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Copyright of Filozofija i Drustvo is the property of University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy & Social Theory and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper reexamines African socialism, the Ghanaian political economy under Kwame Nkrumah (1957–1966), Nkrumah's intellectual genealogical heritage, and African intellectual history as a genre that transcends the bounds of the Atlantic world. First, I sketch the lives of Black Marxists—Nkrumah, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, and Bankole Awoonor-Renner—from Africa and the Americas, to the Soviet Union, to England and Ghana, to rethink Black bodies not merely as theorists of racial and decolonial questions but also as sites, carriers, and manipulators of political-economic theories. In constructing connected and overlapping histories, I demonstrate how controversial and contested Soviet ideas became key sites of interrogation among global Black Marxists. By reframing travel as an intellectual process, I reconceptualize the movements of Black Marxists to the USSR, the United States, England, and Ghana as critical intellectual and historical processes in their understandings of Lenin's state capitalist ideas. Second, I revisit the Ghanaian political economy under Nkrumah to argue that combining socialist and capitalist development paths was not a contradictory Marxian policy but was embedded within Black Marxist understandings of Lenin's state capitalist ideas. In so doing, I argue that we must situate African political ideologies not solely within a romanticized Afrocentric origin but as ideas that emerge out of contemporaneous global political and ideological struggles. I draw on global Black Marxists' correspondence; newspaper and magazine articles; British and American espionage files; and Ghanaian, American, and British state and inter-state departmental documents in imperial, colonial, and postcolonial British, Ghanaian, American, and Russian archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a unique phenomenon of the Soviet era -- the use of agitational-propaganda trains and steamers subsequent to the 1917 October Revolution. Given the military-political situation at the time, the Bolsheviks, headed by V.I. Lenin, needed to have their statecraft agenda grounded in support from the wide masses of the nation's peasantry and working class. The search for ways to distribute agitational leaflets, brochures, and books among members of the Red Army in as mobile a fashion as possible would result in the launch of literary-instructional trains and steamers. The paper offers an insight into the mechanics and practices behind the conduct of agitational work with local communities at the time. An attempt was made, based on the available statistical data, to identify the more common and effective propaganda techniques as well as the barriers in achieving the objectives for agitational vehicles. A noteworthy aspect touched upon in the paper is the Bolsheviks' interest, in this context, in the tenets of Taylorism, which found reflection in their plans to employ cutting-edge technical means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER IS DEVOTED TO THE SUBJECT OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, ANALYZING WHETHER THIS DICTATORSHIP REALLY BELONGED TO THE PROLETARIAT OR WHETHER IT SERVED OTHER INTERESTS, GIVING RISE TO A NEW RULING CLASS. DID THE LEININIST REVOLUTION SUCCEEDED IN ITS AIM TO PUT THE BASE FOR A STATE AIMING TO BUILD A CLASSLESS SOCIETY, OR IT WAS DIVERTED - VOLUNTARILY OR NOT - TO OTHER AIMS AND FUNCTIONS? BUILDING ON THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MARX AND ENGELS, WHO COINED THE TERM "DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT", LENIN ADAPTED ITS THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING TO THE CONTEXT OF THE RUSSIAN BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION. LENINIST THEORIES ARE SPECIAL BECAUSE HE ARGUED THAT A PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION CAN TAKE PLACE EVEN IN A WEAKLY INDUSTRIALIZED STATE LIKE RUSSIA, WHICH IS A DISTORTION OF THE MARXIST THEORY THAT THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION SHOULD TAKE PLACE IN HIGHLY INDUSTRIALIZED STATES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we document that living under Communism versus Capitalism has lasting effects on preferences for a strong government. Relying on the natural experiment of German reunification and extending the analysis of Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007), we show that East Germans still have stronger preferences for redistribution than West Germans 27 years after reunification. While convergence of preferences occurs, the speed of convergence decreases significantly over time. Evidence from cohorts born after German reunification points towards significant intergenerational transmission of preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Folklor / Edebiyat is the property of Cyprus International University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Fabrica Litterarum Polono-Italica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Yangtze Normal University is the property of Journal of Yangtze Normal University Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper explores the memory-political paradoxes behind the historiography of the Soviet Republic of Hungary and, in the context of the discourses of the period, advances propositions for social and political history research. Who were conquered by communism in the months following the defeat in war and why were they won over? Did Mihály Károlyi voluntarily resign power in favour of Béla Kun or was he