The Degenerated Revolution: The Rise and Fall of the Stalinist States

When the first edition of this book was published in 1982, 'communist' regimes ruled over one-third of the globe. The Degenerated Revolution was unique on the left in predicting the decline and fall of these apparently powerful states.

Just ten years later virtually all these regimes had collapsed. Only in China did the willingness of the regime to drown its opponents in blood enable it to preserve itself. Yet here too, capitalism was restored.

This edition includes substantial new material charting the development of the Stalinist states in the decades after the Second World War, explaining not only their early rapid development, but also teh subsequent irreversible decline towards stagnation.

It then analyses the desperate attempts of the bureaucratic regimes to save themselves via 'market reforms' before analysing the dynamics and political currents that emerged in the revolutionary upheavals after 1989.

It concludes by reproducing the programme of political revolution published by Workers Power in the midst of those events, alongside a review of the positions and analyses of perhaps two of the most important Left critiques of Stalinism - those of Ernest Mandel of the Fourth International, and Tony Cliff's theory of state capitalism.

Imprint: Prinkipo
Published: 01/05/2012
ISBN: 9780955366451
Length: 584 Pages
Dimensions: 210mm x 30mm x 139mm
Weight: 708g
RRP: £14