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SOCIALISMS

Revolutions betrayed, mislaid and unmade

 By Ian Parker

ISBN: 978-0-902869-71-4
RRP £10, €12, $15
192pages,

Parker is an activist and academic based in Manchester, UK. His books on politics include Slavoj Žižek: A Critical Introduction (Pluto Books, 2004), Revolutionary Keywords for a New Left (Zero Books, 2017) and Mapping the English Left through Film: Twenty Five Uneasy Pieces (Folrose Press, 2020).

Socialisms: Revisiting Revolutions Betrayed, Mislaid and Unmade provides accessible description and assessment of the attempt to transcend capitalism in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The book combines an account of travel in eight countries that have experienced some form of socialist transformation with historical analysis of what happened and what went wrong. The eight countries under examination here – Russia, Georgia, Serbia, North Korea, China, Cuba, Laos and Venezuela – went through the process of revolt against capitalism in very different ways, and the failure to build socialism in each separate case offers lessons for those who still rebel against exploitation and oppression and who want a better world.

ORDER More than a Left Foot here

OUT NOW
MORE THAN A LEFT FOOT

By Bob Williams-Findlay

Preface by Marian Brooks-Sardinha
Price: £14.00 plus p&p
ISBN: 978-0-902869-72-1

The book places the struggles for the emancipation of disabled people within the context of Bob’s life journey. Bob traces his experience of life, discrimination and political awakening both as an individual and as part of a specific social group. This journey links disability politics to a wider politics within students, disabled peoples, trade union and labour movements. The book concludes with sober commentary of the on-going struggle against disablement and capitalism.

ORDER More than a Left Foot here

MEMOIRS OF A CRITICAL COMMUNIST

Towards a history of the Fourth International

by Livio Maitan,

Preface by Daniel Bensaid
Translated by Gregor Benton
Edited and with an introduction by Penelope Duggan

“Livio Maitan helped inspire the growth of Italian Trotskyism. There was also a wave of Maoism in the 1960s and a debate ensued, to which Livio contributed his book on China, Party, Army, and Masses. I was deeply influenced by it, and I translated it for New Left Books. The book combined criticism of the Chinese Revolution with support. From it, I learned how to write engaged scholarship. Livio could have shone at a leading university had he wanted, but instead he spent most of his life working on a shoestring. In 2002, he wrote this history of the Fourth International to go alongside his autobiography. Translating this new book was a bittersweet experience. Through it, I was able to relive chapter by chapter my wild political youth and my middle age. Livio Maitan’s spirit lifts this story from a catalogue of false starts into a chronicle of heroism and optimism. He died before Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Corbynism, Gilets Jaunes, Extinction Rebellion  and other new struggles, but he paved the way for them. This book shows the road to socialism remains open." – Gregor Benton.

Watch here Gregor Benton talk about Livio Maitan and what his work meant for him.

Order Memoirs of a Critical Communist here.

CRITIQUE OF MODERN BARBARISM

Essays on fascism, anti-Semitism and the use of history

By Enzo Traverso

In this new collection of essays, Enzo Traverso examines the relationships between anti-Semitism, modernity and the Holocaust. Traverso analyses multiple dimensions of the destruction of the European Jews, debates over the historical memory and left-wing debates on the nature of anti-Semitism.

“The essays and book chapters collected in this remarkable volume represent a watershed in the history of Marxist critical thinking. For the first time, a comprehensive reflection of the historical meaning of Auschwitz as a “civilisational break” is developed, from a Marxist viewpoint which critically analyses the limitations, and sometimes blindness, of most Marxist writings on the Holocaust. In our days, when post-fascist or neo-fascist regimes are in spectacular rise on a planetarian scale, this book is not only timely: it is an indispensable intellectual tool for the resistance against Barbarism.”- Michael Löwy.

Read here a review of this book by Herman Pietersen

Order Critique of Modern Barbarism  here.

FACING THE APOCALYPSE

Arguments for ecosocialism

By Alan Thornett

We are facing a multifaceted threat to life the planet. From a defence of the remarkable ecological content of classical Marxism – lost during the 20th century to the rise of productivism – the book is an appeal to the socialist left to take the ecological crisis far more seriously. Thornett engages directly with major debates such as the rising human population and carbon pricing that remain unresolved on the socialist left. His approach is to promote a transitional approach, distinct from both those that think capitalism will find a solution and those who think revolutionary propaganda is enough. He argues that defending the planet against this crisis today requires broadest possible movement of those – the 99 per cent – who are victims of it.

Order Facing the Apocalypse here

DECOLONIAL COMMUNISM, DEMOCRACY & THE COMMONS

By Catherine Samary

Contributions from Samuel Farber, Silvia Federici, Franck Gaudichaud, Zagorska Golubović, Ernest Mandel, Goran Marković, Svetozar Stojanović and Raquel Varela.

Resistance Books is a feminist, internationalist and ecosocialist publisher. We publish books independently, and also jointly with Merlin Press (London) and the International Institute for Research and Education (Amsterdam).

Contact: info@resistancebooks.org; PO Box 62732, London, SW2 9GQ.