The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism

by Torkil Lauesen

The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism is the latest work from renowned revolutionary Torkil Lauesen, whose decades of activism and scholarship have made him a leading voice in global anti-imperialist movements. Drawing on his deep involvement in revolutionary struggles, Lauesen offers a comprehensive analysis of socialism's long, unfolding transition. By examining pivotal moments-from the 1848 revolutions to China's market reforms-Lauesen reframes these struggles not as isolated failures but as integral steps in the global shift away from the capitalist world-system. For those committed to socialist theory and anti-imperialism, The Long Transition provides essential insights into how the decline of capitalism and the rise of a global counter-hegemonies offer new opportunities for socialist transformation.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Theory, Economics, Philosophy

418 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2024

Reviews

[holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this might be the best book about communism I've ever read

[Siyang Wei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and extremely clarifying, essential reading for anyone in the Global North trying to orient themselves within the struggle for socialism.... On occasions more brief on some specific historical issues than I would have liked, but also understand the necessity as otherwise the book would have been impractically long. As it is, it's surprisingly and eminently readable - honestly a page-turner throughout most of part 2 which is large the majority of the book!

[Kevin Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Banger

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A manifesto for applying Marxism pragmatically to our present material circumstances *without* reducing our pursuits to reformism/social democracy. Really insightful and sorely needed

[Klejton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a disjointed, structurally weak work from a revolutionary I actually enjoy reading. It claims to point towards a socialist future based on lessons from the past but it does not deliver. It lacks sufficient theoretical power to turn the various stories about the commune, the first, second and third International, the Russian and Chinese revolutions into something more than the sum of their parts. The inclusion of dialectical materialist analysis often seems like an afterthought rather than a necessary tool. He will write a few chapters about, say, the cultural revolution and at the end, he quite clearly forces himself to re-read what he wrote in a way that he can include the “principal contradiction”, which doesn’t feel organic at all but rather like a tick he has to check at every chapter

[miriam]

clear-sighted, incisive, balanced and--crucially!!--dialectical critique of previous attempts to build socialism (NOT the social democracy kind) and the form of socialist transition taken by revolutionary movements once state power has been seized. really enjoyed lauesen's clear articulation of the principal contradiction at all points in history, and how local contradictions in particular nation-states interacted with the principal contradiction. not to be lame but i love being a marxist. i love reading analysis like this that makes so much sense, that is able to ruthlessly criticise while also moving towards something constructive, not tearing down previous attempts at socialism but rather looking to understand why mistakes were made and how they might be avoided in the future. towards the end there are sections that could do with expansion (e.g., the section on brics was fairly brief) and the editing gets a little sloppy. still highly recommend for anyone calling themselves a marxist and hoping for the end of capitalism.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough walk through the history of actually existing socialism, with special notice given to China's rise as an important counter-balance to the US hegemonic position and capitalist world-system. Finishes with a poignant conclusion, covering the state of the world now and what is and can be done by Global North communists to push the global transition toward socialism.

[Etienne Slapak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandatory reading for anyone who dreams of a world beyond capitalism.

This book offers a brilliant summary of two centuries of socialist experiments and examines them through a historical materialist lens. It is clear, engaging, and ultimately hopeful. The tide, it suggests, may be turning in socialism’s favor.

10/10

[John NM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needed more editing. Really wide scope, but it still manages to be mostly insightful. But it's just too short to really dig into things with sufficient depth, and too long given it's analytical thinness. And yet, I did enjoy it and found many insights.

[Ajay S · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book i've ever read. best book on theory at least. strong foundational analysis of global socialism as a long revolutionary process.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

completely rewired my brain and how I thought about communism

[Zollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book answers so many common questions about socialist history and future. It is easy to follow and understand. it should be more popular. it does get a little repetitive near the end though.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. The future is, possibly , bright and red

[Oscar DeFrancis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuckin banger

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thes book from Danish revolutionary intellectual Torkil Lauesen, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, is highly ambitious in its scope, providing an assessment of the first two centuries of humanity’s attempts to build socialism, and outlining some of the necessary or possible next steps on that journey.

