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Revolution Against 'Progress': Walter Benjamin’s Romantic Anarchism
“Walter Benjamin’s style of thinking is unique and resists classification, but it can be better understood and explained if related to the cultural atmosphere of Mittel-Europa at the beginning of the century, and to certain religiouspolitical undercurrents among German-speaking Jewish intellectuals of this period. Neo-romanticism, as a moral . . .” read more
The Greens at the Crossroads
“The West German political scene of the 1980s has been transformed by the emergence—for the first time since the foundation of the Federal Republic—of a socially radical force with a significant electoral following in the society at large. The Greens have changed the map of the traditional party . . .” read more
Thatcherism and British Manufacturing
“In the broadest sense we are dealing with an old phenomenon. Carthage fell, Rome fell; now it is Britain’s turn. More narrowly it is a new phenomenon, the first instance of the threatened absolute decline of a fully capitalist social formation. The last phase of the internationalization of . . .” read more
Authoritarian Populism: A Reply
“In nlr 147 Jessop, Bonnett, Bromley and Ling contributed a long and important article ‘Authoritarian Populism, Two Nations and Thatcherism’. This article took issue with ‘authoritarian populism’ (hereinafter, alas, ap) and the use of that concept in my work on Thatcherism; and proposed some wide-ranging alternative . . .” read more
The Miners' Strike in Easington
“In the summer of 1983 the newspapers were filled with the rumour that the new Chairman of the National Coal Board would be Mr Ian MacGregor. MacGregor had been head of the US mining company Amax which, after its strike-breaking activities at the Belle Ayr open cast mine . . .” read more
Towards 2000, or News From You-Know-Where
“Calendars are never innocent, but in recent times they have become positively lurid. Even the soberest temporal reckoning is open to the suggestions of political numerology, which fascinates by its very lack of reason. The year now ended was for a generation the deadline for the most widely . . .” read more
The British Women’s Movement
“A complete overview of British feminism would require a book rather than an essay. Within the context of a brief history of the movement we therefore aim in this article at an assessment of the developments within one section of the movement, socialist feminism, since the second half . . .” read more
Authoritarian Populism, Two Nations, and Thatcherism
“Faced with the devastating electoral and political successes of Thatcherism in the past five years, the British Left responded in various ways. Some activists anticipated the imminent collapse of Thatcherism due to a sudden upsurge of union militancy, popular disturbances, or urban riots; or due to a Conservative . . .” read more
Marx and History
“We are here to discuss themes and problems of the Marxist conception of history a hundred years after the death of Marx. This is not a ritual of centenary celebration, but it is important to begin by reminding ourselves of the unique role of Marx in historiography. I . . .” read more
The Threat of War and the Struggle for Socialism
“Several times during the last three years the threat of a third world war seemed to loom large. Impressionist commentators did not hesitate to draw this conclusion. In fact a panic wave arose. The powerful and promising anti-war movement, which is growing today in the imperialist countries, was . . .” read more
Trotsky’s Interpretation of Stalinism
“Trotsky’s interpretation of the historical meaning of Stalinism, to this day the most coherent and developed theorization of the phenomenon within the Marxist tradition, was constructed in the course of twenty years of practical political struggle against it. His thought thus evolved in tension with the major conflicts . . .” read more
State Power and Class Interests
“Work done in the last fifteen years or so by people writing within a broad Marxist perspective on the subject of the state in capitalist society now fills a great many bookshelves; and however critical one may be of one or other article, book or trend, it is . . .” read more
A Statutory Right to Work
“It was widely believed after the Second World War in Britain that the ‘right to work’ had been generally won; the greatest economic evil of the prewar years seemed to have been overcome through reforms. Yet now, again, unemployment has returned in a seemingly permanent form and there . . .” read more
Monetarism in London
“In May 1979 when Mrs Thatcher came to power, there were 132,000 people unemployed in Greater London. In September 1982 there were 390,107. This amounts to a trebling of those without a job. For London as a whole, when allowance is made for unregistered women and for commuters, . . .” read more
Space and Agency in the Transition to Socialism
“It is now over a decade since John Saville’s survey of the Labour Party’s history led him to the view that ‘at least some things should become clearer as time moves along: that Labourism has nothing to do with Socialism: that the Labour Party has never been, nor . . .” read more
Iron Britannia (Special Issue)
“When history repeats itself, the first time is tragedy, the second farce. Despite its Marxist origin, the aphorism is now a received wisdom. Perhaps that alone is good reason to abandon the idea. Certainly we have gone beyond it. The British recapture of the Falkland Islands was obviously . . .” read more
Latin America: Between Hobbes and Friedman
“In recent years a major preoccupation of everyone interested in Latin America has been the extreme fragility of its democratic institutions. This incurable weakness has even made itself felt in Chile and Uruguay—countries once celebrated as living proof of bourgeois democracy’s viability in peripheral capitalist societies. From a . . .” read more
The Crisis of the British State
“Ireland, mounting street violence in the greater English cities, the disintegration of the Labour Party (and hence of the old two-party stability), continuing separatist agitation in Wales and Scotland, a renewed economic crisis after the brief reprieve of North Sea oil—these may appear, at first sight, signs of . . .” read more
Transition to the Transition
“Classical Marxism’s conception of the transition period contains a central, persistent and unresolved contradiction. Marx, for example, was a strong advocate of the progressive role of the centralized state, yet he was also a partisan of the decentralized and federalist Paris Commune. Lenin later popularized Marx’s writings on . . .” read more
