Socialism and Capitalism Through the Eyes of a Soviet Émigré

Socialism and Capitalism Through the Eyes of a Soviet Émigré PDF Author: Svetlana Kunin
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663200939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Growing up in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the 1950-60s, a period defined by Soviet leaders as time of “developed socialism", Svetlana believed in the greatness of socialism: fairness, equality and the benevolence of the communist leaders managing society’s march toward progress. Gradually, disillusion set in as historical and contemporary events exposed the true reality behind the veil of empty words. The decision to immigrate wasn’t easy. Parents, relatives, and friends were left behind. Then, in 1980, came the unexpected discovery of a new life in capitalist USA. This unusually personal story that starts in the Soviet Union and ends in the United States draws parallels between two economic and political systems and provides a missing perspective and commentary on parallels to life in the USA. In this book Svetlana makes the case for how a free market economy in the USA leads to a dramatically better life for a common person, than that of powerful centralized government as she experienced living in both the USA and the former USSR. Many articles that the author published in the Investor’s Business Daily under “IBD Exclusive Commentary Series: Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant” are poignantly relevant today. They are included in the book with IBD’s permission.

Socialism and Capitalism Through the Eyes of a Soviet Émigré

Socialism and Capitalism Through the Eyes of a Soviet Émigré PDF Author: Svetlana Kunin
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1663200939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Get Book Here

Book Description
Growing up in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the 1950-60s, a period defined by Soviet leaders as time of “developed socialism", Svetlana believed in the greatness of socialism: fairness, equality and the benevolence of the communist leaders managing society’s march toward progress. Gradually, disillusion set in as historical and contemporary events exposed the true reality behind the veil of empty words. The decision to immigrate wasn’t easy. Parents, relatives, and friends were left behind. Then, in 1980, came the unexpected discovery of a new life in capitalist USA. This unusually personal story that starts in the Soviet Union and ends in the United States draws parallels between two economic and political systems and provides a missing perspective and commentary on parallels to life in the USA. In this book Svetlana makes the case for how a free market economy in the USA leads to a dramatically better life for a common person, than that of powerful centralized government as she experienced living in both the USA and the former USSR. Many articles that the author published in the Investor’s Business Daily under “IBD Exclusive Commentary Series: Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant” are poignantly relevant today. They are included in the book with IBD’s permission.

The Stalinist Era

The Stalinist Era PDF Author: David L. Hoffmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.

Nationalism, Myth, and the State in Russia and Serbia

Nationalism, Myth, and the State in Russia and Serbia PDF Author: Veljko Vujačić
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107074088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This book examines the role of Russian and Serbian nationalism in dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1991.

The Revolution Betrayed

The Revolution Betrayed PDF Author: Leon Trotsky
Publisher: Wellred Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
The Revolution Betrayed is one of the most important Marxist texts of all time. It is the only serious Marxist analysis of what happened to the Russian Revolution after the death of Lenin. In this book, Trotsky provided a brilliant and profound analysis of Stalinism, which has never been improved upon, let alone superseded. With a delay of 60 years, it was completely vindicated by history. Without a thorough knowledge of this work, it is impossible to understand the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the events since then in Russia and on a world scale. This remarkable work predicted the fate of the USSR down to the last detail. In the period of so-called market reform, Russia experienced the biggest collapse in world economic history. Just in the first five years alone, the economy contracted by a staggering sixty percent. Such a drop is unprecedented in economic history. It was like a catastrophic defeat in war. The collapse of the USSR has led to social disintegration. The elements of barbarism have all reappeared. Poverty, beggary, drunkenness, drug addiction, prostitution, crime, epidemics have spread to an unparalleled degree. Sections of the youth are affected by lumpenisation. At the same time, the mafia capitalists have accrued massive wealth by plundering the former nationalised industries as well as the rich sources of oil and other resources. The bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union and its eventual fall must be carefully studied, if we are to be able to answer the questions of the workers and youth. And the best explanation that can be found is in the pages of this wonderful classic of Marxism. Only the restoration of a nationalised planned economy can create the conditions for a revival of Russia’s colossal productive potential. But this cannot mean a return to the old Stalinist regime. Only a regime of real workers’ democracy, along the lines of October 1917, can provide Russia with a way out of the present impasse. As Trotsky points out in a most graphic and profound passage from The Revolution Betrayed, a nationalised planned economy needs democracy as the human body needs oxygen.

