Monthly Review Research Articles

Notes from the Editors, September 2017

buy this issueThe publication last month of The Age of Monopoly Capital: The Selected Correspondence of Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, 1949–1964, edited by Nicholas Baran and John Bellamy Foster, constitutes a landmark for Monthly Review Press. A historical document in itself, The Age of Monopoly Capital is not simply about the writing of their magnum opus, but also provides a window onto an entire era of American life.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Revolution from North to South

The liberation struggles of peoples in the global South have been and still are closely linked with the challenge to capitalism. Indeed, the conflicts between capitalism and socialism and between North and South are inseparable. No socialism is imaginable outside of universalism, which implies the equality of peoples.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies: The <i>New York Times</i>, 1917–2017

Mainstream media outlets have recently expressed their dismay over the rise and spread of "fake news," taking it as an obvious truth that what they themselves provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of false or misleading information, often supplied by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Bertrand Russell and the Socialism That Wasn't

Russell was both a liberal and a socialist, a combination perfectly comprehensible in his time, but almost unthinkable today. As a liberal, he opposed concentrations of power in all its military, governmental, and religious manifestations. But as a socialist, he equally opposed the concentrations of power stemming from the private ownership of the means of production, which therefore had to be put under social control.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Western Left and the Russian Revolution

For a century, the counterrevolutionary reaction to the events of October 1917 has arguably been the most determining ideological factor in Western politics. Today the victory of that counterrevolution is complete, but Western powers still need their inherited antithesis, in changing form, as self-justification.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

As the World Turned Upside Down: Left Intellectuals in Yugoslavia, 1988–90

Throughout Eastern Europe, there was an unleashing of pent-up questions, hopes, and fears brewing for decades. There was a sense that the ground was trembling underneath these experiments in socialism. It was clear to most of us that socialism could only survive through radical democratization.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Great Struggle to Escape Capitalism

Post-revolutionary societies, in their efforts to combat counterrevolution, have always been confronted with their own contradictions, and with the persistent threat that an exploiting class could reemerge. Instead of the intended socialization and democratization, in many places what resulted was instead state ownership and stultifying bureaucratization of both the economy and the polity.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Messages

The fundamental humanist values of the Russian Revolution still capture the imagination. As an experience of history and a methodology for transforming the world into a community, the revolution's legacy has persisted far beyond the failed experiment of state socialism itself.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The October Revolution and the Survival of Capitalism

The October Revolution was the first such event in human history that was theoretically conceived and executed according to a plan. It is this theoretical comprehension of the underlying historical conjuncture that explains the revolution's sweep and energy, the profound changes it wrought in the world, and the extent to which it threatened the very existence of capitalism.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1917–2017

If counterrevolution ultimately triumphed over the revolutionary waves of the twentieth century, how are we to understand this, and what does it mean for the future of world revolution? The answer requires a survey of the whole history of imperialist geopolitics over the last century.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Notes from the Editors, July-August 2017

buy this issueFor this special issue, MR has invited some of the most profound left thinkers in the world to reflect on the legacy of revolutions and counterrevolutions around the world since 1917. Naturally, these authors do not all offer similar perspectives or come to the same conclusions. Nor should they—the historical issues are too complex and the human stakes are too high.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

A Progressive City Fights Back

In 2014, after years of grassroots organizing, a coalition of progressives transformed Richmond, California into the largest city in the United States governed by a Green Party mayor. But Richmond is not just Anytown: its economy and government has been dominated for a century by a giant Chevron refinery, and by a racist political machine determined to keep the city's working-class and nonwhite majority out of power.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

What Happened at CCSF?

Did the accreditation crisis and subsequent labor struggle at City College of San Francisco represent a failure of union democracy, or a hard-won victory against corporate education reform? Rick Baum's recent article on this question, "A Teachers Union Against Itself" (published the April 2017 issue of Monthly Review) prompted a lively response from AFT local 2121 members and supporters. This correspondence article collects their letters, as well as a reply by Baum.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Old Malbec in New Bottles: The Return of Neoliberalism in Argentina

Argentina has long been plagued by cycles of economic mismanagement, including multiple failed neoliberal experiments. Before his election as president, Mauricio Macri promised resumed growth, an export boom, lower inflation, a smaller budget deficit, and less poverty. Since then, has the new neoliberalism outperformed the old?Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Origins of American Fascism

What can a class analysis tell us about fascism's national particularities and early forms? Why was there no mass movement for a separate fascist party in the United States? The lessons of several now-forgotten works of scholarship from the 1930s are critical to our understanding of American fascism—not only for what they tell us about its history, but also about how to fight it today.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Consider these but you won’t

Consider the child with curly brown / hair sleeping with her dog in the back / of an old SUV while her parents doze / in scruffy front seats tilted back.…Marge Piercy is the author of many books of poetry, most recently Made in Detroit.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Cushion, Steve. A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerillas’ Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2016. 272 pp. $23.00 (paperback).

Journal of Labor and SocietyVolume 20, Issue 2 p. 276-280 BOOK REVIEW Cushion, Steve. A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution: How the Working Class Shaped the Guerillas’ Victory. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2016. 272 pp. $23.00 (paperback). Peter Ranis, Peter Ranis orcid.org/0000-0001-7288-1183 Search for more papers by this author Peter Ranis, Peter Ranis orcid.org/0000-0001-7288-1183 Search for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/wusa.12289Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume20, Issue2June 2017Pages 276-280 RelatedInformation

This Is Not Populism

Since Trump's election, mainstream commentary has generally avoided the question of fascism or neofascism, preferring instead to apply the vaguer, safer notion of "populism." In today's political context, however, it is crucial to understand not only how the failures of neoliberalism give rise to neofascist movements, but also to connect these to the structural crisis of concentrated, financialized, and globalized capitalism.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Notes from the Editors, June 2017

buy this issueIn the last several years, the left has experienced a series of defeats, and the grip of capital has tightened. The recent reversals in Latin America are a warning. We live in an age where a new era of revolutionary social change, unlike any that came before it, is the only hope—not just for ourselves, but for the chain of human generations.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Singing for Women's Lives in Chile

In an idyllic canyon near Santiago, a group of twelve women were electric with emotion from sharing personal stories and experiences, and, of course, from singing. Deep bonds were forged among participants, few of whom knew each other prior to the workshop. They were there to compose women-identified songs in a setting that alternated between individual and group composition.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.