A Critique of Neo-Malthusian Marxism: Society, Nature, and Population

1998 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Burkett
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
New Left ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Marxist Ideology

AbstractRecent decades have seen a rethinking and renewal of Marxism on various levels, beginning in the 1950s and 1960s when New-Left movements in the developed capitalist countries combined with Maoist, Guevarist, and other Third-World liberation struggles to challenge the ossified theory and practice of Soviet-style communism and traditional social democracy. More recently, the rethinking of Marxism has been driven largely by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its official Marxist ideology, and by the movement toward neoliberal ‘free market’ policies on a global scale, which together have brought forth a tidal wave of frankly pro-capitalist as well as ‘postmodern’ left varieties of ‘end of history'-type thinking. The contemporary challenge to Marxism, however, also has a positive side in the form of popular revolts against the neoliberalisation of the global economy – the Chiapas rebellion in Mexico, the December 1995 public sector upheavals in France, and many others, not to mention the heroic struggle of the Cuban people against the threat of recolonisation by US and global capital. Here the challenge is to incorporate the changing forms of working-class movement, and their new prefigurations of post-capitalist society, into the theory and practice of Marxian communism.

Neil Kinnock’s perestroika: Labour and the Soviet influence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Davis
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Free Market ◽  
New Right ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Market Economic ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

The Labour Party’s socialism changed dramatically in the 1980s. Neil Kinnock’s restructuring of Labour occurred at the same time as the international socialist movement moved away from the statist model of economics and turned, in varying degrees, to more market-orientated ideas. This chapter assesses the ways in which Labour’s political thought adapted both to New Right realities and to the fact that much of world was adopting free market economic ideas. The particular focus here is the development of Kinnock’s ideas in light of the changes in Soviet socialism after Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his reform programme. The Soviet Union had long influenced Labour’s ideology in both positive and negative ways, and this chapter shows how it continued to do so in 1980s. It examines the relationship between Kinnock’s Labour and Gorbachev’s USSR, and it shows how the changes introduced by both leaders began to lead to a convergence of ideas between Eastern and Western European versions of socialism.

6. Russia in the global economy

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-103
Author(s):  
Richard Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Software Industry ◽  
Large Country ◽  
Strong State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Gulf States

While Russia has not fully diversified, it has a stronger presence in the software industry, is one of the world’s biggest exporters of diamonds, and its substantial wheat exports demonstrate increased stability since the days of the Soviet Union. ‘Russia in the global economy’ looks at Russia’s landscape, reminding us that while Moscow resembles other glamorous urban centres, great swathes of this large country are off-grid. When Russia has succeeded financially, the world economy has historically been healthy. Will another downturn in the markets impact Russia? Looking at the success of China and the Gulf States, is a strong state always a barrier to business?

A Turning Point in the History of Bessarabia: Winter 1917–1918

1987 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-214
Author(s):  
Michael Bruchis
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ruling Party

Soviet scholars basing themselves on the assertion in the Program of the CPSU that “peaceful coexistence of states with different social regimes does not means a diminution of the ideological struggle,” severely criticize those Western authors who in their works throw light upon the shadowy aspects of theory and practice of the ruling party in the USSR. Utterances of Western scholars which express doubt about the veracity of data contained in documents of the CPSU and the accuracy of theses and positions based on these data are rejected as totally unfounded inventions. Scholars of countries with the same social regime as in the Soviet Union are subject to no less severe attacks if they contest in their works, directly or indirectly, the theses and positions worked out by Soviet authors. While the Western scholars concerned are termed bourgeois falsifiers, the unfavored scholars (and political leaders of the socialist countries) are categorised as revisionists, a no less pejorative term in Soviet parlance: thus, for example, “the powers of international imperialism,… leaning on services of revisionists of various strains”; or “to expose contemporary bourgeois and other falsifiers of history.”

Der große Wahn

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Bargatzky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
End Of History ◽  
American Century ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World

In these days, we live in a new Cold War. On the side of Western elites, the disintegration and collapse of the Soviet Union was seen as representing the End of History and a permanent triumph of democratic values. American triumphalism, an expression of the idea of Manifest Destiny, believed that America was capable of reshaping the world in its image. According to this concept, the world was entering a New World Order in which international norms and transnational principles of human rights would prevail over the traditional prerogatives of sovereign governments. Promoting regime change was considered a legitimate act of foreign policy. In reality, all of this turned out to be illusionary. Instead of promoting peace, the attempt to usher in a New American Century resulted in international terrorism and endless wars in Afghanistan and the Near East. The eastward enlargement of NATO entails the risk of nuclear war. The New World Order turns out to be a big delusion, endangering the survival of humankind.

