Red Flags

Availability:
Ebook in PDF format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order

DRM:
ACS4

Publication Year:
2025

ISBN-13: 9781773637334

<p>Increasingly, people are responding to the contemporary crises underwritten by capitalism by exploring the politics of communism. Some have taken a sympathetic, even nostalgic, view of &ldquo;actually existing socialist&rdquo; (AES) societies past and present, including the USSR, China, and Cuba, and the Marxist-Leninist political tradition associated with them. They see these states as a powerful alternative to capitalism, governed by parties genuinely committed to socialism and staunchly resisting Western imperialism. But were these societies really in transition towards a classless, stateless society of freedom &mdash; the original communist goal? Is Marxism-Leninism the political approach that should orient people on the left now?&nbsp;</p>

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<em>Red Flags</em>&nbsp;traces the path from the 1917 Russian Revolution to the construction of the world&rsquo;s first AES society: the USSR. It also looks at the post-revolution societies created along the same lines in China and Cuba. Using the intellectual tools of historical materialism,&nbsp;<em>Red Flags</em>&nbsp;argues that they were not in fact moving towards communism because the social relations remained fixed in class exploitation. The workers were never liberated.</p>

<p>At a time of burgeoning anti-communism from both conservatives and liberals, this book is an accessible, vibrant synthesis of the history of communism that draws on the latest research to develop a rigorous analysis of the contradictions and uneasy truths the left needs to confront if it is to build a genuinely liberatory alternative to capitalism.</p>