Contemporary Trotskyism

Contemporary Trotskyism PDF Author: John Kelly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317368940
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Almost 80 years after Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, there are now Trotskyist organizations in 57 countries, including most of Western Europe and Latin America. Yet no Trotskyist group has ever led a revolution or built an enduring mass, political party. Contemporary Trotskyism looks in detail at the influence, resilience and weaknesses of the British Trotskyist movement, from the 1970s to the present day. The book argues that to understand and explain the development, resilience and influence of Trotskyist groups, we need to analyse them as bodies that comprise elements of three types of organization: the political party, the sect and the social movement. It is the properties of these three facets of organization and the interplay between them that gives rise to the most characteristic features of the Trotskyist movement: frenetic activity, rampant divisions, inter-organizational hostility, authoritarian and charismatic leadership, high membership turnover and ideological rigidity. Trotskyist groups have been involved in a wide range of important social movements including trade unions, student unions, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups. While their energy and activity in civil society have had some success, their influence has never been reflected in votes or seats at elections even after the financial crisis. Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with many of the leading protagonists and activists within the Trotskyist milieu, this is essential reading for students, activists and researchers with an interest in the far left, social movements and contemporary British political history.

Contemporary Trotskyism

Contemporary Trotskyism PDF Author: John Kelly
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317368940
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Almost 80 years after Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, there are now Trotskyist organizations in 57 countries, including most of Western Europe and Latin America. Yet no Trotskyist group has ever led a revolution or built an enduring mass, political party. Contemporary Trotskyism looks in detail at the influence, resilience and weaknesses of the British Trotskyist movement, from the 1970s to the present day. The book argues that to understand and explain the development, resilience and influence of Trotskyist groups, we need to analyse them as bodies that comprise elements of three types of organization: the political party, the sect and the social movement. It is the properties of these three facets of organization and the interplay between them that gives rise to the most characteristic features of the Trotskyist movement: frenetic activity, rampant divisions, inter-organizational hostility, authoritarian and charismatic leadership, high membership turnover and ideological rigidity. Trotskyist groups have been involved in a wide range of important social movements including trade unions, student unions, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups. While their energy and activity in civil society have had some success, their influence has never been reflected in votes or seats at elections even after the financial crisis. Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with many of the leading protagonists and activists within the Trotskyist milieu, this is essential reading for students, activists and researchers with an interest in the far left, social movements and contemporary British political history.

British Trotskyism

British Trotskyism PDF Author: John T. Callaghan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780085507427
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description


Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky PDF Author: Joshua Rubenstein
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300178417
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in southern Ukraine, Trotsky was both a world-class intellectual and a man capable of the most narrow-minded ideological dogmatism. He was an effective military strategist and an adept diplomat, who staked the fate of the Bolshevik revolution on the meager foundation of a Europe-wide Communist upheaval. He was a master politician who played his cards badly in the momentous struggle for power against Stalin in the 1920s. And he was an assimilated, indifferent Jew who was among the first to foresee that Hitler's triumph would mean disaster for his fellow European Jews, and that Stalin would attempt to forge an alliance with Hitler if Soviet overtures to the Western democracies failed. Here, Trotsky emerges as a brilliant and brilliantly flawed man. Rubenstein offers us a Trotsky who is mentally acute and impatient with others, one of the finest students of contemporary politics who refused to engage in the nitty-gritty of party organization in the 1920s, when Stalin was maneuvering, inexorably, toward Trotsky's own political oblivion. As Joshua Rubenstein writes in his preface, "Leon Trotsky haunts our historical memory. A preeminent revolutionary figure and a masterful writer, Trotsky led an upheaval that helped to define the contours of twentieth-century politics." In this lucid and judicious evocation of Trotsky's life, Joshua Rubenstein gives us an interpretation for the twenty-first century.