tricked into doing so? The events of 21 March 1919 can be interpreted as a coup d’etat or rather as a revolution? Did the social democrats, refashioned as socialists, throw away their democratic heritage because they hoped, as Sándor Garbai argued apathetically before the hesitating delegates of the Budepest Workers’ Committee in the late afternoon of 21 March 1919, that the Hungarian justice that had been denied by the western democracy would be forthcoming from the Eastern dictatorship - that is, the Russian Bolsheviks of Lenin? What in fact did the Bolshevisation of Hungarian society consist in, which was observed with a curiosity muted with compassion in the Council of Four at Paris over the first days? Was it an ideology or a utopia, or a messianistic religious movement, or simply the manifestation of the state of deprivation that characterised a postwar society hit by hunger and misery? Who were the members of the provincial directories, what did the workers want, and what did the agrarian opposition of poor peasants, who crossed the way of their comrades in the capital, really hope for? It is to such questions that the paper aims to frame answers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, when China gradually initiated reform and open door policies, Soviet leaders' political agendas were no less appealing to post-Mao China than were Western agendas. This paper will show that Chinese scholars made tactical use of the writings and programs of Vladimir Lenin; this was done to grasp the nettle of Chinese socialism in the early 1980s, after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. According to the secondary scholarship, Chinese Sovietology after 1991 has consistently emphasized the role of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies, which (in the eyes of the Chinese communist regime) brought about the downfall of the Soviet empire. In reality, however, Chinese Soviet-watchers were researching various Soviet leaders throughout the 1980s and 1990s - and particularly Lenin, who featured prominently in Chinese writings and claimed equal importance to Gorbachev. In the early 1980s, Chinese scholars used the first Soviet leader, Lenin, and his writings to rebuild faith in socialism and to disperse scepticism of the Chinese communist regime after the disastrous Mao era. While some pieces of work resorted to using Lenin's socialist humanism to attack Maoism and Chinese communist rule, most of the time Chinese scholars used Lenin to strengthen the weakening legitimacy of Chinese socialism without tarnishing the image of Mao, and to command support for new leader Deng Xiaoping's open door policy and future reforms. Their main argument pointed out that Lenin's moderate approach to socialism should be China's model after Mao. Arriving at the conclusion of this paper, first, Lenin's name could be used to help rally Chinese communists against the radical policies that had long prevailed. On many issues, his views were introduced in an effort to justify new policies or rally support behind new proposals in the early 1980s. His stand was invoked to weaken the hold of Maoist remnants in favour of utilising all possible resources for economic construction, and to support reformers in their pursuit of more sweeping changes. Having said this, the use of Lenin was by no means for leading the attack on Mao, but rather for defending the legitimacy of Chinese socialism founded by the Chairman. His theory was intended to help save the Chinese communist regime that had been paralysed by the Cultural Revolution. The first Soviet leader was seen by Chinese officials and scholars as an epitome of the new kind of image the Party forged for itself after the maelstrom of the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese writings played on these positive associations of the Grail of Lenin, making him the moral centre of its representation of post-Mao China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of current debates on development problems, it is very common to speak of economic transition, of the causes of social crises and to blame, only, national states with internal policies that prevent them from advancing to higher forms of material and spiritual growth, exonerating the great powers and the most important centers of economic and financial power from all kinds of influences. In this sense, even when is visible that most of the analyzes on these issues ignore the struggle sun leashed, historically, with in the socialist experiences and the tribulations because they went through to overcome the agro-industrial and social backwardness in general, it seems convenient to return to the original Marxism and to the practical experience of Lenin, to re-evaluate some of his most important theoretical-methodological contributions and determine which of these could be useful to us today in order to overcome under development. It is precisely what this paper proposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a response to Paul Kelly's discussion of Lenin and Mao in Conflict, War and Revolution: The problem of politics in international political thought (2022). Taking on a postcolonial perspective, it analytically expands how the book theorizes violence by understanding the violence of capitalist and colonial domination as a paradigm of war that structures pacified social relations and politics. The paper proposes that pacification, as a phenomenon that spans different kinds of modern nation‐states, begs for a distinct theory of violence in international political thought. In so doing, it places Marxism, Post Colonialism, Coloniality/Decoloniality, Settler Colonial Studies, Anglophone Indigenous thought, post‐structuralism and Brazilian Anthropology in