Lauesen describes in some detail the history thus far of the “long transition” from capitalism to socialism – starting with the first rumblings of proletarian revolt in mid-19th century Europe, then moving on to the Paris Commune, the rise and fall of the German workers’ movement, the October Revolution, the early attempts at socialist construction in the Soviet Union, the eastward shift of the revolutionary centre of gravity in the post-WW2 era, and the ongoing socialist project in the People’s Republic of China.

These milestones are contextualised within a long-running, dialectical struggle between two social systems. While all except the last are by now studied as history rather than as contemporary politics, and while many failed to achieve their stated aims, they all form links in an ongoing chain: the long transition to socialism. Lauesen writes that “the struggle and suffering of millions of communists and socialists for the past two hundred years have not been in vain, but are contributions to this long process of creating a better world.” (p2)

Such a sentiment – heartening to those of us that have lived through a low ebb of the communist tide – echoes the powerful words of Korean revolutionary Kim San in Helen Foster Snow’s remarkable Song of Ariran: A Korean Communist in the Chinese Revolution:

Nearly all the friends and comrades of my youth are dead, hundreds of them… Their warm revolutionary blood flowed proudly into the soil of Korea, Manchuria, Siberia, Japan, China. They failed in the immediate thing, but history keeps a fine accounting. A man’s name and his brief dream may be buried with his bones, but nothing that he has ever done or failed to do is lost in the final balance of forces.

In such a framework, the retreats suffered by our movement should be considered as part of an inevitable ebb and flow of a complex trajectory that could take hundreds of years but which nonetheless has an inexorable historical materialist tide. As Deng Xiaoping observed in 1992, commenting on the collapse of the Soviet Union: “Feudal society replaced slave society, capitalism supplanted feudalism, and, after a long time, socialism will necessarily supersede capitalism. This is an irreversible general trend of historical development, but the road has many twists and turns… Some countries have suffered major setbacks, and socialism appears to have been weakened. But the people have been tempered by the setbacks and have drawn lessons from them, and that will make socialism develop in a healthier direction.”

The transition process is complicated by the fact that capitalism and socialism do not exist independently of one another, but rather constitute a unity of opposites, one constantly acting on and transforming the other. Lauesen writes for example that “the way capitalism works today is a product of the Russian Revolution and Soviet industrialisation, the anti-colonial uprisings in the Third World, the 1968 uprising, and the current Chinese development of socialism.” This view is shared with the late Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin, who wrote in Global History: A View from the South that “the long transition of world capitalism to world socialism is defined by the internal conflict of all the societies in the system between the trends and forces of the reproduction of capitalist relations and the (anti-systemic) trends and forces, whose logic has other aspirations – those, precisely, that can be defined as socialism”.

Marx and Engels thought that capitalism’s contradictions and its tendency towards crisis would condemn it to a relatively brief existence. Lauesen cites Engels in 1847, writing that the bourgeoisie “will at most win a few years of troubled enjoyment, only to then be immediately overthrown… You shall be allowed to rule for a short time… but do not forget that ‘the hangman stands at the door’”. (p54)

A hundred and seventy-eight years hence, it has to be admitted that capitalism has shown itself to be remarkably adaptive, “finding new escape routes from its problems” (p22) in the form of new technologies, colonial and imperial expansion, war, repression, cultural hegemony, and the provision of “bread and circuses” to a privileged layer of the working class.

However, while problems can be swept under the carpet, they can’t remain there permanently. Neoliberal globalisation gave the US an additional four decades of hegemony starting in the 1970s, but Lauesen considers that capitalism is running out of options for mitigating its contradictions.

