Russia : Class and Power, 1917-2000

by Mike Haynes

The spectre of Stalinism continues to haunt radicals across the world. If revolutions inevitably lead to tyranny, how can the anti-capitalist movement develop a vision for a better world This timely book re-examines the rise and fall of the Russian revolution, as well as the destructive consequences of market capitalism since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the context of a buoyant anti-capitalist movement.

Genres: Politics, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 2002

About the author

Mike Haynes teaches history at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

Reviews

[Below · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a Trotskyist perspective on Russia, hailing from the International Socialist tradition associated with Tony Cliff. The arguments of the book are thus based around the theory of Russia being a state capitalist economy and Stalinism being a counter-revolutionary movement. Overall this book is pretty easy to read and a good summary of developments in Russia/Soviet Union from this perspective. However I feel the author could have benefited from more explicitly laying out the theoretical premises at the start, this happens to a degree in the introduction but could have benefited from a more clear section saying this is state capitalism, premises, maybe a bit on development of the theory. (I think the arguments about totalitarian theory as a "conservative absolution" in the introduction however were interesting and valuable.) Perhaps the conclusion could have been improved by more on a clear discussion of the strengths (summarising more explicitly what state capitalist theory explains better) and counterarguments and why this author thinks that they fail.


Overall though, worth reading to get an insight into this Trotskyist approach to understanding the USSR.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think it's time to mark this as read, as I don't imagine I'll be retuning to it.

I've done about 2/3rds, and it was such a struggle. The subject matter fascinates me, but the way this book was written was so dry and at points confusing, each time I came round to picking it up it got harder and harder.

This may be better suited to an academic studying the subject, but for someone who just wanted to learn more about it, it was far too dull, too statistics-riddled and most certainly very bias towards the writer's ideals.

It was a sometimes a struggle to discern the objective from the subjective. Much like this review I suppose!