conversation to reveal shared genealogies of anti‐colonial, decolonial and anti‐capitalist thought without uncritically collapsing these traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Fanon puts forward the importance of a strategic approach to winning the goals of national independence from colonialism as part of the wider fight for a different social and economic system. In The wretched of the earth Fanon supports a strategic focus along similar lines to Lenin. The interpretation of the national bourgeoisie and the native working class within the colony put forward by Fanon is directly influenced by his readings of Lenin. Alongside his diverse lessons and influences, this paper will argue that Fanon's 'Leninist' moment should be acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the theoretical philosophy of Bukharin as developed in his book Filosofskie arabeski (Philosophical Arabesques). I analyze three concepts—perception, being, and dialectics—and show that and how they deviate from the meaning that they commonly have among other Russian Marxists. In this work, Bukharin drafts a theory that can be interpreted as a "relational ontology," since it focuses on the relations between entities and since these relations are considered to be more fundamental than the entities themselves and provide epistemic access to reality. My examination of Bukharin's theoretical views shows that he continues Lenin's tradition of materialist and dialectical thought. That is why, in spite of his innovative approach to some key problems of theoretical philosophy, Bukharin did not go far enough in his studies. His theoretical position appears to be an integral part of his political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polemos is the property of Croatian Sociological Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Based on texts and personal recollections, the paper discusses the origins and roots of Philipp Frank's philosophy of science as it was developed in Eastern Europe and later institutionalized in the United States. It takes into account the influence of Abel Rey and V. I. Lenin, considering the idea of the 'bankruptcy of science.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an intervention in some controversies concerning the role of the Communist International in and outside China. It seeks to tackle the inappropriate denial of its guidance and aid to the Chinese Revolution. In doing so, this paper makes several arguments. First, it argues that the Communist International provided the Chinese Revolution with valuable guidance, support and assistance. These contributed tremendously to the Communist Party of China's birth, development, consolidation and maturation and advanced its theoretical self-consciousness. Second, while the Communist International gave its guidance in the sincere hope that the Chinese Revolution would benefit from correct theories and advanced experiences, it absolutised the theoretical conceptions of the classical Marxists and the Russian experience. This led to mistakes or misjudgments that deserve an accurate evaluation. Third, the Communist International was itself conducting theoretical exploration, and was generally able to adjust its own theories and change its strategies. Fourth, for all the Communist International's guidance, the universal tenets of Marxism had to be integrated with the concrete practice of the Chinese Revolution, and it was the ability of Chinese communists to Sinicise Marxism–Leninism in what amounted to a theoretical revolution under Mao Zedong's leadership that accounts for the revolution's ultimate victory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is set into the scope of dramatic ideological tensions of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century which notably formed the value frameworks as well as created real social events of the Russian environment. It was a time when the mutual confrontation between religiously and secularly oriented thinking took place. The latter is crucial since it describes the most dominant manifestation of the secular thinking of the period, i.e. the Russian Narodnism. The focus of the paper aims at the revolutionary branch of Narodnism, the quintessence of which is P. N. Tkachev. Approaching the main conceptual pillars of Tkachev's works provides the foundations for an analysis of possible impact and influence of the radical Narodnism on the actions of one of the most controversial figures not only in the Russian history but also in human history as such - Vladimir Ilich Lenin. The paper also outlines possible frameworks and issues concerning the mutual relationship between Russian Narodnism and Lenin. The aim is to stimulate new critical, historical-philosophical studies of the Russian Narodnism as well as of the genuine legacy of Lenin. Nonetheless, I refuse any ideologizing or excusing the Leninism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cold War Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev (d. 1971) and Leonid Brezhnev (d. 1982), between 1953 and 1982, continued with Vladimir Lenin's (d. 1924) and Joseph Stalin's (d. 1953) physical culture policy designed to create healthier citizen-workers and soldiers. The underlining concept was to construct a communist society. In the process, the Soviet culture and sports culture played a role in integrating the different ethnic groups into the multinational Soviet Union. Leonid Brezhnev (Communist Party leader from 1964 to 1982) consolidated and expanded the Soviet sports system, albeit in a changing historical context. Our paper, firstly, describes the concept of Soviet modernity and physical culture. Secondly, in the context of Brezhnev's tenure, we investigate the development of the