I do not believe that capitalism will survive this century. Capitalism reached its zenith around 2000. It is still dominant, but is in decline, reflected in the turn from neoliberal economic globalisation towards military defence of a US hegemony that is no longer economically based. The decline of US hegemony and the rise of China as a driver for a more multipolar world system can lead to a geopolitical balance, in which social movements and nations in the global South can move in the direction of socialism. (p10)

China’s emergence is central to Lauesen’s analysis. While the US-led capitalist world system is in decline, China – led by a Communist Party and following a hybrid economic model with public ownership and planning at its core – is increasing in strength, prosperity and influence. China is “the leading industrial producer and the biggest actor in the world market”, as well as being “the driving force behind the effort to establish a multipolar world-system.” (p10)

Furthermore, China’s rise is not reliant on hegemonism. As President Xi Jinping has pointedly remarked: China will “neither tread the old path of colonisation and plunder, nor the crooked path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong.” Because the capitalist class in China is not the ruling class, it is not able to define the country’s foreign policy. Li Zhongjin and David Kotz have pointed out, any drive towards hegemonism by China’s capitalists is restrained by a CPC government which “has no need to aim for imperial domination to achieve its economic aims”, and “the Chinese capitalist class lacks the power to compel the CPC to seek imperial domination.”

Lauesen considers that the failure of the forces of global socialism to win a final victory over capitalism is rooted primarily in the fact that capitalism has still found ways to expand; it has still until very recently retained the edge in terms of driving human progress forward. This is changing. As Deng Xiaoping commented in 1984, “the superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system”. The extraordinary success of DeepSeek’s R1 model; China’s leading role in renewable energy and green transport; its charting of new territory in telecommunications, advanced industry, space exploration, medical science and more all indicate that humanity is reaching a turning point.

One of the most significant aspects of The Long Transition is its serious attempt to understand and explain contemporary China, and in particular to assess the results – and perhaps necessity – of the Reform and Opening Up process introduced in 1978, gradually introducing market mechanisms to the economy, allowing private ownership of capital, encouraging investment from abroad, and integrating China into the global economy.

Lauesen’s writing betrays a certain ambivalence on this topic, and it’s not difficult to imagine that, given his long adherence to a variant of Cultural Revolution-era Maoism, it has been no easy task coming to terms with Deng Xiaoping Theory. And yet, Lauesen’s methodology adheres to Mao Zedong’s observation that “the only yardstick of truth is the revolutionary practice of millions of people”. As such, he recognises that China’s extraordinary rise constitutes “an epochal change in the world-system. China was able, for the first time in two hundred years, to break the polarising dynamic of capitalism between the West and the rest of the world.” (p256)

Lauesen also recognises that this success would likely not have been possible without the introduction of market reforms and integration into the global economy from the late 1970s onwards. Marx writes that “the development of the productive forces of social labour is capital’s historic mission and justification”. China’s leadership recognised that capital could still perform that historic mission in a socialist country, under the leadership and guidance of the Communist Party. Lauesen views this as necessary, in a context where “actually existing socialism” in both Soviet and Chinese flavours had been as yet unable “to break the power of the global capitalist market, which blocked the road to the development of socialism”. (p221)

In a capitalist-dominated world, without a sufficiently developed economic base, China had to become part of the world economy. It had to build up its productive forces under conditions which would almost certainly be a threat to the hard-won political preconditions, since capitalist norms and values would penetrate society… It could not continue the development of its productive forces without investments and trading with capitalist countries. It needed to begin the transfer of technology from the imperial countries. (p226)

Interestingly, Lauesen considers that the concept of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ is not a post-Mao development; that China’s economic reform was not a manifestation of Mao Zedong and his supporters losing the two-line struggle with so-called capitalist roaders. Rather, Mao himself “was part of this new strategy, shifting the course from port to starboard to avoid sailing too close to the wind of the looming storm of global capitalism”. (p221)

In this analysis, the Third Industrial Revolution – the rise of electronics, telecommunications, automation and computers, combined with the massive expansion of globalised production chains enabled by containerisation – gave a new lease of life to capitalism and affected the balance of power in the global class struggle. “Revolutions erupted in Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, and so on, but despite their socialist aspirations, they hardly left the ground concerning the construction of socialism. Therefore, it was not only the Cultural Revolution that lost its steam through the 1970s, it was revolutionary movements all over the world. This indicates that there was a deeper transformation occurring in world capitalism, which was reflected in global class struggles.” (p218)

