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The Afghan Crisis

“How is the Soviet government explaining its actions in Afghanistan to the Soviet people and to what extent is it possible to agree with this explanation?” read more

Beyond Actually Existing Socialism

“‘Communism is not only necessary, it is also possible.’ The quiet words carry a major historical irony. For what has now to be proved, before an informed and sceptical audience, is indeed possibility. And this not only in the reckoning of strategic or tactical chances, which in these . . .” 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

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

Literature of Revolution

“Are we sensible enough of all the sources of our own literary heritage? The question is suggested to me by some of the writings of the young Trotsky. Upon reading them, it is quickly evident, even from the accessible fraction of a much larger output belonging to the . . .” 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

Bukharin’s Last Years

“The beginning of 1936 did not yet seem to presage any tragedy, either for Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin or for our country as a whole. It is true that Kirov’s assassination, and a number of closed political trials, at one of which Zinoviev and Kamenev were sentenced to long . . .” read more

Introduction to Medvedev

“Nikolai Bukharin, despite the extent of his published work (much of which has now become available in English), and despite a full-scale biography (something which does not exist for most leading Bolsheviks), remains a curiously elusive and paradoxical figure. A prominent Left Bolshevik until 1921, by 1923 he . . .” read more

Towards a Democratic Socialism

“The question of socialism and democracy, of the democratic road to socialism, is today posed with reference to two historical experiences, which in a way serve as examples of the twin limits or dangers to be avoided: the traditional social-democratic experience, as illustrated in a number of West . . .” 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

The Alternative in Eastern Europe

“I would like to start by discussing my book’s point of departure and purpose. Its original title was ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Socialism as it Actually Exists’—perhaps somewhat old-fashioned. Now this is simply the subtitle. It is deliberately reminiscent of Marx’s celebrated analysis of social formations, . . .” read more

USSR: Democratic Alternatives

“The Soviet dissidents arriving in growing numbers in Western Europe give us a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts, concerns and aspirations of a section of the Soviet intelligentsia. Of course, it would be wrong to draw sweeping conclusions from these exiles regarding the state of mind of all . . .” read more

The History of Russia Under Stalin

“Roy Medvedev’s Let History Judge is a unique document, providing a moving account of events in the ussr during the Stalin era by someone who, even if he did not experience everything he recounts directly, nevertheless lived through it all. Thus, the most immediately striking feature of . . .” read more

Stalin, Lenin and 'Leninism'

“It has been rightly said that the relationship between Lenin and Stalin ‘is certainly one of the most complex problems that has to be faced’ in studying Soviet history and analysing Stalinism. However, the principal difficulty is not in understanding how deep the differences are between Lenin’s conceptions . . .” read more

Althusser and Stalinism

“The purpose of the following article and its sequel (which will appear in nlr 103) is simply to add a further exploratory contribution, once again partial and full of gaps, to my long-standing research on the genesis of contemporary Marxism. Apart from obvious personal limitations, which naturally . . .” read more

Introduction to Sartre

“Jean-Paul Sartre’s Critique de la Raison Dialectique appeared in France in 1960. It was entitled Volume i—‘A Theory of Practical Ensembles’. Its object was the abstract relationships between individuals, groups, series and collectives which Sartre called the ‘formal elements of any history’, in a world dominated by . . .” read more

'Socialism in One Country'

“I shall concentrate on a single, contemporary example: the emergence in the ussr of the ideological monstrosity of ‘socialism in one country’. A critical investigation will show: 1. that the slogan was a product of conflicts within the leadership; 2. that beyond these conflicts, the slogan represented . . .” read more

Moscow Winter 1934

“We had arranged to meet on the boat and travel together. I was part of an Intourist package to see the November celebrations in Red Square and Desmond was to give a series of lectures in the University of Moscow. We thought that we would somehow wangle for . . .” read more

Intellectual Opposition in the USSR

“In ‘The Autocracy is Wavering’, written in 1903, Lenin observed that ‘there is no more precarious moment for a government in a revolutionary period than the beginning of concessions, the beginning of vacillation.’ The Soviet hierarchy is, of course, perfectly well aware of the dangers of ‘vacillation’. Yet, . . .” read more

Lukacs and Stalinism

“We shall tell them that we do your bidding and rule in your name . . . That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to lie.” read more

Bettelheim and Soviet Experience

“In the preface to Les Luttes de Classes en URSS 1917–1923, Charles Bettelheim notes that he has been studying the ussr for some forty years; and that until some time after the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956, he saw no reason, as he puts it, why the . . .” read more

What Lies Ahead for Us?