modern sports infrastructure in Tashkent, and the numerical growth of the ordinary and the elite sportspeople in Uzbekistan. Thirdly, to explain what this meant to the everyday Central Asian, we have incorporated their oral histories into our study. This inclusion of the people's memories will provide us with a bottom-up perspective of Soviet sport, and enrich our understanding of the ordinary citizen's relationship with the Soviet Union's sports culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the unique science of preservation that emerged around the task of maintaining Lenin's body for public display in mausoleum in Moscow. It contrasts Lenin's body to the incorruptible bodies of Christian saints (Catholic and Orthodox) and explores its role in the political history of the communist state. While the bodies of Christian saints are considered intact and incorruptible if their biological matter is relatively unchanged, even if their bodily form undergoes considerable change, in the case of Lenin's body the relation of form to matter is reversed. This body is considered intact because its form (its shape and its dynamic characteristics that include the suppleness of skin, the flexibility of joints, etc) is preserved without change, while its matter is actively and continuously transformed and substituted with new inorganic materials. The unique materiality of this body, the paper argues, reveals previously unseen aspects of the Soviet political project. This analysis is based on ethnographic research in the mausoleum lab in Moscow, interviews with the lab's scientists, and research in several Russian state archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Estudos Feministas is the property of Revista Estudos Feministas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the exhibition and reception of Kinemacolor in Russia from 1910 to 1916. Kinemacolor was a British method of filming and projecting in natural color invented by George Albert Smith and financed by Charles Urban, a US-born entrepreneur; film historians generally regard it as the most commercially viable color process before the outbreak of war in 1914. The article investigates Urban's interest in Russia as a potential market for Kinemacolor and as a source of interesting filmic material. In addition to identifying the extent of Kinemacolor's exhibition and distribution in Russia between 1910 and 1916, it also examines the Russian subjects filmed by Urban's companies in black and white and color, and identifies two occasions (1909 and 1913) on which Tsar Nikolai II and Tsarina Aleksandra Fedorovna were filmed in Kinemacolor. The article argues that the reception of Kinemacolor was widespread and diverse, and included members of the Russian imperial family and the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin. It references the specialist film-trade press in Britain, Russia, Europe, and North America; theater listings in Britain and Russia; and contemporary reports on Kinemacolor exhibitions in the British and Russian media. The article also draws upon the extensive archive of Urban's private papers, which is currently preserved in Bradford's National Science and Media Museum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A busy year for Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 1917 also marked the publication of his study of American agriculture. The report reads as more than a historical curiosity, offering insights, however era-bounded, on a variety of topics of substantive and epistemological interest today. Lenin writes of the history of American agriculture, its dynamic regionalism, and its sector-specific class conflicts. Along the way, despite his obvious structural tendencies, we meet an anti-foundational author who, while upbraiding bourgeois economists for their expedient technicism, often in scathing terms, also warns that sweeping conclusions about the sizes of farm and capitalization are problematic in the face of historically dependent and contradictory trends. Here, in the first of the paper’s two parts, we begin to place Lenin’s project in the broader stream of critical agrarian studies, including the classic contrast with agricultural economist Alexander Chayanov, but also the diseconomies of modern agriculture, the biological limits on industrializing food production, and Stalin’s “dekulakization” campaign. Our aims here are more than academic. The exploration is framed by the roles the structure of agriculture and its impacts on its participants play in political change, from elections to revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to develop some broad principles and guidelines for a strategy of socialist transformation. The method adopted in this paper rests on the judgement that such principles may be extrapolated from an analysis and critique of the major failings of the two most established and historically influential socialist strategic approaches, namely reformism and Leninist revolutionary socialism. Accordingly the article begins, after a brief discussion of the necessity of renewed and reinvigorated strategic thinking on the radical left, by subjecting the reformist and Leninist strategies to critique. Some general guidelines in relation to the necessary shape of a more adequate strategic approach are elicited from this analysis. The article then moves on to outline the ideas of Boris Kagarlitsky in relation to socialist strategy as advanced in The Dialectic of Change. It is argued that Kagarlitsky's strategy accords closely with the guidelines developed earlier in the paper and that a slightly modified version of his approach provides us with a superior set of overall strategic principles to guide struggle for socialism. This strategic