China needed to rapidly develop its productive forces – “not only to eradicate poverty in China itself, but also because it is necessary to possess the most developed technology to break the dominance of capitalism, and thus promote a global transformation towards socialism” (p272). And this dynamic is first detected not in Deng’s speech at the third plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in December 1978, but in Richard Nixon’s meeting with Mao in Beijing in February 1972, and China’s acquisition of various industrial facilities from the West in the following years.

Bringing the story up to the present, Lauesen states that “a socialist-oriented China will be of great importance for a transition towards global socialism”, in particular because it “will create possibilities for anti-capitalist struggles within the remaining capitalist world system”. As such, “the importance of socialist-oriented development in China can hardly be overestimated. It can tip the global balance of power decisively in favour of a socialist world order” (p276). This is consistent with the great Italian Marxist philosopher Domenico Losurdo: “Thanks to the prodigious economic and technological development of China, defined as the most important event of the last five hundred years, the Columbian era has come to an end” (Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn).

The capitalist system is increasingly becoming a hindrance to human progress, and a threat to human survival, but a socialist future is not, of course, guaranteed. It was 110 years ago that the heroic Polish-German revolutionary and theoretician Rosa Luxemburg popularised the idea that humanity faced a stark choice: between socialism and barbarism. But now as then, barbarism is still on the table, and in this era of existential threats to humanity – climate change, pandemics, antimicrobial resistance, nuclear warfare, the dangers posed by unrestrained and unscrupulous use of artificial intelligence – its possible dimensions are all too visible.

Objective factors increasingly favour the global movement for socialism, but the subjective factors have to be mobilised as well. Lauesen writes: “Capitalism can collapse in a brutal, chaotic endgame of wars and natural disasters. To avoid this is our task; and to accomplish that task, we must fulfil the transition to socialism. To do this, we need to learn from the past and mobilise, organise, and develop a strategy for future struggles.” (p2)

In Lauesen’s view, the left in the Global North will not be the driving force in the transition toward global socialism. But this doesn’t mean that the left should simply maintain a humdrum existence fighting for better pay and conditions. “It is not enough to wait for the proletariat of the Global South to create a revolutionary situation in our part of the world”. (p359)

Rather, Marxists in the West must urgently adopt an internationalist perspective and help construct a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, the anti-imperialist forces of the Global South, and the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries. After all, “if reforms in the Global North are not accompanied by the deconstruction of imperialism, then they are not a step forward — they are parasitic”. (p353)

Lauesen urges his readers to make a permanent break with social chauvinism; to make a permanent break with the arrogant Western Marxism described by Losurdo, which rejects the leadership and the lessons of actually existing socialism; to support the Global South’s struggle against imperialism; to support those countries and movements developing socialism; to oppose wars; and to “make sure that the North is no safe ‘hinterland’ for imperialism, which means struggle against right-wing national chauvinism, racism, and imperialist political and military intervention”. (p359)

The appeal from the Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East, held 125 years ago, urges the Western working classes: “You cannot free yourselves without helping us in our struggle for liberation. The wealth of our countries is, in the hands of the capitalists, a means of enslaving you.” Lauesen calls on us to take up this challenge anew.

In a relatively long book, dealing with difficult and controversial topics, there is inevitably no lack of things to disagree with. Nonetheless, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism is a richly rewarding and important read.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this survey of the history of socialism so important is the way Lauesen arranges each socialist revolution in a historical progression along the transition between capitalism and socialism. The Soviet Union and China become not "failed socialist states" through this lens, but rather crucial stepping stones along the Marxist path from capitalism to socialism, with both important lasting contributions to the economic landscape as well as crucial lessons to be learned for the future. And smaller revolutions such as Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, Venezuela, etc., similarly become not failures but rather important examples of how islands of socialism will be perpetually hamstrung until the global economic system transforms.

