State Capitalism and World Revolution

Written in collaboration with Raya Dunayevskaya & Grace Lee, this is another pioneering critique of Lenin and Trotsky, and reclamation of Marx, from the West Indian scholar and activist. This edition includes the original introduction from Martin Glaberman, a new introduction from Paul Buhle, and one from the author himself. Two generations ago, CLR James and a small circle of collaborators set forth a revolutionary critique of industrial civilization. Their vision possessed a striking originality. So insular was the political context of their theoretical breakthroughs, however, and so thoroughly did their optimistic expectations for working class activity defy trends away from class and social issues to the so-called ‘End Of Ideology’, that the documents of the signal effort never reached public view. Happily, times have changed. Readers have discovered much, even after all these years, to challenge Marxist (or any other) orthodoxy. They will never find a more succinct version of James’ general conclusions that State Capitalism and World Revolution. In this slim volume, James and his comrades successfully predict the future course of Marxism. [Paul Buhle, from his Introduction] When one looks back over the last 20 years to those men who were most far-sighted, who first began to tease out the muddle of ideology in our times, who were at the same time Marxists with a hard theoretical basis, and close students of society, humanists with a tremendous response to and understanding of human culture, Comrade James is one of the first one thinks of. [E P Thompson]