Class Struggles in the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923

by Charles Bettelheim, Brian Pearce (Translator)

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Soviet Union, Russia, Sociology, Soviet History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Economist and historian, founder of the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI : Centre pour l'Étude des Modes d'Industrialisation) at the Sorbonne), economic advisor to the governments of several developing countries during the period of decolonization. He was very influential in France's New Left, and considered one of "the most visible Marxists in the capitalist world" (Le Monde, April 4, 1972), in France as well as in Spain, Italy, Latin America, and India.

Reviews

[Julio Pino · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Charles Bettleheim published this first volume on the Russian Revolution his beloved Maoist China, like Mao himself, lay at death's door. What had gone wrong? Why had every attempt to build socialism thus far ended in failure? Bettleheim decided to plow into the past and pry open the decisive years in the making of the USSR. Rejecting both Stalinist orthodoxy, the claim that the Soviet Union had ever been socialist, along with Trotsky's verdict on the USSR as "a degenerated workers' state", Bettleheim sees Soviet Russia sowing the seeds of its own destruction from the 1920s onward, by adopting a "mechanistic model" of building socialism that put 5-year plans and quotas first and class struggle last. Of this, Stalin and Trotsky were equally guilty, and Lenin comes in for his fair share of criticism. The absence of clear, Marxist, political leadership poisoned both the economy and proletarian consciousness. Food for thought on building an alternative to capitalism today.

[Bernardo Candal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poderia ser 4,5 por dois defeitos: uma constante repetição de temas de modo não cronológico, o que indica que devem ter sido reaproveitados de artigos ou outras obras, mas que engessam um pouco a leitura num livro tão denso; e certa romantização da experiência maoísta na China, sempre como exemplo positivo de forma exagerada. Mas tem que ser 5 pela profundidade da análise, pela ideia central de resgatar a evolução do pensamento de Lênin de forma dialética em oposição aos erros do partido, tanto das alas de Stalin quanto de Trotski. A ver se o segundo volume mantém o altíssimo nível do primeiro.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

here's a book for you if you'd like to read some 'epic' 70s maoist materialist analysis of the early soviet union and what lenin had to say about various developments in it.

[Alfie Hancox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bettelheim rehabilitates Lenin' revolutionary dialectics, as against Trotsky and Stalin, through an epic study of the USSR. A masterclass in historical materialism.