Essays written over 2010–14, collected here, deal with the legacy bequeathed to the contemporary revolutionary left by four key historical experiences: the Russian Revolution, the Comintern’s first experiment in ‘anti-imperialism’ in the early years of the Turkish Communist Party (1917–25), the failings of anarchism in the Spanish Revolution/Civil War (1936–9) and the failure of the Trotskyist Fourth International in the run-up to the Bolivian Revolution (1952) and beyond. In short, they probe the theoretical and practical legacies bequeathed to us as Leninism, anti-imperialism, anarchism and official Trotskyism, as it evolved after Trotsky’s assassination in 1940.

Introduction

1. The Agrarian Question in the Russian Revolution: From Material Community to Productivism, and Back

2. 'Socialism in One Country' Before Stalin and the Origins of Reactionary 'Anti-Imperialism': The Case of Turkey

3. The Spanish Revolution, Past and Future: Grandeur and Poverty of Anarchism; How the Working Class Takes Over (or Doesn't), Then and Now

4. Anti-Capitalism or Anti-Imperialism? Interwar Authoritarian and Fascist Sources of a Reactionary Ideology: The Case of the Bolivian MNR

References

Index