Revolutionary Pasts

Revolutionary Pasts

Author: Ali Raza

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-04-02

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1108481841

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Raza traces the anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries in the context of Communist Internationalism during the last decades of the British Raj.


Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India

Author: V. Geetha

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-12-03

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 3030803759

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This book offers a reading of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s engagement with the idea and practice of socialism in India by linking it to his lifelong political and philosophical concerns: the annihilation of the caste system, untouchability and the moral and philosophical systems that justify either. Rather than view his ideas through a socialist lens, the author suggests that it is important to measure the validity of socialist thought and practice in the Indian context, through his critique of the social totality. The book argues its case by presenting a broad and connected overview of his thought world and the global and local influences that shaped it. The themes that are taken up for discussion include: his understanding of the colonial rule and the colonial state; history and progress; nationalism and the questions he posed the socialists; his radical critique of the caste system and Brahmancal philosophies, and his unusual interpretation of Buddhism.


Outcaste Bombay

Outcaste Bombay

Author: Juned Shaikh

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2021-04-25

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0295748516

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Over the course of the twentieth century, Bombay’s population grew twentyfold as the city became increasingly industrialized and cosmopolitan. Yet beneath a veneer of modernity, old prejudices endured, including the treatment of the Dalits. Even as Indians engaged with aspects of modern life, including the Marxist discourse of class, caste distinctions played a pivotal role in determining who was excluded from the city’s economic transformations. Labor historian Juned Shaikh documents the symbiosis between industrial capitalism and the caste system, mapping the transformation of the city as urban planners marked Dalit neighborhoods as slums that needed to be demolished in order to build a modern Bombay. Drawing from rare sources written by the urban poor and Dalits in the Marathi language—including novels, poems, and manifestos—Outcaste Bombay examines how language and literature became a battleground for cultural politics. Through careful scrutiny of one city’s complex social fabric, this study illuminates issues that remain vital for labor activists and urban planners around the world.


Radical Politics in Colonial Punjab

Radical Politics in Colonial Punjab

Author: Shalini Sharma

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1135261113

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The actions of the radical left in Punjab in pre-Independence India during the 1920s and 30s have often been viewed as foreign and quintessentially un-Indian due to their widely vilified opposition to the Quit India campaign. This book examines some of these deterministic misapprehensions and establishes that, in fact, Punjabi communism was inextricably woven in to the local culture and traditions of the region. By focusing on the political history of the organised left, a considerable and growing force in South Asia, it discusses the formation and activities of radical groups in colonial Punjab and offers valuable insights as to why some of these groups did not participate in the Congress movement during the run-up to independence. Furthermore, it traces the impact of the colonial state's institutions and policies upon these radical groups and sheds light on how and when the left, though committed to revolutionary action, found itself obliged to assimilate within the new framework devised by the colonial state. Based on a thorough investigation of primary sources in India and the UK with special emphasis upon the language used by the revolutionaries of this period, this book will be of great interest to academics in the field of political history, language and the political culture of colonialism, as well as those working on Empire and South Asian studies.


The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism

Author: S. A. Smith

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-01-09

Total Pages: 834

ISBN-13: 0191667528

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The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.


Consequences

Consequences

Author: Timothy Buchanan

Publisher: Eagle Mountain Press

Published: 2010-11-30

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0983174903

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In 1948, philosopher Richard Weaver argued that ideas have consequences. This book explores three diverse consequences flowing from one ideacommunism. In Soviet Russia, the idea became dogma, a type of secular religion. The Soviet Secular Religion skewed all the efforts of central planners in a pre-determined direction, with debilitating effects, from the reign of Lenin to Stalin and Brezhnev. SSR empowered Mikhail Gorbachev in his attempts at reform, even while it constrained those efforts, and blinded him to the unfolding collapse of the system. Formed soon after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist Party of India had its own theoreticians and leaders, and a diversity of opinions. But their reliance on Moscow's authority to maintain consensus meant for them dependence; in short, the CPI became a pawn of the Kremlin. Russian interests often conflicted with those of South Asia, confounding the CPI's chances for success. Moreover, the People's Republic of China promoted competing ideas, and the Moscow/Peking split prompted a mirroring, and fatal, schism within the CPI. In the United States, anti-communism fueled Containment, the Cold War paradigm. The most dangerous aspect of this conflict of ideas, a threat that was truly existential, was always 'The Bomb' (or rather, tens of thousands of them). American nuclear policy may be divided into three eras. In the 1940s and 50s, anti-communist ideology dominated political discourse, and the U.S. sought a preponderance in arms. Around 1960, rationality became the vogue, ushering in the era of Detente. Finally, ideology returned with the election of 1980, shaping policies that helped end the long confrontation of ideas. Where Soviet dogma obsessed over production, the American Ideology is engrossed with consumption. The book's afterword argues that American economic planners are unconsciously biased, in a manner similar if antipodal to that of Soviet economists. Something like a Gorbachev moment, where skewed indicators show progress even as the system collapses, is not impossible for the United States.


The Cambridge History of Communism

The Cambridge History of Communism

Author: Norman Naimark

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-09-21

Total Pages: 700

ISBN-13: 9781107133549

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The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.