The fact that none of these attempts have fully succeeded either internally or with world revolution says more about the state of global capitalism over the 20th and 21st centuries than it does about the prospects for global socialism.

Lauesen's argument is convincing. He links the fall of the Soviet Union and the transition to Dengism in Communist China to the rise of global neoliberalism (which he believes is essentially the final phase of capitalism). He points out that China under Deng and successors, while they had little choice in order to build the productive capacity of China in the 80s and 90s, erred too far in the direction of opening their economy, and that Xi has provided a corrective since 2012 (coinciding with arguably the first nail in the coffin of global capitalism which was the 2008 Crash).

An aspect of Lauesen's argument that I really appreciated was his emphasis on anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism, and his elucidation of how the working class in the Global North has been appeased primarily through value stolen from the Global South. This was an argument I've been aware of for sometime, as well as critiques of social democracy and Northern European economies, but Lauesen spelled it out in a way that was as concrete as it was irrefutable. Lauesen makes a compelling argument that any path toward global revolution in the Global North that does not start with anti-imperialism will be doomed to the same sorts of failures as German Social Democracy in the 1920s and 30s (to say Lauesen is not a fan of reformism or social democrats would be an understatement).

While I think this book is indispensable for modern anti-capitalists, it wasn't flawless. The book gets repetitive in its final part (I even caught him copy/pasting entire paragraphs from previous chapters), and I wish he had spent a little more time fleshing out his assertion that there can be no further evolution of capitalism after neoliberalism.

He also doesn't quite do enough to show his work with his assessment of China. It has been a hangup of mine for awhile that it's really tough to analyze China in the 21st century, and it's really tough to believe analyses as very few of them feel truly comprehensive. I'm not saying Lauesen is wrong in his assessment, just that he seems to be asking us to take a fair amount of his argument on faith, and his argument itself seems to have at least a little bit of wishful thinking mixed in (he does admit he's an optimist in this way). Again, I can't say definitively that he's wrong about China being firmly on the path to socialism, I would just like to have come away from this book feeling more confident that he's right.

Overall though, everyone should read this book. I could see it becoming a modern classic of political/historical analysis.

Not Bad Reviews

[Jon Renfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives a great and easy-to-read overview of the important concepts underlying socialist and communist theories, then gives an extraordinarily clear-eyed summary of the historical attempts to build socialism and why they failed (or are still in progress). It gives a great explanation of modern China and its contradictions while still explaining why it’s our best shot right now at building global socialism. Honestly, I wish I could make every liberal read this book who’s all like “but there’s billionaires in china, checkmate!” or “durrrr but being self-centered pricks is just human nature!” So, yeah, highly recommended.

P.S. I hope future editions fix the typos and formatting errors (which grow more pronounced near the end of the book, like the editors were in a hurry or something?)

[Lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible material analysis that outlines the reality of socialism as a long dialectical process rather than a revolutionary eschatology. In Part I Lauesen manages to articulate the necessity of empiricism, pragmatism, and a sort of scientific socialist teleology, and then in Part II lays out a broad historical overview of the last nearly 200 years of revolutionary movements as what amount to case studies. I also don’t know that I’ve ever come across a more convincing case than Part III for China as a historically progressive force against the forces of western imperialism and finance capital. I have already recommended it to probably a dozen people and can’t see myself stopping.

[Burton DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of Torkil Lauesen before hearing him on Guerrilla History, but boy am I glad I have now. Lauesen combines a journey through two centuries of revolutions and the lessons extracted from defeats of leftist movements in the global north during the Cold War into a masterful and pragmatic analysis of where the world is today. Even in places where I have my doubts, Lauesen provides faultless commentary and evidence to establish that regardless of where you stand on present-day China, China is the hope for a reordering of the planet. This is a clear-headed, non-idealistic masterpiece that should be essential reading for any leftist.

[Andrew Hoyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible analysis of our current and historical situation and how it sets the stage for a potential transition to socialism. A must read for any serious revolutionary.