The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions

by Alex Callinicos

Book Overview

The Revenge of History is a frontal assault on the widely accepted idea that the East European revolutions of 1989 mark the death of socialism.

Alex Callinicos seeks to vindicate the classical Marxist tradition by arguing that socialism in this tradition can only come from below, through the self-activity of the working class. Stalinism from this standpoint was a counterrevolution, erecting at the end of the 1920s a state capitalist...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271007680
• ISBN13: 9780271007687
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 5.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Brilliant Book

For all those people who believed that capitalism had won the cold war, this is the book for you. It brilliantly attacks the idea that the Soviet Union and its satellite states had anything to do with socialism and puts the Eastern European revolutions into a proper historical context of workers overthrowing corrupt regimes. In addition, 'The Revenge of History'looks into why the Eastern European countries were not workers states, and provides an analysis of where to go from here. Indispensible reading for anybody looking for an alternate view of modern European history free from the whitewash of the capitalist press.

THE REVENGE OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

This book is a live proof that socialism is not the ex-soviet union but a dramatically different society based upon the working control and individual freedom. Soviet union and the countries like china,cuba etc are only-what an amazing idea!- a version of capitalism where the means of production controlled by the state but not by the workers. Read this book to find out what genuine socialism is and what is not. Indispensable.