Trotskyism

Description

In the wake of the popular revolutions which have overthrown Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, Alex Callinicos reconsiders the socialist tradition founded in opposition to Stalinism by Trotsky. Trotsky argued that Stalinism represented a betrayal of the principles of the October Revolution and sought to create a movement capable of rescuing the Marxist tradition. Alex Callinicos traces the intellectual history of this movement from its origins in Trotsky's own thought to the crisis of the Trotskyist Fourth International provoked by the apparent strength and stability of Western capitalism and Stalinism. This book traces the various strands of Trotskyist theory and takes a different look at its analysis of the Eastern Bloc which rejects both the market and bureaucratic command economies. Alex Callinicos is professor of European Studies at King's College London. He has written widely about Marxism and social theory. His most recent books are Social Theory (1999), Equality (2000), Imperialism and Global Political Economy (2009), and Bonfire of Illusions (2010), all published by Polity. He is editor of the journal International Socialism. Cover Preface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1 Origins 1.1 Permanent revolution 1.2 The critique of Stalinism 1.3 Revolutionary prospects 2 Crisis 2.1 Refuted conjectures 2.2 Conventionalist stratagems 3 Orthodoxies 3.1 Uncritical positivism and uncritical idealism 3.2 The big battalions 3.3 Into the watch-tower: Deutscher and Anderson 4 Heresies 4.1 Max Shachtman and the evil empire 4.2 C.L.R. James and the virtues of spontaneity 4.3 Cornelius Castoriadis and the triumph of the will 5 Reorientations 5.1 Tony Cliff and the theory of state capitalism 5.2 A progressive problem-shift? 5.3 The experience of defeat Bibliography