Bøger af Boris Kagarlitsky

An intellectual tour-de-force by one of Russia's most prominent dissidents

In this dramatic, month-by-month chronicle of a tumultuous period, Boris Kagarlitsky bears witness to the eruption of open political discussion in the Soviet Union during the 'hot summer' of 1988

Leading writer Boris Kagarlitsky offers an ambitious account of 1000 years of Russian history. Encompassing all key periods in Russia's dramatic development, the book covers everything from early settlers, through medieval decline, Ivan the Terrible - the 'English Tsar', Peter the Great, the Crimean War and the rise of capitalism, the revolution, the Soviet period, finally ending with the return of capitalism after 1991.*BR**BR*Setting Russia within the context of the 'World System', as outlined by Wallerstein, this is a major work of historical Marxist theory that is set to become a future classic.

Russia has undergone more seismic changes over the last 100 years than almost any other country. The 1917 Revolution, the rapid industrialisation of the 1930s, the following devastation of the Second World War, and the present return to Capitalism has seen the deep impoverishment of the entire population. *BR**BR*Kagarlitsky shows how to understand these changes, and how to characterise the complex process of reform, revolution and counter revolution.*BR**BR*Looking in detail at the nature of Russian society and politics since 1990, Kagarlitsky offers an introductory political analysis of the major political and economic developments that have taken place under President Yeltsin, and the legacy he bequeathed so unexpectedly to his successor Putin. He focuses on the role of the media in post-Soviet Russia, corporate structures and their influence on social conflict, the formation of the oligarchy and the role of the left in modern Russia.

In this radical and controversial overview of the post-communist world, Boris Kagarlitsky argues that the very success of neoliberal capitalism has made traditional socialism all the more necessary and feasible. *BR**BR*Kagarlitsky argues that leftists exaggerate the importance of the 'objective' aspects of the 'new reality' - globalisation - and the weakening of the state, while underestimating the importance of the hegemony of neoliberalism. As long as neoliberalism retains its ideological hegemony, despite its economic failure, the consequence is a 'new barbarism' - already a reality in Eastern Europe, and now also emerging in the West.*BR**BR*Kagarlitsky challenges the political neurosis of the left and prevailing assumptions of Marxism to argue that Marx's theories are now more timely than they were in the mid-twentieth century. He analyses theories of the 'end of the proletariat' and the 'end of work', and assesses the potential of the new technologies - such as the Internet - which create fresh challenges for capitalism and new arenas for struggle.

In this book Boris Kagarlitsky offers a trenchant analysis of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the transformation of a section of the old nomenklatura into a new possessing and ruling elite.Kagarlitsky shows that Western commentators have been misled by the street theatre of events like the bungled coup of August 1991 into supposing that a fundamental break has been made with the confused politics and economics of the late Soviet period. He analyses the ill-considered and self-interested attempts made by the nomenklatura to privatize assets and inaugurate a free-market economy, finding an essential continuity between the plans of Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s advisers. He reveals, too, how the new Russian President has displayed a greater capacity to assert dictatorial powers than did the last General Secretary, a tendency which has brought him into repeated conflict with elected bodies.Boris Kagarlitsky is himself a Socialist member of the Moscow Soviet and one of the founders of Russia’s new Party of Labour. The Disintegration of the Monolith furnishes both a memorable indictment of the greed and irresponsibility of Russia’s new/old rulers and a fascinating account of the slow but unmistakeable awakening of forces of resistance as the peoples of Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union confront the hyper-inflation, shortages, unemployment and general havoc wreaked by the free-market experiment. Kagarlitsky describes the gradual emergence of a new Russian trade unionism, but warns that popular discontent is also being exploited by nationalist demagogues, such as the leader of Russia’s new Liberal Party. For those seeking to understand what has changed in Russia—and what has remained the same—The Disintegration of the Monolith is required reading.

Why do commercial advertisements stress that the products they offer are exactly the same as they used to be in Soviet times? And why, year after year, does the government in Moscow organize impressive celebrations for Victory Day, inevitably drawing parallels to the old Soviet ceremonies? This title tackles these questions.

This panoramic account of political culture in the Soviet Union, by one of the leading voices of unofficial radical socialism, examines the way in which cultural life in the arts, philosophy and historiography has been able to withstand the persistent efforts of the ¿statocracy¿ to extinguish independent thought.