Revolutionary Road to Socialism

by Alex Callinicos

Genres: Politics

77 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Alexander Theodore Callinicos, a descendant through his mother of Lord Acton, is a political theorist and Director of the Centre for European Studies at King's College London. He holds both a BA and a DPhil from Oxford University.

Reviews

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting as a document from the early 1980s, although with a timeless message. Would be interesting to see what an edition would look like 30 years after.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a life-long left-leaning political inclination, it is only recently that I've started to engage with the underlying theory and philosophy of socialism. This 1983 review of the socialist movement from inception to contemporary position is necessarily brief, given its seventy-seven pages, but nontheless provides a clear and inciteful introduction.

The betrayal by Stalin of the Russian socialist revolution isn't news to me, but the nature of that betrayal in his formation of a state capitalist economy is, and makes sense of the USSR's and China's position on the world stage, and moreso that of the present-day Russian Federation and China.

The East-West tensions that Callinicos saw at the time as possibly moving towards another world war were, it seems to me, to some extent resolved by the acceptance of global capitalism by Gorbachev and Yeltsin in Russia, and more gradually in China by its increasing openness to global markets. However, it feels like those tensions are again rising due to the global financial crisis, the typical reaction of scapegoating an external threat and the increasing alienation and disenfranchisement of the mass of people who are afflicted by their governements with policies of ideological austerity, widening the gap between rich and poor.

The tensions are already playing out in increasing militarism and conflict. My hope is that the majority of people won't be drawn to the phony patriotism and jingoism that seems rife amongst the political classes around the world and that an escalation of military conflict is averted.