Corporatism and Class Struggle
“Leo Panitch, in New Left Review 125, provides an interesting analysis of modern corporatism. However, he chooses to criticise a passage from a pamphlet I wrote on unemployment, and in doing this blemishes his analysis with no less than three non sequiturs. Neither the pamphlet as a whole, . . .” read more
Classical Marxism and Proletarian Representation
“The names of Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg have often been linked, sometimes with good reason and sometimes also without. It has been said, wrongly, that they shared before 1917 a common view of revolutionary prospects in Russia, Luxemburg like Trotsky supporting the idea of permanent revolution. With . . .” read more
Trade Unions and the Capitalist State
“It is a matter of considerable irony, as well as a cause for concern, that the otherwise valuable and exciting development of Marxist theorizations of the capitalist state in the past decade have only tangentially noted, and have largely failed to address systematically, one of the most significant . . .” 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
China’s Oppositions
“Since late 1978 an original dissident movement has sprung up in the main cities of China under the slogan Democracy and Science. This movement is still in its infancy, and the conditions under which it operates change from day to day. It is heterogeneous in composition, and it . . .” 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
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
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 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
The Winter '79 Strikes in Camden
“Revolutionary socialists have traditionally assumed that it is among the strongly organised industrial workers that the first stirrings of a revolutionary consciousness would emerge and have identified this group as the backbone of the revolutionary process. This approach has often made them unable to appreciate the significance of . . .” read more
A Modest Contribution to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Tenth Anniversary
“It has been Holy Unity week. The official ceremonies organized around the tenth anniversary of May ’68 brought together everyone in this country with a name, a status or a decoration and saturated every medium of communication. From left to right, yesterday’s enemies and tomorrow’s friends, the best . . .” read more
Introduction to Habermas
“In nlr 67 Göran Therborn argued that Jürgen Habermas, ‘the most celebrated of the successors of the Frankfurt School’, had elaborated a theory which represented a ‘development away from the Marxist positions of the founders of the School’. Habermas claimed to re-state what was valid in Marx . . .” read more
The Future of Britain’s Crisis
“‘The outstanding feature of the British situation since the Second World War has been unreality . . . On balance the wonder is that the system has remained afloat and changed course to the extent that it has. So far the repeated lesson of history that the loss . . .” read more
The State and the Transition to Socialism
“If by ‘socialism’ we mean what Marx used to call the higher stage of communist society, the question of the political superstructure that would be adequate to it is raised neither in theory nor in practice. In theory, because this society—to everyone according to his needs—is a classless . . .” 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 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
An Argument with Gramsci in 1924 (Sraffa)
“Piero Sraffa contributed a number of translations, and notes to readers on foreign publications, to the first Ordine Nuovo (1919–20). At the time he was a student at Turin University, and having been introduced to Gramsci by Professor Umberto Cosmo—who had taught him at high school—he quickly became . . .” 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
Socialist Revolutions and Their Class Components
“The starting-point for any attempt to theorize socialist revolution must be the point at which conditions of exploitation are converted into the practice of class struggle. Socialist revolutions in the twentieth century have unfolded as complex processes decisively dependent on the emergence and growth of a revolutionary political . . .” 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
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
Eurocommunism: Left and Right Variants
“Fernando Claudin was a leader of the Spanish Communist Party until his expulsion in 1964, and is the author of the already classic The Communist Movement: from Comintern to Cominform. The analysis of Eurocommunism and its relation to socialism put forward in his new book is very timely—both . . .” read more
'Labour and Monopoly Capital'
“In a recent issue of nlr, Bob Rowthorn called Harry Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital ‘one of the two most important works of Marxist political economy to have appeared in English in the last decade’. The book’s apparently untheoretical approach is deceptive. In a simple style, but . . .” read more
Engels and the Genesis of Marxism
“Since his death in London in 1895, it has proved peculiarly difficult to arrive at a fair and historically balanced assessment of Engels’s place in the history of Marxism, both within the Marxist tradition and outside it. Engels was both the acknowledged co-founder of historical materialism and the . . .” read more
Democracy and Dictatorship in Lenin and Kautsky
“As G. D. H. Cole rightly said in his History of Socialist Thought, after the Russian Revolution Kautsky became the ‘principal theoretical antagonist of Bolshevism’. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, published in September 1918, and Terrorism and Communism, which appeared about a year later, are the two basic . . .” 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
Some Reflections on 'The Break-up of Britain'
“Nationalism has been a great puzzle to (non-nationalist) politicians and theorists ever since its invention, not only because it is both powerful and devoid of any discernible rational theory, but also because its shape and function are constantly changing. Like the cloud with which Hamlet taunted Polonius, it . . .” read more
Marxism and the National Question
“I believe that a little philosophy is needed on the subject of the nation. It was the nation which first led me to question Marxism seriously. This was the real breach in the walls which let me make an outside tour of the fortress, rather than go on . . .” read more