approach, which I term (following Kagarlitsky) 'revolutionary reformism', centres on the idea that revolution must emerge dialectically from a programme of radical reform, one set in motion by a socialist government working within the bourgeois state and operating in close partnership with a mass movement, well embedded in new institutions of popular, participatory democracy outside the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper strives to pursue two goals at the same time: how can one get to know in depth the intellectual life of the USSR in the 1930s--1950s; and, what can the virulent anti-Saussurean criticism in Russia at that time tell us about the specificity of the Marxist-Leninist theory of signs? We propose the following angle of attack: the recurring theme of this criticism, namely that Saussure's Cours presents a "theory of hieroglyphics", therefore a type of "bourgeois idealist" theory that Lenin assailed in his 1909 book Materialism and Empiriocriticism about Ernst Mach. Yet thinking about hieroglyphics is based on much older controversies, dating back to the 17th century and concerning the deciphering of Egyptian writing. The issue which arises here is semiotic in nature: it is the scalar opposition between transparency and opacity of the sign that is at stake. Does the sign hide or reveal? The Soviet discourse on language and signs in the 1930s--1950s seems to be based on an interrogation of the sign/referent, language/thought, form/content relationship. A part of the history of semiotics can thus be discovered from the critique of the "hieroglyphic theory", a little-known episode in a debate on the interpretation of Saussurism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health of heads of states is not always handled in the same way as an incapacitating disability in ordinary professionals. Instead of suspension of responsibilities, the health status of political leaders is concealed, especially when the illness is perceived as stigmatizing, such as organic mental impairment or sexual disorder. The objective of the present paper is to analyse the malady of Lenin (1870–1924) in the light of relevant and new medical information. It is hoped that this will accentuate the need for transparency when the health of a statesman is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian Revolution inaugurated a period of unprecedented social agitation in Spain, which shared notable structural similarities with Russia. The instability of this period, often referred to as the trienio bolchevista (three Bolshevik years), paved the way for military dictatorship in 1923, and revealed grave defects in the Spanish political and social edifice (the national question, the land question, the inefficiency and corruption of the state, the militancy of the labor movement), which would re-emerge again with even greater virulence in the 1930s. The Russian Revolution provided a powerful stimulus for these upheavals, and the myth of Bolshevism helped spur both revolution from below and counterrevolution from above. This paper will provide a synopsis of the turbulences of these years and will gauge their ulterior significance, setting them in a transnational context. In particular, the paper will assess the specific impact of the Russian Revolution in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The thesis of this paper is that even some of the most fundamental concepts of Marxism have been used and abused to fit their advocates‘ purposes. More specifically, the interpretation of the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" has been subject to a dual development. First, the dictatorship of the proletariat has come to denote an increasingly violent regime. Second, the term has been used to refer to a rule exercised by an ever smaller segment of society. This paper seeks to analyze and elucidate this much disputed and frequently misunderstood Marxist concept. In the first part Marx‘s use of the term is examined. The second section explores how the same concept was explicated in the writings of some of the most important first generation Marxist thinkers and "practitioners" like Engels, Lenin, Kautsky, Bukharin, and Stalin. Following the summary of my findings I attempt to formulate some meaningful generalizations about the usage of the concept by Marxist thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illuminates the contemporary vitality of Lenin's theory of ideology. Since the collapse of Soviet socialism, some have attempted to dismiss Lenin's theory as anti-Marxist and lacking in critical power. More recent studies of the Marxist theory of ideology have neglected Lenin entirely. Contrastingly, this article argues that Lenin's theory of ideology remains relevant, albeit misunderstood. First, Lenin highlighted the class essence of ideology with unparalleled force and clarity. He emphasised that every ideology serves the power of a definite class. Second, Lenin clarified the role of ideology as a weapon in the class struggle. He urged the working class to use socialist ideology to further its interests and overthrow capitalism. Third, Lenin outlined the principles for engaging in the ideological struggle. He instructed Marxists on how to advance their ideas and defeat bourgeois ones. These insights remain indispensable for communists, a hundred years after Lenin's death in 1924. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the spatial effects of the ongoing "decommunization" campaign in Ukraine, a state-led attack on Soviet symbols and ideology in the urban space of the capital, Kyiv. We examine decommunization through the lens of an extensive legacy of architectural, urban design, and monumental art projects erected for the celebration of the 1500th anniversary of the city of Kyiv held in 1982. We focus on four ideological narratives and examine the outcomes of decommunization on four monuments. We find that decommunization's effect is limited; Communist symbolism has been annotated with Ukrainian identity symbols or neglected, not demolished. We conclude that decommunization has focused on the comparatively superficial qualities of toponomy and Lenin symbols, that the legacy of Soviet identity in Kyiv's cityscape is much deeper and has proved surprisingly persistent, and that the historiography of the newly independent nation of Ukraine is still in a process of reformation and revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reassesses aspects of the scholarship of David Mitrany, who first in the 1920s and then in the late 1940s approached the ‘agrarian question’ – whether and if so how socialism is possible in a state where there is only a small manufacturing sector and therefore no significant industrial proletariat – from the perspective of countries in Central and Eastern Europe where, between the two World Wars, political parties representing small-scale agricultural producers won large numbers of votes in democratic elections. His 1951 bookMarx against the peasantwas his response to the failure of those parties to hold on to power, and their crushing by the Communist governments that took control from 1948 on. Mitrany showed that the populist tradition, the ideology of independent small farmers, came from similar roots to Marxism, and that Marx himself late in his life came close to endorsing it. Whether increased agricultural productivity is feasible without large-scale farming was the subject of intense debate among socialists in Europe from the 1850s onwards. It is on the agenda today in many underdeveloped countries where there are strong disagreements about the role of agriculture and rural development in development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reconsiders the established reading of Luxemburg's conception of spontaneity, where she is said to have overestimated the role of spontaneity and underestimated the role of the party because of an economic-determinist view of history. It reconsiders this view by re-reading Luxemburg's concept of spontaneity through the work of Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci and E.P. Thompson. Using conceptions of subjectivity not yet available at the time of these debates, as well as the recent scholarship of Lars Lih on Lenin's What Is To Be Done?, this article illuminates both conscious and unconscious processes behind what often appears to be spontaneous resistance, and offers a new reading of Luxemburg's critique of Lenin's views on organization in 1902–1905. It argues that Luxemburg's perceived economism is produced by her critics’ own economistic reading of spontaneity. In contrast, it suggests that her depictions of spontaneous activity speak to historical processes that can be illuminated by conceptions of subjectivity developed after her assassination, and which require a substantial reconceptualization of the nature of subjectivity beyond the limits of classical Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper concentrates on resolving the question: is it possible today to be guided by Marxism as an instrument of social transformation, is this teaching capable of contributing to social advancement? Facts are a stubborn thing: Marxism in its completeness is refuted. But the fact of the collapse of the attempts to put Marxism into practice is not a completely convincing argument against the social doctrine of Marx. The question, ultimately, goes back to the problem of the subjective factor of the moral, theoretical, and political maturity of those who turn Marxism in actual practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features several communism movement leaders in Finland from 1920-1960. It mentions that Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Yrjö Mäkelin, and Otto Wille Kuusinen are some of the members of the Finnish Communist Party (SKP). It mentions that suicide is not recognized in the Finnish labour movement and it is not included in the modes of action of SKP. It discusses that the commemoration of the Finnish communist who died in prison was restricted to have their funeral and process any underground papers. It also notes that peace became an important characteristic of the communist leader cult in 1940.

This paper examines two apparently contrasting cases: the imaginative effects generated by Mongolian scapulimancy practices, and the impact that the introduction of electric light had on rural Mongolians. Scapula and other divinatory items are analysed as 'metonymic fields' - bounded technical practices from which wider meanings are read. The Soviet-era electrification programme was designed to create the sorts of imaginative perceptions that the modernist state advocated. However, it is argued that Mongolia cannot be described in terms of a successful modernist 'colonisation' of the social imaginary, since this metaphor implies a bounded space being filled with particular ideologies. Rather than displace each other, narrative genres and metonymic fields have coexisted and interacted in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The investigation of Lenin's brain by the German neurobiologist Oskar Vogt and his Russian collaborators in Moscow is one of the most exciting and simultaneously questionable chapters in the history of medicine. With the bizarre claim to be able to detect the material substrate of genius it provoked as much unrealistic expectations in the public as strong criticism by the scientific community of brain researchers. The following paper deals