Monthly Review Press

No workers’ paradise, but the GDR wasn’t a prison, either: novelist Eve Ottenberg reviews “A Socialist Defector”

No workers’ paradise, but the GDR wasn’t a prison, either: novelist Eve Ottenberg reviews “A Socialist Defector”

February 20, 2024

From the perspective of 2019, it’s often difficult to recall the cold war hysteria over East Germany. It was called a secret police state. Everyone there was said to be oppressively monitored if not actively harassed by the Stasi. For Americans, it epitomized communist tyranny. Then along comes Victor Grossman’s memoir, A Socialist Defector–he fled US anticommunism to East Germany in 1952–and the distortions about East Germany (GDR) go right out the window…

Robin Morgan talks with Stephanie Urdang about what’s going on in South Africa

Robin Morgan talks with Stephanie Urdang about what’s going on in South Africa

February 20, 2024

Robin Morgan, poet, author, and political theorist, hosts a weekly, hour-long, nationally syndicated radio show based at the Women’s Media Center. On May 12, she talked with Stephanie J. Urdang, South African journalist, activist, and author of Mapping My Way Home: Activism, Nostalgia, and the Downfall of Apartheid South Africa, about the recent election and 25th anniversary of South African liberation.

Ronnie Kasrils on South Africa and Palestine, comparing one apartheid to another…

Ronnie Kasrils on South Africa and Palestine, comparing one apartheid to another…

February 20, 2024

Ronnie Kasrils, South African anti-apartheid activist, former South African Minister for Intelligence Services, and author of The Unlikely Secret Agent, appears on RT to talk with Afshin Rattansi, host of Going Underground, about current South African life, the ANC, and how, regarding the current Palestinian struggle, one apartheid compares to another…

New! By Samir Amin: “Only People Make Their Own History”

New! By Samir Amin: “Only People Make Their Own History”

February 20, 2024

Radical political economist Samir Amin (1931–2018) left behind a cherished oeuvre of Marxist writings. Amin’s intellectual range—from economics to culture—was admirable, and his lessons remain essential. Monthly Review Press is honored to publish this volume, culled from the Monthly Review magazine, of ten of Samir Amin’s most significant essays written in the twenty-first century. ...

“Wall Street’s Think Tank”–New in Paperback, with Afterword

“Wall Street’s Think Tank”–New in Paperback, with Afterword

February 20, 2024

The Council on Foreign Relations is the world’s most powerful private foreign-policy think tank and membership organization. Dominated by Wall Street, it claims among its members a high percentage of past and present top U.S. government officials as well as corporate leaders and influential figures in the fields of education, media, law, and nonprofit work. Wall Street’s Think Tank follows the Council on Foreign Relations from the 1970s to the present, and this new paperback edition includes an Afterword discussing the Trump Administration and the Council....

Spoiler alert: Capitalists will not make things better–The Progressive Populist reviews “Can the Working Class Change the World?”

Spoiler alert: Capitalists will not make things better–The Progressive Populist reviews “Can the Working Class Change the World?”

February 20, 2024

“In six chapters, Yates delivers a primer on radical economics. It is no mean feat, but he is up to it. ¶ In Chapter One, ‘The Working Class,’ Yates defines it, qualitatively and quantitatively. He refines the numbers that mainstream economists use to fog the oppressive nature of the system. ¶ Yates sketches an ‘analytical scaffolding’ of global labor, from the exploited (wages) and expropriated (theft). Yates explains how wage and unwaged labor are integral to the system, similar to the era of slave and ‘free’ workers...

Science & Society reviews Samir Amin’s “Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism”

Science & Society reviews Samir Amin’s “Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism”

February 20, 2024

In this short book Samir Amin, a distinguished left intellectual with a career spanning many decades, offers an analysis of Russia and its role in the transition from capitalism to socialism. The book consists of six essays written between 1990 and 2015, supplemented by a new commentary at the end. Amin’s approach combines the Marxist theory of historical materialism with World Systems theory....

Jeremy Kuzmarov: “Democrats play the Russia card … Trump wins”

Jeremy Kuzmarov: “Democrats play the Russia card … Trump wins”

February 20, 2024

The New York Times headline said it all: Mueller Finds No Trump Russia Conspiracy. ¶ After two years of investigation and $25 million in taxpayer dollars, the special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that President Donald J. Trump or any of his aides coordinated with the Russian government in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 election....

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