Marx And The Marxists

2011 Reprint of 1955 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In this work Sidney Hook, a distinguished scholar, examines the chief issues which have divided Marxists from non-Marxists, and Marxists from each other. This volume of exposition, comment and readings is offered as an introduction to the study of Marxism in conflicting theory and practice. A valuable collection of original source readings are provided, including "The Communist Manifesto," "Historical Materialism," "The Fetishism of Commodities," "Religion and Economics," and much more by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Kautsky, Trotsky and Luxemburg.

Citing a lifelong engagement with Marxism, critic and writer Marshall Berman reveals the movement's positive points and suggests a new beginning for Marxism may be on the horizon with its recent 150th anniversary attention.

Lenin's most important and controversial theoretical text Lenin’s booklet The State and Revolution struck the world of Marxist theory like a lightning bolt. Written in the months running up to the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin turned the traditional socialist concept of the state on its head, arguing for the need to smash the organs of the bourgeois state to create a ‘semi-state’ of soviets, or workers’ councils, in which ordinary people would take on the functions of the state machine in a new and radically democratic manner. This new edition includes a substantial introduction by renowned theorist Antonio Negri, who argues for the continued relevance of these ideas.

Through a series of interconnected articles, this book makes available a range of international authors for an English readership. Topics covered include: Marzism and political economy, historical materialism, dialectics, state theory, class crisis, fetishism and the periodization of capitalist development.

An illuminating overview of Marx's intellectual influence from a leading historian of socialism Why was Marx so successful as a thinker? Did he have a system and if so, what does it consist of? How did Marxism develop in the twentieth century and what does it mean today? Karl Marx remains the most influential and controversial political thinker in history. The movements associated with his name have lent hope to many victims of tyranny and aggression but have also proven disastrous in practice and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of millions. If after the collapse of the Soviet Union his reputation seemed utterly eclipsed, a new generation is reading and discovering Marx in the wake of the recurrent financial crises, growing social inequality and an increasing sense of the injustice and destructiveness of capitalism. Both his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future speak across the centuries to our times, even if the questions he poses are more difficult to answer than ever. In this wide-ranging account, Gregory Claeys, one of Britain's leading historians of socialism, considers Marx's ideas and their development through the Russian Revolution to the present, showing why Marx and Marxism still matter today.