in a brief survey with the foundation and the early history of the Moscow Brain Research Institute (INSTITUT MOZGA) and its initial task — the collecting and mapping the brains of famous (Russian) persons in general and the investigation of Lenin's brain in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1920, Vladimir Lenin defined "imperialism" as national exploitation, which raises the question of how nations exploited other nations throughout history. This article will argue that answering this question requires introducing new concepts into Marxist discourse that can capture competition among multiple states and currencies, namely the "hegemon-rival" dialectic between the "currency hegemon" and the "mercantile rivals." Focussing on the British empire, this article will show that British currency hegemony based on the gold standard functioned by a system that can be called "bimetallic apartheid," which involved arbitraging the value of gold against silver in order to facilitate the plundering of India and China, however, as other states began to industrially "catch up" with Britain (i.e., the "mercantile rivals"), the credibility of the British gold standard was undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of capitalism in agriculture as of 1983, suggest that the classical Marxist texts are outmoded. These critics, however, offer little in the way of empirical support for their claims. When data on the development of the U.S. agriculture are examined, they confirm the classical theorists. The development of the U.S. agriculture has been characterized by an increase in scale, in capital investment and in the importance of wage labor. This paper also argues that the development of agriculture in the U.S. confirms V. I. Lenin's early work. But if Lenin's description is comprehensive, his explanations are not. He emphasized the importance of market forces to the exclusion of all else. He did not anticipate the enormous role of the state in orchestrating the advance of the U.S. agricultural capitalism. Indeed, a growing body of literature supports the idea that state intervention propelled the development of capitalism in the U.S. agriculture. This essay updates Lenin's discussion of U.S. agriculture and speculates on the role of the state in its transformation. What is less clear is whether European agriculture diverged from classical expectations. A comparative study of farm structure and state policy might go a long way towards revising and elaborating classical theory.

This article comprehensively traces the evolution of left-wing thought from ancient civilizations to contemporary ideologies, highlighting its enduring legacy in advocating for equality and collective well-being. The concept of 'left' symbolizes a departure from traditional hierarchies in favor of a society where the welfare of all supersedes the privileges of a few. Its origins lie in ancient communal living and fairness ideals, championed by thinkers like Plato and fueled by the French Revolution. The article examines historical developments, focusing on figures such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong and their contributions to socialist and communist ideologies. It also explores how left-wing principles manifest in indigenous communities and religious movements. Left-wing thought has profoundly shaped political discourse, advocating for equality and collective well-being from ancient times to modern revolutions and global movements. This exploration underscores the enduring pursuit of equality and justice, inspiring continued efforts toward a more equitable world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear trauma has always resisted verbal and visual portrayal, calling for various alternative, form-breaking methods. This article discusses three artistic works which I consider "experimental documents" because of their various photographic and filmic practices of intimately approaching the radioactive contamination still present in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The site-related projects of Alice Miceli (Chernobyl Project, 2006-2010), Lina Selander (Lenin's Lamp Glows in the Peasant's Hut, 2011), and Daniel McIntyre (Lion series, 2011-2014) go beyond the journalistic representations of the area and directly engage with the material traces, embodiment and objectification of immaterial radioactivity, devoting key role to the artist's bodily and sensorial presence in the traumatic landscape. I examine these works of art in a conceptual context that assumes a structural similarity between radioactive radiation and trauma due to their uncontrollable and retrospective nature, their specific aspects of embodiment, and their manifestation through various emotional and physical symptoms. According to my observation, although the artists initially aim to investigate and document the immateriality of toxic radiation through the mediums of photography and film, they not only reveal the original, hyperobjective nature of nuclear trauma, but also touch on its affective qualities. I will argue that these three works, despite their differences, are based on "traumatomic encounters" with the radiation-contaminated sites and have in common the perception of Chernobyl as a "traumascape" (Tumarkin), which is saturated with an invisible, radioactive, and at the same time affective "atmosphere" (Böhme). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, many women have been at the forefront of the struggle for emancipation and political changes. Efforts at integrating the idea of emancipation into society was an important part of the Bolshevik ideology; thus, the October Revolution of 1917 brought women new hope and new expectations. The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to successfully open the door to new economic and educational opportunities for women. In 1917, the Bolshevik legislative initiatives provided them with full political and civil rights while new legislation made women legally equal to men. The constitution adopted in July 1918 secured the political and civil equality of women and men. However, the gender policy developed and implemented by Lenin significantly changed after his death. Until the second half of the 1930s, the Soviet Union remained the world leader in terms of providing women with equal rights. However, after the new leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin, came to power, the government policy on women and equality substantially transformed. During Stalin's rule, the concept of "a new type of woman" was created. The early Bolshevik policy, which started with a radical liberal vision of individual freedom and women's rights, devolved into an abyss of cynicism that burdened women with a disproportionate responsibility for unpaid work in the household. The purpose of this work is to study the role of women during the early Soviet period and to examine legal and political changes in women's status. The study aims at explaining what the main goal of the Soviet gender policy was in fact, whether it actually changed the status of women and what crucial changes it ultimately brought to them. Using the method of content analysis, the content of official documents, press and scientific literature was analyzed. At the same time, attempts were made to identify and analyze the positive and negative results of the Soviet policy by applying the method of critical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his writing, Lenin addresses what he perceived to be the most urgent and pressing issues for his cause, a clarity of purpose that we could certainly learn from today when many are invested in the production of ever more tedious micro-contributions. This, then, is my practical suggestion for how we address the complexity escalation in organization studies: we should all try to be a bit more Leninist, 'not to return to Lenin, but to (...) I retrieve the same impulse i in today's constellation' ([7], p. 11, emphasis added). Thus, we find Lenin popping up in academic and political discourse not because his ideas are popular or his works widely accepted, but because he formulated one of the most enduring questions in political theory: I What Is To Be Done?. [Extracted from the article]

This article seeks to locate the seminar series that Derrida delivered at the École normale superieure during the mid-seventies within the broader political and theoretical aspirations of the Groupe de recherches sur l'enseignement philosophique (GREPH), particularly considering the group's thematization and politicisation of pedagogy in the history of philosophy and the philosophical establishment. It also aims to contextualise Derrida's recourse to a Marxian and Marxist problematic as part of these aspirations in view of his longer-term engagement with the question of philosophy in Marx and Marxism. The article brings together these two contextual dimensions of Derrida's teaching activities at the ENS through a close reading of the seminar series he delivered on the agrégation topic of Theory and Practice in 1976–7. This reading focuses specifically on how Derrida mobilised the Althusserian problematic to attempt to transform the role and function of the agrégés-répétiteur (a position he shared with Althusser at the ENS) within the frame of reference of his political work with GREPH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape semiotics can be explored by focusing on Vladimir Lenin, whose likeness once graced more than 14,000 toponyms, museums, statues and monuments. During the Soviet period, Lenin monuments reflected a symbolic language linking communist power and ideology to particular sculptural characteristics. After 1991, the significance of Lenin statues took multiple paths of evolution in what Lotman would call "explosion." Depending on the geographical and political context, Lenin's statues took on different sorts of "afterlife." They were variously: (a) preserved and left in place to symbolize the legitimacy of post-Soviet elites, (b) taken for granted but permitted to deteriorate, (c) removed, relocated or destroyed to indicate the end of Soviet occupation, and (d) captured and reworked for use in place promotion and capitalist marketing. These various semiotic trajectories demonstrate a Lotmanian "explosion," evident in the post-Soviet landscapes of Russia, the former Soviet Republics, and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of imperialism has returned to political and theoretical debates. But there are open theoretical questions. In opposition to treating imperialism in terms of a territorial logic, we insist on the nonterritorial character of capitalist imperialism. We go back to Lenin's theoretical contribution to a possible Marxist theory of imperialism in order to distance it from theories of empire building and territorial expansion. We attempt to combine such a reading of Lenin's writings on imperialism with a conception of political power and hegemony on the international plane, stressing the relative autonomy of the state and political power. We highlight Lenin's discussion of imperialism's class character, in terms of condensed class strategies. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to offer elements of a theory of the specifically capitalist form of nonterritorial imperialism, stressing the importance of articulating Lenin's concept of the imperialist chain with Gramsci's concept of hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]