Revolutionary studies

A key figure in the 1960s civil rights, labor, and peace movements, Max Shachtman was originally a Communist from Harlem, a leader in the fight to save Sacco and Vanzetti, Trotsky's "commissar for foreign affairs," an organizer of the 1934 Minneapolis general strike, and a principled opponent of World War II. He helped chart the strategy of the civil rights movement through associates like Bayard Rustin and Stokely Carmichael, and built a network of influence for the AFL-CIO within the Democratic Party. But, ultimately, Shachtman's support for the Vietnam War helped to break apart the progressive network he had so painstakingly pieced together and contributed to the decimation of the U.S. Left . Drawing on previously untapped archives and recent interviews, this first full-length biography of Max Shachtman and comprehensive study of his thought adds a new dimension to the study of U.S. labor and socialism.

Victor Serge (1890-1947), historian, translator and novelist, a Belgian-born Russian, was politically active in seven countries, participated in three revolutions, and spent more than ten years in various captivities. He was born in political exile of Russian anarchist parents who had been implicated in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, and he died in exile in Mexico. Russia Twenty Years After, his first major work, was written just after his harrowing release and expulsion from the Stalinist gulag, where he had spent three years as an intransigent oppositionist to the regime. It is still one of the most important documentary accounts of the then-emerging Stalinist system. Stalin almost stilled Serge's voice, but in exile Serge, along with Leon Trotsky, took up the defense of those falsely accused and silenced and tried to alert the world to what Stalin was doing in the name of socialism in the USSR, and to analyze how the Russian Revolution, which had been the hope for humankind, was in the process of devouring itself. This edition also includes Serge's "Thirty Years after the Russian Revolution," his eloquent summary and analysis of the Stalinist counterrevolution that has never before been published in English. The introductory essay by Susan Weissman introduces the reader to Serge, evaluating his contribution to our current understanding of the former Soviet Union. She also updates Serge's accounts of the fate of various oppositionists with information from the newly opened Soviet archives.

George Katsiaficas's account covers the period 1968-1996 and pays special attention to the role of autonomous feminist movements, the effects of squatters and feminists on the disarmament movement and on efforts to shut down nuclear power, and the antifascist social movements developed in response to the neo-Nazi upsurge. In addition to providing a rare depiction of these often overlooked movements, Katsiaficas develops a specific notion of autonomy from the statements and aspirations of these movements. Drawing from the practical actions of social movements, his analysis is extended into a universal standpoint of the species, a perspective he develops by uncovering the partiality of Antonio Negri's workerism, Seyla Benhabib's feminism, and notions of uniqueness of the German nation.

The essays in this volume deal with various aspects of the history of the revolutionary socialist current in United States that came to be identified as "American Trotskyism. " One of the most dynamic currents in the U.S. Left from the late 1920s to the 1980s, deeply committed to working-class democracy and internationalism, it had an intellectual and political impact well beyond the number of its members. The essays offer the most definitive history of that movement to be produced so far, giving a sense of some of its most colorful personalities and outstanding achievements - as well as it serious limitations. This work is an essential starting point, offering an ample bibliography for those who wish to carry out further research. More than this, the authors develop interpretations that confront the meaning of revolutionary politics in the United States, as they relate the efforts of the Trotskyists to the broader developments of the twentieth century.