Valentin Silvestrov and the Echoes of Music History

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-271
Author(s):  
Peter Schmelz
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Music History ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The End Of History

In 1980 Soviet Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov began a series of “postludes,” a genre representing, in his words, a “collecting of echoes, a form opening not to the end, as is more usual, but to the beginning.” This article examines Silvestrov’s Symphony no. 5 (1980–82), and the theory, practice, and reception of his evolving “post” style. The symphony represents a unique congruence of modernism and postmodernism, nostalgia and continuity, expressed at the end of the Soviet Union, the end of the twentieth century, and what many believed to be the end of history. Completed near the conclusion of the Brezhnev period of stagnation, the symphony was intended to assuage the public’s acute dissatisfaction with life in the USSR. Yet when it was first heard in the mid-1980s, it offered a comforting familiarity amid the bewildering acceleration of perestroika. Examining Silvestrov’s “post” style requires considering the sociocultural impact of his sense of ending by treating his eschatology as a useful fiction that illuminates the conflicting sensations of stasis and acceleration during the last decades of the USSR. This article draws on interviews with Silvestrov and his close associates, as well as the Silvestrov Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung.

The LDLP Faction in the Lithuanian Seimas, 1992–1996*

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry D. Clark ◽  
Stacy J. Holscher ◽  
Lisa A. Hyland
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
National Legislature

In the 1992 elections to the national legislature, Lithuania became the first country in Eastern Europe to return its former communist party to power. Headed by Algirdas Brazauskas, the former First Secretary who had led the party in its split from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in December 1990, the party had rejected the Soviet past and renamed itself the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP). Declaring itself a social-democratic party, the LDLP supported democracy and a free market “with a human face.” In the 1992 elections the LDLP campaigned as a party of experienced, competent administrators capable of managing the reforms in such a way as to lessen their social impact. As a result the party won a resounding victory in the elections of that year to the national legislature, winning 73 of the 141 seats in the Seimas.

Book Reviews: La Penseé Politique de Kant, Fabian Socialism and English Politics 1884–1918, The Conservative Enemy: A Programme of Radical Reform for the 1960s, Out of Stagnation: A Policy for Growth, The Politics of Influence: British Ex-Servicemen, Cabinet Decisions and Cultural Change (1917–57), The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Salaries in the Public Services in England and Wales, A Metropolis Votes, Power and Politics in Belgian Education: 1815–1961, A History of Italian Fascism, The Government of Italy, A Short History of Italy, The American Secretary of State, Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets, The Revolution in World Politics, Ideology, Politics and Government in the Soviet Union: An Introduction, The Soviet Union 1922–1962, The U.S.S.R. and the Future, Leninism, The Private Life of Josif Stalin, Politics and Society in India, Modern Indian Political Tradition, Prophet of Indian Nationalism. A Study of the Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh 1893–1910, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing, Legislatures, Senatorial Politics and Foreign Policy, Procedure in the Canadian House of Commons, Approaches to the Study of Political Participation, Public Opinion and Congressional Elections, Groups in Theory and Practice

1963 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-364
Author(s):  
John Day ◽  
Frank Bealey ◽  
Justin Grossman ◽  
Allen Potter ◽  
Edgar Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Politics And Government ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

scholarly journals Popular Attitudes toward Markets and Democracy: Russia and United States Compared 25 Years Later

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 224-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim Boycko ◽  
Robert J. Shiller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
International Differences ◽  
Survey Questions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Stability

We repeat a survey we did in the waning days of the Soviet Union (Shiller, Boycko and Korobov, AER 1991) comparing attitudes towards free markets between Moscow and New York. Additional survey questions, from Gibson Duch and Tedin (J. Politics 1992) are added to compare attitudes towards democracy. Two comparisons are made: between countries, and through time, to explore the existence of international differences in allegiance to democratic free-market institutions, and the stability of these differences.

Neoliberalism, Rationality, and the Savage Slot

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-195
Author(s):  
Julia Elyachar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Market Price ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Public ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market Price ◽  
History Of

This chapter upends usual discussions of neoliberal governmentality by focusing on the relation of neoliberalism to the irrational. The central task of neoliberalism in its early days was to resurrect a discredited liberalism. WW I and the problematic Versailles Peace of 1919 convinced many that irrationality lay at the core of the “civilized” European world. Those who became neo-liberal (before the hyphen was eliminated) embraced that which was irrational while resolutely attacking all kinds of collectivism. Early neoliberals such as Mises equated socialists with savages and put socialists in what Trouillot called “The Savage Slot,” thanks to their wilful overthrow of the free market price system, without which rationality itself could not exist. Hayek and the next generation of neoliberals shifted the source of irrationality into the physiology of individual humans. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union against which early neoliberal polemics were aimed, tacit knowledge moved out of the body to the corporation via Jean Lave’s concept of communities of practice. The chapter draws on classic works in anthropology; history of economic thought; US corporate history; and obscure annals of the public sector in Egypt to make these arguments.

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