Markets in the Name of Socialism

Markets in the Name of Socialism PDF Author: Johanna Bockman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804778965
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description
The worldwide spread of neoliberalism has transformed economies, polities, and societies everywhere. In conventional accounts, American and Western European economists, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, sold neoliberalism by popularizing their free-market ideas and radical criticisms of the state. Rather than focusing on the agency of a few prominent, conservative economists, Markets in the Name of Socialism reveals a dialogue among many economists on both sides of the Iron Curtain about democracy, socialism, and markets. These discussions led to the transformations of 1989 and, unintentionally, the rise of neoliberalism. This book takes a truly transnational look at economists' professional outlook over 100 years across the capitalist West and the socialist East. Clearly translating complicated economic ideas and neoliberal theories, it presents a significant reinterpretation of Cold War history, the fall of communism, and the rise of today's dominant economic ideology.

Socialism--what Went Wrong?

Socialism--what Went Wrong? PDF Author: Irwin Silber
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The chasm between huge individual wealth and the abject misery of hundreds of millions of people persists and can, in many cases, be said to be widening. The author's view is that the conflict between the rapaciousness of the system and popular discontent has to provide the conditions for a new social order. Socialism, in some form, argues Silber, is an essential element in a future for the whole human race.

Russia Under Soviet Role

Russia Under Soviet Role PDF Author: N. de Basily
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351617176
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
The author of this book was in a position which allowed him to become thoroughly conversant with the working of the Government machinery in Russia, and in this volume, originally published in 1938, he presents the situation in Soviet Russia as it developed since the Revolution of 1917 and discusses the events which led up to it. Based mainly on information drawn from Soviet sources, which the author acknowledges may not be impartial, the author nevertheless maintains that a clear outline of the real situation may be inferred.

Lenin and Trotsky – What they really stood for

Lenin and Trotsky – What they really stood for PDF Author: Alan Woods
Publisher: Wellred Books
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The ideas of Lenin and Trotsky are without doubt the most distorted and slandered ideas in history. For more than 100 years, they have been subjected to an onslaught from the apologists of capitalism, who have attempted to present their ideas – Bolshevism – as both totalitarian and utopian. An entire industry was developed in an attempt to equate the crimes of Stalinism with the regime of workers' democracy that existed under Lenin and Trotsky. It is now more than fifty years since the publication of the first edition of this work. It was written as a reply to Monty Johnstone, who was a leading theoretician of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Johnstone had published a reappraisal of Leon Trotsky in the Young Communist League's journal Cogito at the end of 1968. Alan Woods and Ted Grant used the opportunity to write a detailed reply explaining the real relationship between the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. This was no academic exercise. It was written as an appeal to the ranks of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League to rediscover the truth about Trotsky and return to the original revolutionary programme of Lenin. Also included in this new edition is Monty Johnstone's original Cogito article, as well as further material on Lenin's struggle with Stalin in the last month of his political life. The foreword is written by Trotsky's grandson, Vsievolod Volkov.

The Experiment

The Experiment PDF Author: Eric Lee
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786990954
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
For many the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a symbol of hope. In the eyes of its critics, however, Soviet authoritarianism and the horrors of the gulags have led to the revolution becoming synonymous with oppression, threatening to forever taint the very idea of socialism. The experience of Georgia, which declared its independence from Russia in 1918, tells a different story. In this riveting history, Eric Lee explores the little-known saga of the country’s experiment in democratic socialism, detailing the epic, turbulent events of this forgotten chapter in revolutionary history. Along the way, we are introduced to a remarkable cast of characters – among them the men and women who strove for a more inclusive vision of socialism that featured multi-party elections, freedom of speech and assembly, a free press and a civil society grounded in trade unions and cooperatives. Though the Georgian Democratic Republic lasted for just three years before it was brutally crushed on the orders of Stalin, it was able to offer, however briefly, a glimpse of a more humane alternative to the Soviet reality that was to come.

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture PDF Author: Jay Bergman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019258037X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious, but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible, universal laws that explained the course of history from beginning to end. Those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient-if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this volume is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility-the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilized them as propaganda-but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics.