International Socialism

An inspiring speaker and brilliantly sophisticated theorist, Michael Kidron was a leading figure in the International Socialist tradition from the 1950s until his death in 2003. Never satisfied with merely restating the assumed tenets of Marxism, Kidron insisted that theory must evolve alongside a changing world an iconoclastic orientation, which led him to clash with others on the left, including the British Communist Party and, later, the Socialist Workers Party itself under the leadership of Kidron's long-time comrade Tony Cliff. This un-doctrinaire commitment to theoretical openness was also evident in Kidron's period as an editor with Pluto Books in the 1970s and 1980s, when the publisher became a crucial forum for developing socialist ideas and bringing them to a wider audience. Selected Writings collects a number of Kidron's most important essays: 'Reform and Revolution' offers a critique of post-war social democracy, written several decades before its collapse into neoliberalism; 'The Permanent Arms Economy' succinctly lays out what is perhaps Kidron's best-known theoretical contribution; 'Black Reformism' both provides an analysis of the imperialism of Kidron's day, and attacks the then-common assumption that Third World revolutions opened a road to world socialism. In recognition of Kidron's commitment to constantly re-examining theory, this volume also includes his 1977 essay 'Two Insights Don't Make a Theory', in which he criticizes and updates his own earlier work in light of historical developments. Edited and introduced by Richard Kuper, who worked alongside Kidron at Pluto, this volume is the best introduction to one of the most original Marxist thinkers of recent times.

For radicals in Europe and North America, the anti-imperialist - and Chinese - revolutions continued the great task of 1789, 1848, and 1870, the "bourgeois revolution" in Marx's terms, and the creation of nations that would release the energies and unity of purpose to create new worlds of prosperity and freedom. The nationalist focus led to an emphasis on autarkic development - the nation, it was said, already possessed within its own boundaries all the requirements and resources to match the accomplishments of global civilization. The overthrow of empire in the 1950s and 1960s - of which the coming to power of the Chinese Communist party in 1949 was a important part - seemed to augur a new era in world history, one in which the majority of the world's population secured liberation. There was perhaps a sense in which this was true, but the reality for the majority was far removed from this giddy hope. And in the case of the ordinary Chinese, the newly "liberated" regime proved far more brutal and exacting than those that it had replaced (which also attained high standards of brutality and injustice). In China the great famine of 1958–62 was only the most spectacularly cruel and gratuitous product of that new order. For the former inhabitants of the old empires, national liberation turned out to be not liberation of all, but the creation of a new national ruling class, as often as not exploiting its position at home to make fortunes then smuggled abroad.

"Compelling . . . [a] classic study of the revolutionary process" (Neil Davidson, author of How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?). As the First World War was about to end in defeat, German sailors began to mutiny-giving voice to the widespread anger against the elites who had led the nation into war and the calamitous impact of that decision on everyday people. The events that followed would eventually result in the parliamentary democracy known as the Weimar Republic-and the socialists who had initially risen up would be attacked by German counterrevolutionary troops, their uniforms marking the debut of a new symbol: the swastika. Because of the socialists' defeat in Germany, Russia fell into the isolation that gave Stalin his road to power. Here, Chris Harman unearths the history of the lost revolution in Germany and reveals its lessons for the future struggles for a better world. "Chris Harman's compelling analysis of the failed German Revolution covers the entire period from 1918 to the debacle of 1923, paying close attention to episodes such as the Bavarian Soviet Republic which are often neglected or minimized. Harman clearly demonstrates that this example of 'lost revolution' was the real turning point in German history when history failed to turn, with dire consequences." -Neil Davidson, author of Discovering the Scottish Revolution