Witnesses to Permanent Revolution

Witnesses to Permanent Revolution PDF Author: Richard B. Day
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004167706
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 697

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Book Description
The theory of Permanent Revolution has been associated with Leon Trotsky for more than a century since the first Russian Revolution in 1905. Trotsky was the most brilliant proponent of Permanent Revolution but by no means its sole author. The documents in this volume, most of them translated into English for the first time, demonstrate that Trotsky was one of several participants in a debate from 1903-7 that involved numerous leading figures of Russian and European Marxism, including Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Parvus and David Ryazanov. This volume reassembles that debate, assesses it with reference to Marx and Engels, and provides new evidence for interpreting the formative years of Russian revolutionary Marxism.

In Defense of Leon Trotsky

In Defense of Leon Trotsky PDF Author: David North
Publisher: Mehring Books
ISBN: 1893638057
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description


Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development

Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004384731
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development seeks to explore and develop Leon Trotsky’s concept of uneven and combined development. In particular, it aims to adapt the political and historical analysis which originated in Trotsky’s Russia for use within the contemporary field of world literature. As such, it draws together the work of scholars from both the field of international relations and the field of literature and the arts. This collection will therefore be of particular interest to anyone who is interested in new ways of understanding world literary texts, or interested in new ways of applying Trotsky’s revolutionary politics to the contemporary world order. Contributors: Alexander Anievas, Gail Day, James Christie, Kamran Matin, Kerem Nisancioglu, Luke Cooper, Michael Niblett, Neil Davidson, Nesrin Degirmencioglu, Robert Spencer, Steve Edwards.

Trotsky

Trotsky PDF Author: Ian D. Thatcher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113457214X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This new biography provides a full account of Leon Trotsky's political life, based upon a wealth of primary sources, including previously unpublished material. Ian D. Thatcher paints a new picture of Trotsky's standing in Russian and world history. Key myths about Trotsky's heroic work as a revolutionary, especially in Russia's first revolution of 1905 and the Russian Civil War, are thrown into question. Although Trotsky had a limited understanding of crucial contemporary events such as Hitler's rise to power, he was an important thinker and politician, not least as a trenchant critic of Stalin's version of communism.

Trotsky

Trotsky PDF Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674036154
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
This illuminating portrait of Leon Trotsky sets the record straight on the common misconceptions about the man and his legacy. Completing his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union, Service delivers an authoritative biography.

Hegemony and Class Struggle

Hegemony and Class Struggle PDF Author: Juan Dal Maso
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030756882
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Leon Trotsky and Antonio Gramsci are two of the most important Marxist thinkers of the 20th century. This book explores the similarities and the differences between their philosophical and political theories. The first and second chapters deal with a still under-investigated aspect of Trotsky’s thought, i.e. his reflections on the issue of hegemony. The third chapter focuses on Gramsci’s critique of Trotsky in his Prison Notebooks, analysing Gramsci’s knowledge of Trotsky’s positions as well as the scope and limits of Gramsci’s critique. The fourth chapter consists of a critical rereading of Perry Anderson's essay Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, originally published in 1976 and republished in 2017 and an analysis of the book Gramsci and Trotsky in the Shadow of Stalinism by Emanuele Saccarelli. The result is an investigation that offers new insight into both Trotsky’s and Gramsci’s thought, while proposing a new point of view from which to interpret revolutionary theory and strategy in the contemporary scenario. One of the main topics addressed throughout the three essays is the specific position of the problem of hegemony in a theory of permanent revolution, demonstrating that Trotsky had a particular understanding of the question of hegemony and that Gramsci, in turn, introduced a concept of hegemony that is closely associated with an idea of permanent revolution, such that the dynamics of the relationship between democratic struggles and socialist struggles presented in both theories are very similar.

Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy

Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy PDF Author: Thomas M. Twiss
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004269533
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
During the twentieth century the problem of post-revolutionary bureaucracy emerged as the most pressing theoretical and political concern confronting Marxism. No one contributed more to the discussion of this question than Leon Trotsky. In Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy, Thomas M. Twiss traces the development of Trotsky’s thinking on this issue from the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution through the Moscow Trials of the 1930s. Throughout, he examines how Trotsky’s perception of events influenced his theoretical understanding of the problem, and how Trotsky’s theory reciprocally shaped his analysis of political developments. Additionally, Twiss notes both strengths and weaknesses of Trotsky’s theoretical perspective at each stage in its development.