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Fra International Socialism Journal nr. 124

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Contents (ISJ 124, Autumn 2009)

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Contributors (ISJ 124, Autumn 2009)

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Wishful thinking

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“The Recession Is Over”.1 That is the message with which much of the media has chosen to mark the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the transformation of the credit crunch into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

Left behind?

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The derisory message of a four-page piece by journalist Andy Beckett in the Guardian’s G2 supplement in mid-August was that the far left had missed “the political opportunity presented by the financial crisis”. And there are a good number on the far left who think the Guardian was right.

Interview: Will the sparks flare up?

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Charlie Kimber and Michael Bradley organise the Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP) industrial work. They spoke to International Socialism about recent developments in the class struggle in Britain.

Oliver Nachtwey: Die Linke and the crisis of class representation

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The European radical left is characterised by its lack of synchronicity. We can see decline, regroupment and regeneration happening almost simultaneously, and so far no role model for a successful left has emerged.

1989: How the wall was toppled: Timeline

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1980-1991

Gareth Dale: A short autumn of utopia: The East German revolution of 1989

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Readers of this journal are unlikely to be participating in the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the “transition to capitalism” in Central and Eastern Europe and it’s easy to see why.

Adam Fabry: End of the liberal dream: Hungary since 1989

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With the Berlin Wall in rubble, many commentators drew the conclusion that liberal democracy and capitalism represented the only viable future in Central and Eastern Europe.

Andrew Kliman: Pinning the blame on the system

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This is the first in a series of responses to Chris Harman’s latest book, Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx.

Peyman Jafari: Rupture and revolt in Iran

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The fallout from the presidential election on 12 June 2009 precipitated the biggest political crisis in Iran since the 1979 Revolution.

John Molyneux: On party democracy

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This article examines the much disputed issue of internal party democracy in the light of the Marxist tradition and past and recent experience.

Neil Davidson: Shock and awe

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A review of Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Allen Lane, 2007), £25

Joseph Choonara: A note on Goldman Sachs and the rate of profit

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A recent paper produced by Goldman Sachs (GS) claims to shed new light on the trajectory of the global economy in the run-up to the current crisis. As well as discussing the “global savings glut”, the paper presents new research on the “return on physical capital”.

Dave Renton: Tribunals and tribulations

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In January 2009 a health worker and Unison activist, Karen Reissmann, brought a claim of unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal. She complained that she had been dismissed for publicly criticising cuts at her trust.

Ian Birchall: Book Review: International rescue

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Jan Willem Stutje, Ernest Mandel: A Rebel’s Dream Deferred (Verso, 2007), £19.99
Ernest Mandel was a tireless socialist activist over five decades. He wrote prolifically on economics, history and contemporary politics, and was an impressive lecturer and debater in several languages. He was one of the most influential figures on the revolutionary left in the second half of the 20th century, and certainly deserves an intelligent biography. Stutje has done him justice with this account, which is both readable and scholarly, based on over 40 interviews with those who knew Mandel and on the 20 metres of Mandel archives stored in Amsterdam.

Christakis Georgiou: Book Review: A welcome overview

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Bill Dunn, Global Political Economy: A Marxist Critique (Pluto, 2008), £19.99
Bill Dunn’s book attempts to provide a Marxist overview of the debates that have punctuated the development of this discipline during the past 30 years or so. The book’s scope is vast and this is both its strength and its weakness. It covers a huge amount of material and addresses a large number of debates. As such, it is a brilliant introduction to the debates raised by the study of capitalism. However, for the same reason, some of the issues are only insufficiently covered or are discussed in a way that requires some familiarity with the subject.

Kate Connelly: Book Review: An Engels for the bourgeoisie

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Tristram Hunt, The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Allen Lane, 2009), £25.00
Just as governments have turned to state intervention (albeit to bail out the rich) after years of the mantra “there is no alternative” to laissez-faire capitalism, so we face an ideological somersault from establishment figures who are now writing about Marxism.
Tristram Hunt is a product of this contradiction, and perhaps this is why the “contradictions of Hegelian proportions” in the public and private lives of Frederick Engels appeal to him and lie at the heart of his biography.

Owen Hatherley: Book Review: A beardless monument

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Norbert Lynton, Tatlin’s Tower: Monument to Revolution (Yale University, 2009), £35
Vladimir Tatlin’s “Monument to the Third International” is the most famous building never built. Designed from 1919 to 1920 by a collective, led by the futurist painter and sculptor, it was initially a response to the Bolsheviks’ call for “monumental propaganda”—a plan to replace the statues of Tsars and saints that littered Russian cities with monuments to revolutionary heroes.

Simon Behrmann: Book Review: Not so smooth criminologist

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Mark Cowling, Marxism and Criminological Theory: A Critique and a Toolkit (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), £50
Two periods of history have witnessed a serious and sustained Marxist engagement with the study of law. The first, not surprisingly, was in Russia in the years following the 1917 Revolution.
The second significant period of Marxist writings on law began with an attack on this longstanding hostility held by the radical left towards law. In the closing pages of Whigs and Hunters EP Thompson argued that the rule of law represented a historical advance against the arbitrary exercise of power under absolutism.

Christian Høgsbjerg: Book Review: A forgotten fighter

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Fitzroy Baptiste and Rupert Lewis (eds), George Padmore: Pan-African Revolutionary (Ian Randle, 2009), £14.95
This collection of essays on the Trinidadian Pan-Africanist George Padmore (1902-59), appearing on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, is a timely tribute to the life and work of a fascinating but forgotten anti-colonial activist and intellectual. The appearance of such a volume is to be welcomed, not simply because Padmore stands as a towering figure of the 20th century “black Atlantic” who fully deserves more critical appreciation in his own right, but also because the question of why he has remained so overlooked for so long, despite the rise of postcolonial studies, is in itself illuminating.

G Francis Hodge: Book Review: Seeds of Canadian radicalism

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Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada 1890-1920 (Between the Lines, 2008), £26.87
Ian McKay begins Reasoning Otherwise with the frank acknowledgement that there exists little published scholarship relating to the development of the Canadian left prior to 1914. The book is a first attempt to make up this lack. McKay describes his method as a “reconnaissance” of this history, rather than an attempt to polemicise or judge.

Claire Ceruti: Book Review: Sub-Saharan nightmares

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Joseph Mensah (ed), Neoliberalism and Globalisation in Africa: Contestations from the Embattled Continent (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), £40
This collection examines Africa’s special place in globalisation. Africa south of the Sahara often appears in cheery UN and World Bank reports after the phrase “the sole exception”. Its wealth has declined in the last 20 years, against the trend for other regions.

Joseph Choonara + Chris Harman: Pick of the quarter: This quarter's selection

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A regular survey of articles which readers will find useful. Some, although by no means all, are available on the web.

Chris Harman: 1942–2009

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Readers of International Socialism will be sad to hear the tragic news that Chris Harman died on Friday 6 November in Cairo where he was speaking at a conference.