“The Letter to Soviet Leaders that Solzhenitsyn has recently published is a disappointing document. But it is not difficult to argue with Solzhenitsyn on this occasion, so absurd are many of his propositions. Nevertheless, however great one’s first sense of disagreement and disappointment with Solzhenitsyn’s utopian and incompetent . . .” read more

Solzhenitsyn, Stalinism and the October Revolution

“The Gulag Archipelago testifies to a threefold tragedy. First, the tragedy of the Stalinist purges that struck at millions of Soviet citizens, among them the majority of the old cadres of the Bolshevik party, who were innocent of the crimes they were charged with. Second, the tragedy of . . .” read more

On Gulag Archipelago

“In this article I shall try to provide an evaluation of Solzhenitsyn’s new book. The assessment can only be a brief and preliminary one—not merely because Gulag Archipelago is only the first of three or four volumes of a single work, but also because even by itself it . . .” read more

Problems of Democratization and Detente

“Some four to five years ago the international situation was still a source of serious anxiety to all who cared for peace, democracy and socialism. The enormous scale of the continuous American intervention in Indochina, the incursion of the Warsaw Pact troops into the territory of the Czechoslovak . . .” read more

Introduction to Roy Medvedev

“The document printed below is without question one of the most important political statements to emerge from within the Soviet Union in recent years. Its author, Roy Medvedev, commands a personal authority in his field as an historian comparable to that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the domain of . . .” read more

The Maximov Phenomenon

“It is a truism that Russian literature has been traditionally political: but it is still one that cannot be overlooked by any literary critic, or for that matter, any reader of Russian belles lettres. Both writer and bureaucrat in Russia, from opposite sides of the gulf that separates . . .” read more

Wittgenstein and Russia

“In 1922 Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote to a friend that he was haunted by the possibility of an eventual flight to Russia. About two years later he sent the same friend some newspaper clippings of prize-winning poems by workers, urging him to preserve them. In 1937 he wrote him . . .” read more

'The Memory that works backwards only...'

“Osip Mandelstam was one of the most original and powerful Russian poets of the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary period, who might have left an even deeper mark on modern Soviet literature if in the last years of his life he had not been cruelly hounded by Stalin and driven . . .” read more

The First Circle

“‘For a country to have a great writer is like having another government,’ remarks one of the characters in The First Circle. This observation has always been especially true of Russia and a reading of Solzhenitsyn’s work confirms that it has as much relevance today as at any . . .” read more

Political Testament

“What is the bureaucratic oligarchy of the Party? What place does it occupy in the structure of Soviet society? Why does it hold a privileged position? How does it govern the State and the population? The official view was and is that after the ‘liquidation of the kulaks . . .” read more

Soviet Fabians and Others

“Reading the clandestine political literature which percolates from the ussr to the West through ever-widening channels, it is evident that two Russias exist side by side: le pays légal and le pays réel. We become familiar with more and more names of Soviet dissenters and protesters, with . . .” read more

The Question of Stalin

“When in November 1917 the Bolshevik Party unleashed an insurrection and took power, Lenin and his comrades were convinced that this was the first act in a world revolution. The process was started in Russia, not because Russia was considered internally ripe for a socialist revolution, but because . . .” read more

Soviet Oppositions

“‘One day our company officer, Captain Usov, said to me: “You, Marchenko, are always dissatisfied, nothing suits you. But what have you ever done to make things better? All you wanted was to run away . . .”.’ Having read My Testimony and a few of Marchenko’s . . .” read more

