The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left

by Boris Kagarlitsky, Renfrey Clarke (translator), Patrick Bond (foreword)

Genres: Politics

304 pages, Paperback

Published May 20, 2024

About the author

Boris Yulyevich Kagarlitsky is a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist who has been a political dissident in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. He is an associate of the Transnational Institute.

Reviews

[Benjamin Solidarity]

A truly enlightening read from someone with a unique perspective within Marxism. His analysis of Putin and the Ukrainian War as a Russian dissident I found particularly interesting as one of the first systematic attempts at analyzing it. His stuff on identity politics and intersectionality I found less enlightening though. While he makes some interesting points, he seems to be arguing mostly with strawmen and those sections were really lacking a critical engagement with Marxists who have written positively on the subject.