Struggle for Socialism

This volume deals with some of the issues confronting the struggle for socialism in the post-Soviet period. The author recognized that 'the extraordinary diversity of the struggle for socialism in different parts of the world makes it impossible to explore too many and too complex problems in any specific manner', but holds that some important issues of common interest can still be noticed and discussed. Among the issues thus noticed and discussed in this volume are: learning from the Soviet experience, the validity of Marx's critique of capitalism, revolutionary theory and renewal of Marxism, the recovery of socialist vision, Leninist dreaming and Marx's gift of historical optimism, the pursuit of revolutionary politics in regimes of bourgeois democracy, the struggle for hegemony, classes and class struggle, the question of agency of revolutionary change, the constituency, classes and class struggle, the question of agency of revolutionary change, the constituency of socialism today, the 'new' social movements, NGOs and 'civil society activism', power in the state, identity politics, revolutionary leadership and Lenin's theory of the party. The volume concludes with a few final comments on the subject of socialism and the subject of socialism and the struggle for it. An appendix, 'on the question of socialism today', has been additionally incorporated in this volume which touches upon issues ranging from Marx's perspective on the socialist transition to socialism and CPM politics in West Bengal.