The Purges Recalled

“For quarter of a century I. S. Poretsky (or Ludwik or Eberhard or Ignace Reiss) was one of the most prominent secret agents of the ussr. Now, after more than 30 years of ‘withdrawal and reflection’—according to the preface—his widow writes the tragic story of his life . . .” read more

Trotsky’s Marxism: A Rejoinder

“Nicolas Krassó attempted to explain Stalin’s victory in the inner-party struggle of the Bolshevik party during the twenties by two alleged basic weaknesses of ‘Trotsky’s Marxism’: his ‘sociologism’, i.e. his constant underestimation of the autonomous role of political institutions; and his ‘administrativism’, which tended to identify him with . . .” read more

Revolution from Without

“The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie must eventually result in the seizure of State power by the proletariat. One would naturally expect this to take place independently in each individual State, and Marx has pointed out that ‘in form, if not in essence, the struggle of . . .” read more

Introduction to Tukhachevsky

“Mikhail Tukhachevsky, whose meteoric career illuminates certain episodes of the Soviet past that still have significance today, was born in Penza province of Czarist Russia in 1893. According to a colleague who knew him in the twenties, he came from an impoverished family of aristocrats, originally of Flemish . . .” read more

The Student Movement and the Present Political Situation

“A students’ strike has been called at St. Petersburg University. A number of other higher educational establishments have joined in. The movement has already spread to Moscow and Kharkov. Judging from all the reports in the foreign and Russian newspapers and in private letters from Russia, we are . . .” read more

Art after October

“After the Bolshevik Revolution the old schools and academies of art were dissolved and their property requisitioned. Soon afterwards, on the initiative of the Department of Fine Arts set up by the People’s Commissariat of Education, under Anatoly Lunacharsky, they were reopened with an entirely new constitution. . . .” read more

Trotsky’s Marxism

“Roberto Yepe writes: Dear Comrades—the theoretical journal Pensamiento Crítico here has recently published Nicolas Krassó’s article ‘Trotsky’s Marxism’, and promises Ernest Mandel’s reply ‘Trotsky: an Anti-Critique’; readers have been very concerned with it. I would like to make some comments on the debate.” read more

Reply to Tamara Deutscher

“Nicola Krassó replies to Tamara Deutscher (see NLR 50)” read more

Trotsky and the Debate on Socialism in One Country

“This fiftieth issue of New Left Review opens with a critique, by Perry Anderson, of the structures of bourgeois culture in Britain. The task of forging a revolutionary and internationalist political culture in this country has always been a central preoccupation of the Review. This involves attacking the . . .” read more

On Krasso’s Reply to Mandel

“This fiftieth issue of New Left Review opens with a critique, by Perry Anderson, of the structures of bourgeois culture in Britain. The task of forging a revolutionary and internationalist political culture in this country has always been a central preoccupation of the Review. This involves attacking the . . .” read more

Kennan’s Memoirs

“George Kennan prefaces his remarkable memoirs with an exemplary self-critical account of his background and early environment, with its attendant psychological effects. Historically and socially, George Kennan was an ‘outsider’, ill at ease in the 20th century, and ill at ease with its ideas, particularly marxism (‘something to . . .” read more

Reply to Ernest Mandel

“Ernest Mandel’s reply to my critique of Trotsky’s Marxism requires some comment. It may be most rewarding to consider the three fundamental questions he raises, and focus discussion on these. Most of the local issues at dispute will be resolved in so doing. The whole aim of my . . .” read more

Trotsky’s Marxism: An Anti-Critique

“Nicolas Krassó’s critique of Trotsky’s political thought and activities, which appeared in issue No. 44 of the New Left Review, provides a welcome occasion to unravel some of the misconceptions and prejudices about the historical role of the founder of the Red Army, which still haunt a large . . .” read more

Revolution from Above

“The decision taken at the end of 1929 to proceed to the mass collectivization of Soviet agriculture has always been something of a puzzle. Pronouncements of party leaders up to that time had given no reason to expect so far-reaching a measure. It was followed by disastrous consequences . . .” read more