20th, 1966 Wilson announced the most savage set of deflationary measures since the war. How did this great repudiation come about?” read more
Socialism, Democracy and the State
“Few problems have been more fiercely debated on the left than that of democracy in a socialist state—and few are so lacking in studies in depth. In a book that appeared in France last year a group of dissident members of the French Communist Party under the pseudonym . . .” read more
Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism
“In a voice choking with anger, Edward Thompson has denounced the historical and theoretical work on British society developed in this review. In twenty years of public life, no other group or individual has earned the kind of unprovoked attack he has launched over some fifty pages of . . .” read more
Guilt by Association
“For many years, the Iranian Secret Police have been angered by vocal opposition to the régime on the part of students in Europe. Recently, a golden opportunity came their way to intimidate dissident students by threatening them with the firing squad when they returned home. In April last . . .” read more
The Trap of an Incomes Policy
“When the Labour Party came to power last year, it was widely believed in the Labour movement that this was the beginning of a long period of socialist construction. Planning would replace the anarchy of the market and Britain would be forced to the left, both by the . . .” read more
Post-Liberal-Democracy?
“It is quite generally thought to be commendable, but only marginally worth-while, for a political theorist to devote any great attention to economic assumptions, much less to economic theory. The general separatist trend of political science is quite understandable. As political science becomes a more confident, more developed, . . .” read more
Latin America: The Long March
“The following notes are the outcome of a long period spent in South America, side by side with revolutionary militants of every kind. I have attempted to understand these men and the beliefs which move them, on the spot—where I knew them: in Venezuela in the guerilla front . . .” read more
The Ghanaian Road
“Dennis Austin’s recent study of post-war Ghanaian politics, fruit of long residence and activity in Ghana and rich in narrative excitement, deserves a two-fold attention. It is by far the most informed account we have or are likely to have of this exemplary decolonization; and it utterly and . . .” read more
Labour Imperialism
“Unique among governments of the Left, the Labour Government has done more than fail its friends: it has even disappointed its enemies. Disillusion over its foreign policy is almost universal. The liberal opponents of socialism have been criticizing its inert conservatism for some time; now even the pillars . . .” read more
The New Nation-States
“The ‘Third World’ is that vast region, stretching over parts of three continents, which has left behind the past but not yet arrived in the present; which belongs neither to the capitalist camp nor to the communist, but feels the pull of both; which is staring about it . . .” read more
Ethiopia
“The successful overthrow of Abboud’s long-standing military despotism in the Sudan in late 1964 was a major victory for revolutionary forces everywhere in Africa. It transformed, almost overnight, the prospects of the Congolese National Liberation Army—rendering impossible a consolidation of counter-revolution in the Congo. At the same time, . . .” read more
The Left in the Fifties
“For a decade in Britain, under Conservative rule, there was a recognizable and active Left. Now at last there is a Labour Government. But there is no longer, in the same sense, a Left. This paradox must be the starting-point of any consideration of the tasks confronting socialists . . .” read more
The Nature of the Labour Party (Part II)
“What is the main justification of Labourism, put forward by socialists at its birth and still advanced by its apologists? What is the cry that rings out at every Labour Party Conference, to repress all serious dissent and maintain the incredible system intact? That Labourism attains the unity . . .” read more
The Limits of the Welfare State
“Social welfare or the social services, operating through agencies, institutions and programs outside the private market, are becoming more difficult to define in any society with any precision. As societies become more complex and specialized, so do systems of social welfare. Functionally, they reflect and respond to the . . .” read more
The Nature of the Labour Party (Part I)
“The British Labour Party is obviously one of the greatest political forces of the capitalist world. With its six million and more members, it is by far the largest of social-democratic parties. The twelve million votes cast in its favour at the last General Election were the votes . . .” read more
Critique of Wilsonism
“The relatively stable equilibrium, which defined British politics and society for a decade, has now broken down. The crisis of the traditional English hegemonic class, under whose rule British capitalism has in recent years so visibly declined, threatens the long supremacy of the Conservative Party. It would be . . .” read more
Capitalism without Classes?
“The years since the early 1950’s have echoed with the claim that the old class structure of capitalism is steadily dissolving. The labels attached to that new order of society which is believed to be emerging from the ruins of the old—the ‘welfare state’, the ‘affluent society’, the . . .” read more
One-Dimensional Man
“The thesis of Herbert Marcuse’s book One-Dimensional Man is as follows. When dialectical rationality was first brought to bear on the historical process in the early 19th century it was clear, to any one who was prepared to look at the facts, that there existed an identifiable body . . .” read more
Political Process and Economic Development in Brazil (Part I)
“In the last 40 years, the people of Brazil have broken stifling traditional constraints on their life, and have begun to develop their productive forces, to renovate their social institutions and to frame innumerable projects for the mastery of their own future. As they turn away from the . . .” read more
Pensions, Equality and Socialism
“Discussions and proposals about pensions seem to increase in number and complexity. But for socialists the criterion by which the effectiveness of any set of proposals is to be judged would, at first sight, appear to be a simple one. Our society is characterized by gross inequalities in . . .” read more
Who Buries Whom?
“Six months ago, the Spectator prematurely ran an obituary of New Left Review. . . . Fittingly, the Spectator’s recent metamorphosis, after a period of declining sales, has seen the funeral of its distinctive brand of fellow-travelling Conservatism, petty-radical demagogy, and Cold War cultural klatsch. The times have . . .” read more
Guyana
“‘100 Years Under British Rule rather than one year under Jagan’, a slogan waved aloft by the Opposition to the People’s Progressive Party in British Guiana, gives a keyhole look at what is behind the conflict in the small South American Colony seeking independence. The United Force, representing . . .” read more
Three Currents in Communism
“Hegel says somewhere that any party is real only when it becomes divided. The idea, far from being a paradox, is simple and profound in its dialectical realism. Any political movement (or any philosophical school of thought) as it grows and develops cannot help unfolding the contradictions inherent . . .” read more
The British Political Elite
“Class-divided societies have almost always been governed politically by a small minority. In general, this chosen few is a small group even in relation to the ‘ruling class’ itself, in the Marxist sense, the class which possesses or controls the economic wealth of society through the institutions of . . .” read more
Imperialist 'Anti-Imperialism'
“Paul Johnson’s article in The New Statesman of December 13th threatens to destroy, with a torrent of unemotional logic, the illusions that we cherish: illusions about ‘peace’, about ‘socialism’ and about ‘imperialism’. Let us look at the ‘realities’ of ‘imperialism’ with Johnson. He illuminates us twice. First, about . . .” read more
Origins of the Present Crisis
“Two commanding facts confront socialists in Britain today, dominating this moment of our history. British society is in the throes of a profound, pervasive but cryptic crisis, undramatic in appearance, but ubiquitous in its reverberations. As its immediate result, a Labour government seems imminent. So much everyone agrees. . . .” read more
Planning or Prediction?
“Peter Hall’s book, London 2000, is a useful corrective to a good deal of loose thinking about “planning”, if only because it states, with great gusto and conviction, a point of view that sharply contradicts theories that have been accepted uncritically for many years. If Peter Hall has . . .” read more
What is Fascism?
“The first volume of what promises to be by far the most rigorous and methodologically exciting analysis of Italian Fascism yet to have appeared has recently come out in France: Robert Paris’ Histoire du Fascisme en Italie. Showing complete familiarity with the mass of published material on the . . .” read more